Cat In My Lap

There was a time, long ago, that I kept a reading diary for a while. It was when I was in school, an assignment by a literature teacher, and I loved it, kept it diligently during that school term, and promptly forgot about it once the assignment was complete.

Years later I found it, and thought, why don't I still do this?

But I don't. I didn't start keeping a reading diary again even after remembering, a few different times, how much I liked it. I guess I just always had too much else going on, and it became a low priority, and then forgotten. It really is kind of a hassle to keep making notes on paper while reading a paper book. Though I have always cheated a little and pencilled notes in my non-fiction books - I know, book sacrilege! But nothing was dated, and I rarely found those notes again without a diligent search for them. Another hassle.

In recent years I've been on Goodreads, and I like that too, but again it's inconvenient to keep track of what I read and when, unless I become rather obsessive about it, and who has time for that?

But recently I bought a Kindle, and it allows me to highlight text and make notes as I read along. I love this feature. It produces one copy of my highlights and notes where I can read them on the Amazon site (and there one can make one's highlights and notes about a specific book public if one wishes), and another copy is kept on my Kindle as "My Clippings." That can be transferred to my computer, and read as a .txt file. This file can be edited, if I wish, into a more elaborate or fine-tuned reading diary. Even if I didn't highlight anything or keep any notes, it contains a record of my bookmarks so that at least I can recall when I read a book.

Sometimes technology is fabulous!