how to keep a reading journal

on clawing back creativity from capitalist hustle culture and a philosophy of journalling

I’m afraid to write. It’s so dangerous. Anyone who’s tried, knows. The danger of stirring up hidden things — and the world is not on the surface, it’s hidden in its roots submerged in the depths of the sea. In order to write I must place myself in the void.

— Clarice Lispector, A Breath of Life

the point at which reading ends is where writing begins — a snake consuming its own tail.

in the first few days of 2025 i was already having one of the worst years of my life. post traumatic stress induced anhedonia rendered me incapable of anything except walking aimlessly around my area of [redacted] london and staring at the walls of my flat. i stood in front of the rows of unread books on my shelves, and for the first time, was not even remotely curious or excited about their contents.

if you are familiar with me or my online presence in any way then you will already know that reading is a major cornerstone of my identity. losing this passion was equivalent to losing my purpose for living as well as the foundation of who i am — or who i thought i was. in fact i didn’t know who i was anymore. which prompted me to think perhaps i should either build a sense of self on something more real, or relenquish it entirely and embrace the idea that what we call the self is an illusion.

i continued to do nothing but accept and exist in this void. i am grateful that it was not long before my love of reading returned to me without much effort on my part. and my love for reading came back with a vengeance. like an animal starved.

taking an empty journal, i made an expansive, messy list of every book i had been curious about over the years but had, for one reason or another, put off and never got around to. i trawled through lists online, went down rabbit holes of algorithmic suggestions, made note of every mention and reference from books i had read, browsed and scanned through every local bookshop, looked up the name of every author i had always heard of but never investigated. i would never read all of this in a year but that wasn’t the point. i just wanted to give myself the opportunity to read anything i wanted. 2025 was a year i would have the space and time to think deeply not only about what i wanted to read but how i wanted to read it. this was my life line to regaining desire and feeling close to myself again after sensing something fundamental about myself had changed. it gave my life at that time a comfortable form; guiding me to explore and engage without oppressive or demanding strictures. whilst my reading momentum waxed and waned throughout the year with the deamnds of life (reading nothing at all in july) i maintained the practice of physically recording every book, article, essay and interview that i read as well as my reflections on them. this was my reading journal.

the reading journal was borne out of reclaiming my love for reading; the desire to engage with it more deeply and thoughtfully than ever before. it’s a practice introduced to me by my favourite lecturer from my first year at university studying english literature. it’s also a practice which i immediately abandoned as soon as it was no longer required. although it took me a long time to return to, it now feels second nature, an essential facet to my reading that is not simply a habit to keep up. it is a record of the impressions which literature indelibly leaves on me. and as this very touching comment from Bob Johnson on my note about my reading journals reminds us - our journals are also proof of our existence.

reclaiming creativity

perhaps the word ‘journal’ has accumulated a connotation which is unnerving and alien to me. from a myriad of impressions and comments online, it seems people have a concept that a journal is first and foremost a self improvement tool.

to me, this feels at best an exaggeration of one aspect of journalling and at worst a co-option of them by a neoliberal late capitalist hustle culture which thrives on emphasising personal responsibility in the face of enormous social problems. i’m thinking about things like the abysmal lack of genuine health care and our crumbling economy. across the internet you will see so much content relating to journals as tools for manifestating a career goal, improving finances, finding a big home or a new partner etc. this is a logical symptom of a world where everyone is trying to survive. it feels better to put the responsibility on ourselves, something we have control over, than realising our lives may be at the mercy of powerful people and institutions, that not only don’t care about us, but actively profit from our suffering (decimating our free healthcare, privitising higher education, etc). i completely understand this compulsion to try and clutch to any modicum of control we may have but i don’t think it’s always where our energy is best spent and can even be to our own deficit.

the other issue i have with purposing journals as simply self improvement tools or specifically as mental health supports is that it limits and sets a prescription on what you’re supposed to feel and use it for. that people are self censoring and monitoring their expressions. i had someone ask me the other day, should i even bother still writing in my journal if all i write are negative things? yes. i don’t know how else to say it. yes. your life is still worth preserving and recording and exploring even if it does not look desirable, even if it isn’t yet how you want it to be. yes. your negative feelings are important and not to be sanitised away by a world which views you as a labour resource, valuing your worth on how much profit you make, how much you can be valued by a measure of external definitions of “success”.

this leads me to how i often get questions from people very concerned about learning how to journal “correctly”. there is a heap of online content about journalling prompts, how to guides, which can of course be inspiring and useful (i use these resources myself), but the abundance of it does seem to suggest people are looking for a structure and an idea of what they are supposed to be doing instead of plunging into journalling headfirst and leading with joy, curiosity and limitless exploration. i feel confronted with a lack of fluidity and limitlessness in online journalling content, which i therefore want to push back against, whilst still encouraging people to do it. i think journalling in any form does help to form your critical thinking skills, your reading comprehension and to regulate your mood. but i don’t want to overpromise on these as outcomes and results. instead i want to emphasise the exhiliration in the process itself. i don’t want to be another voice perscribing a structure or dogma for anyone to follow — which requires me to say, please feel free to ignore every piece of advice i have written here if it doesn’t suit you and your desires.

if i can, i hope to simply inspire you to try journalling yourself in a way that feels open and exciting to you. to write without concern for external measurements and outcomes. reducing journalling to these would be the death of it and therefore the death of developing an intimate relationship to yourself (whatever that may be). anais nin, sylvia plath and franz kafka wrote journals for diverse and uniquely personal reasons - but i am confident that none of them were self improvement.

how i use my journals

when my lecturer introduced the concept of the reading journal to the class she was very firm on making us understand that although this was mandatory, it was never going to be graded. this forced us to reflect on what we were reading but not be anxious about what those reflections were. we were free from the expectations that we (or at least i) hoped to achieve in our essays; highly sophisticated and fawlessly articulated polished thoughts. this relaxed and fluid mindset is the approach which i take up my reading journal today.

i have adjusted my method from last year to make it more seamless and easy.

i annotate my books using the margins, underlining and sticky notes to quickly jot down thoughts and ideas as i’m reading. i usually don’t write in my actual reading journal until i have finished the entire book. i personally like to write in it as soon as i’ve finished the book whilst my emotions and thoughts are still swirling, but this isn’t always possible. the only thing i may do is some preliminary research and establishing context, as this helps with the reading process by building the background of the work and helping your brain to retrieve anything it knows about these topics making it easier and faster to form connections and understandings. here is a good video on this concept.

when writing my reflections i do not use the same standard questions or prompts, although that may be a method you prefer, because i find the books i read require a unique approach each time. this way i feel like i am tailoring myself to the book instead of jamming it into certain theories or philosophies or practices. what i start with instead is the feeling that i am left with after finishing the work, and i find that everything flows from that point.

my reading journals are not sophisticated or polished or highly intellectual. i make jokes but i also make important connections. i draw comparisons that only make sense to me, but i love them. to me, i am constructing a huge network of literature and ideas, one i can return to whenever because it’s all written down and recorded.

writing as leisure

i don’t like the idea of leisure being only defined by ‘switching off’, as this is often too close to numbing or dissociating, instead of real enjoyment and rest. i have been thinking about how to reframe reading and journals as inspirational and enjoyable because it is probably the only way we are going to nourish intelligence in a culture built on convenient entertainment, distractions and immediate gratification. if i can persuade people to start doing things like reading and writing for themselves, and to enjoy it, rather than shaming them from a point of moralism or baiting them by promising some kind of economic or productivity outcome, then i will feel like i have done something maybe slightly meaningful.

i have been thinking a lot about that famous david foster wallace interview, even including it on my instagram 2025 reading wrap up.

in a section of this very long interview he mentions that a lot of intelligent people he knows dread and resist reading because it requires having to sit and be still and alone with yourself (and journalling is the same). i did a lot of that last year and i can tell you that it is true; it is not always a pleasant experience. but i will say it’s a hell of a lot better for you than countless distractions. and ultimately, it helped clear up a lot of things which has left me in a much happier place overall — with the help of therapy too, of course.

what i value the most in my reading journals is how often i am surprised by what i write, and how good it feels to explore the ideas and emotions stirred up by literature.

writing changes the way you think, which i believe is partially what Clarice Lispector is getting at in the quote at the start of this essay. you don’t quite know what you are going to unearth when you begin writing — and this is not limited to essays or works of experimental fiction — because i have sat down to write in my reading journal and been completely ignorant to what i ended up excavating from inside myself. there are things that exist in the void between you and the page which you will never know unless you try to articulate them, until you do as Clarice Lispector says, and place yourself inside that void.

a void is a scary place to begin. a place of no structure or location; it requires effort, pursuit and internal searching. but these can lead you to possibilities both uncontaintable and immeasurable. so i like to think about writing or journalling as the place at which reading ends, to give myself some kind of anchor in order to explore this void.