I Read A Book! : A One-Book-A-Month Tracker for the Rest of Us
A curious thing always happens at the end of one year and the beginning of another. For starters, just about every website publishes a “best of” list of books for the year and most also throw in a themed gift guide or two. But before you can even make a list of the books that escaped your radar, here come the lists of most anticipated reads for the new year! It also doesn’t help that people start talking about their reading resolutions at the same time, and it almost always involves reading more books. Of course there’s absolutely nothing wrong with setting goals. By all means — read more books!
But the truth is that I’ve never been able to stick to a goal of reading x number of books in a year. I’m a bit of a slow reader and now that I have a toddler, life often gets in the way. As you can probably tell from the photo of my bedside table, I also have more than one TBR pile. And we won’t even talk about the e-books hanging out on my Kindle. It seems I’m always reading bits and pieces of several books at a time until I decide to commit to one and finish it. The fact that I’m a librarian also further contributes to the presence of tsundoku in my life. While I’ve made peace with the fact that the number of books I’d like to read far outnumbers the time I’ll have on this Earth, it’s still nice to acknowledge when I finish a book. The feeling of accomplishment when you turn that last page and read the last word always feels special. And if I’m honest, I’ve also started to feel a bit of FoMO when people post their reading goals on social media.
This year, While talking to my friends, we all admitted to having some trouble reading as many books as we used to, for various reasons. We’ve taken to popping into the group chat to excitedly announce “I read a book!” So, without further ado, here’s a book tracker I designed for the rest of us!
It’s available as a Canva template at the link below:
I’ll never be able to read say, a book a week, but after a bit of thought I realized that, on average, I’m usually able to finish reading a book a month. This is also a goal that I feel comfortable committing to, more or less, and the concept is simple. Each month when you finish a book simply find an image of the cover and pop it in the frame. Et voila: instant visual gratification that you read a book! The template is completely customizable, too. You can personalize it by changing the background, fonts, colors, or adding anything else you want. There’s also a Bonus Books page for those times when you’re able to read a little more (no pressure!).
So far I read They’re Going to Love You by Meg Howrey in January. I’m already pretty close to finishing a book for February so I might even get to add a bonus book this month!
I’m planning to share a photo of my tracker every month on Twitter with the hashtag #IReadABook. I’d love to see yours, too. Happy reading!