How to Use Your Notebook to Track Your Reading
The MFA habit I wish I’d picked up in junior high.
“The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.”
— Ursula K. Le Guin, Dancing at the Edge of the World
My MFA program was ridiculously reading-heavy. I had to read fifty books a semester, two semesters a year, for two years. One of my best friends was in an MFA program at a different school at the same time. He had to read 30 total books in three years.
So, I read 200 assigned books in two years and I kept an annotated bibliography of all of those books.
That’s a habit I’d like to continue.
I wish that I was one of those people who had a notebook full of the titles of every book they’ve read since 1984. I’m not. I can’t go back and do that. But, maybe it’s like anything else. The best time to start a book’s read list was in the seventh grade. The second best time is today.
I’ve always wanted to keep a book list. I’ve started to pretty much every January of my adult life. It’s never stuck. Maybe because it’s so slow going. You just write one one title, then days or weeks later, another one. And you forget to pick up the notebook again. Something…
