Alright, so I can assume all us Boundlings like tracking our reading to some extent given our presence on this app. But I’m curious how many people have their own methods of journaling/tracking off of apps like this!

Last year I primarilly used a complex spreadsheet to track my reading, but this year I scored a dot grid journal from my secondhand craft store right in January so I could set up a bullet journal for my reading! It’s been fun, but I’m always nosy about what other people are doing 👀 digital tracking, bullet journal, guided reading journal, what are yalls thoughts and what matters most to you when tracking?

My journal:

• Bookshelf page for annual reads where I draw a bunch of books on a shelf & then write in the titles on the slimes as I finish books
• ARC tracking page (that is…dead on arrival. I have been really neglecting my arc reviews 😭)
• Bookclub Page for tracking our pick each month, if me vs my cohost ran it, my rating, groups avg rating, and attendance
• Physical TBR tracker, by genre, and I get to color in the dot by each book when I finish one (but have to add more if I buy more books 🙂‍↕️)
• Buzzwordathon Page (hosted by BooksandLala) to track what books fulfill the monthly prompts
• Year at a Glance where each month has a box where I put my total # read, breakdown by format, and the best & worst titles of each month

And that’s all I’m tracking rn for my first year! My reviews all get typed on here so I didn’t see a point in writing them by hand as well. But I’d love to hear if y’all have any other types of spreads you enjoy updating to get ideas 🤩

what is a book that was an “eye-opener” for you? and why?

for example: (non-fiction) Jews Don’t Count by David Baddiel. this book focuses on the status of antisemitism (specifically in left wing politics), and how it is treated differently from other forms of racism and ethnic discrimination which ends up creating a double started against the Jews. (non-fiction) Don't Be Afraid, Gringo by Elivia Alvarado. this is an oral history of a Honduran campesina (peasant) activist that details the fight for community (land, education, food) reform in Honduras— which was the poorest country in Central American at the time.

How do you all organize use your home library? Alphabetical by title, by author, by genre, or another method? I’m really curious to know what everyone does. TIA!

I’d love to know everyone’s guilty pleasure when it comes to anything book-related!

Personally, I LOVE going to the thrift store and collecting pre-2000s books with covers that catch my eye. And they’re all $0.50!

Check the book you’re reading right now. If you were transported there for 24 hours, are you having a lovely spring vacation or are you absolutely doomed?

I'm reading Papyrus, so I’ve been dropped right into Alexander the Great’s path through Thebes. If being 'absolutely doomed' counts as a vacation, then I’m having a blast. 🙄 My current survival strategy is to find a reed pen, and pray my handwriting is good enough to earn me 'Scribe' status instead of 'Casualty' status. But, honestly, I give myself maybe only a 10% survival chance. And that’s being generous.

Since graduating college I’ve been on a quest to fill in the gaps in my classic literature knowledge, but I’ve realized how important in-class discussion and explanations of themes was to my enjoyment/understanding of books throughout school.

Since starting Crime and Punishment and 100 Years of Solitude I have really been feeling the itch to go to some online resources mid-read to help me frame the book better in my head. I’m hesitant though bc of “spoilers” partly but also I worry that it’s an intellectual crutch that might harm my ability to draw my own conclusions from the text. Pagebound has given me some of the classroom discussion vibes which I love, but I feel like it might be nice to go deeper.

How do you approach more challenging literature, do you integrate external sources into your reads?

AI cover are soulless slop and worth less than nothing. I much prefer the amateurishly made photoshop covers. But which ones are the best?

A strong contender in my opinion is really any of the wordsworth classics covers, for example Uncle Tom’s cabin, Dracula and Tom Sawyer by them

I need more such covers, desperately

As someone who dnf’d early on, can someone please explain how Britney Spears: the woman in me, ended up on the community recs for this book…?