Monday, March 25, 2013
The longevity of book lists.
While I was packing to move I found a little notebook that I carried around in college to make book lists in. I was in college from 1993-1998, so while we had internet it wasn't nearly as awesome as it is now. I was on several bookish listservs and had a notebook. I made this short video to show it to you all. Amazing that I could record a video of this quality in ONE TAKE, no? Judging by the titles on the first page, this was from about 1997. Near the end I started dating the pages and January 2002 is the last date I see. There are a lot of formal lists in here: "RWA Books of the Year 2001", "Recommendations to K", "Ship Books", lots of series in order, since you couldn't just whip out your phone at the library to find them.
I had a class (Women's Studies) about that time with a girl who kept the best journal ever, and I've always strived to get myself into the habit of what she did. Basically, it was a 3 ring notebook, with a decorated cover, and she just started on page one and filled it up with everything. To do lists, book lists, journal thoughts, quotes, poetry, recipes, absolutely everything. 15 years later, I'm still trying to copy her. In some small ways I do, I keep a spiral notebook by my computer and make notes about anything in it, including grocery lists, and phone numbers, but it's not pretty or thoughtful and I don't save them. Things like Goodreads and Pinterest took over the pretty parts for me.
While it's doubtful that I would ever read from these lists, I imagine that I won't ever intentionally get rid of this little notebook either.
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I love that you found that little notebook! I was surprised that you don't sound like you're from Alabama to me.
ReplyDeleteI've tried keeping a journal a couple of times and always fizzle out. My sister says the key is to only write a paragraph a day.
Oh I love finding notebooks like that! I'll bet you can make new lists based on those lists :-)
ReplyDeleteAnd I recently started doing that journal thing, as in carrying one notebook and using it for everything, blogging ideas, mind maps, quotes, thoughts, book lists, music to check out, etc. I'll probably end up with like a thousand filled notebooks and I'll refuse to get rid if any. :-)
Cool notebook! I love book lists.
ReplyDeleteI. Love. This! I've got a binder that I tried to do this with but somehow my system has never quite worked out the way I want it to. Still a work in progress - one of these days, I'm going to get it figured out!
ReplyDeleteI could never get rid of something like this either. I carry a notebook everywhere I go but once it starts getting to messy I transfer over the important lists to a new notebook and start over. I wrote "poetry" when I was in highschool and college and those notebooks were a bit messier but even still always very ordered.
ReplyDeleteInternet in the late 90s. How much has changed, huh?!
I love this. Love. I need to keep more of these items on PAPER. I had a notebook like that that I kept in high school, mostly full of quotes and whatnot, but it's lost now. Breaks my heart.
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