An Idea for the Rest of Your Life

One of my favorite things to do on a Sunday is to go to the public library here in Stillwater. I think it is a fair library as libraries go. Honestly, I did rather expect something more when I moved here, knowing this is a college town. But I do have my OSU library priviledges, and library loan has helped me too. I have also benefited from the public library's semi-annual booksale. I've gotten good hardback copies for just a dollar. In turn, I've donated some books myself. But what I really want to throw out here right now is an idea that I had when I finished my MA in English from the University of Arkansas, nearly ten years ago. I told myself that I was going to keep up with my reading, keep up with my brain exercises! I remember what joy that first summer was, for I could read anything I wanted. I had no reading list to complete. I didn't have to rack my brain on how I could turn this or that reading experience into a twenty-five page paper. There were no reading quizzes!

So I went to town, so-to-speak, with my reading and have maintained about a book every two weeks pace. And something that I've done ever since then is keep a journal of what I read for each year. My mother, an influence on me being a reader myself, had already given me a reading journal for Christmas two years before. I started at first with just putting the name of the writer and the book title in the journal. But after doing that for a few years, I started writing a few sentences of commentary / review. Now that it has been nearly ten years since I started, I have a nice trail of where my intellectual interests have taken me. And whenever people ask me for a book recommendation, I can easily consult my journal and pick out something that they might like themselves.

The Stillwater library has provided me with a fair number of those books. And so has the OSU library. But the most important book I'll ever own will be the journal that I plan on keeping for the rest of my life. I encourage you to do the same thing. But start it earlier than I did. Start it now! You'll capture the essence of your college experience as a reader, and you'll be able to go back at some point and re-read these books of your youth. They will not have changed, but you will have, and it will be interesting for you to compare your reading experiences to one another.