Book, Shelves & Journal Chat

The one about books becoming my whole personality. Again.

Hello friends! I have very long nails right now, so typing is hard! I don’t know why I keep letting my nails get so long because they are not at all practical, but for some reason, I love them! We love what we love, right? Anyway, I am here to chat about books because, over the last week or so, books have consumed my thoughts. This is not unusual; books are a big part of my personality, I identify as a lifelong reader & library card holder. I am also a little bit of a book collector. Books are my jam!

I don’t know if it’s the algorithm or if more people are getting into reading, but my Substack is full of people sharing their 2025 reading goals, their best of 2024 lists and generally a lot of book chat. It’s fun. I like it a lot, even when the books they are sharing are not ones I enjoy.

When I read Rachel Johns reading goals, it got me thinking that maybe I would like a little reading goal for 2025, so I settled on this- read books by authors I constantly see at the op shops! I feel there are certain authors that follow me around on my op shop travels, so this is the year I will read one of their books.

Here is a pic of my journal where I wrote a list (OF COURSE I DID!) of some those authors. I don’t know how well you can read it because I am a chaotic journaller & do not care if things soak through pages.

I will admit, I did have some of these authors on my shelves already (some for years!), but this week, I visited a few more op shops and picked up one of the ones that Rachel said was her favourite Picoult book, plus a stack more.

Here are the other books I grabbed this week to add to my never-ending, always-growing TBR shelves/list.

Imagine my surprise (annoyance) when I got home & realised that I already owned a copy of Willowman and Vegan Eat! Friends, I am ashamed to admit that this is not the first time this has happened to me. I used to have photos of all my shelves on my phone to try & eliminate this happening, but I got lazy & didn’t update the photos for a long time. Today, I rectified that.

I told my husband yesterday (Friday) that over the weekend, I am doing nothing but pottering about at home. He asked what that entailed & I said, “Playing with my books & bookshelves”. I started by sorting out my desk & notebooks. So far, I have been journaling a lot this year & I wanted more space to do that, which I now have. Just curious, how many notebooks is an acceptable amount of notebooks to have? If you said 12, I agree.

Then, I tackled my bookshelves. I don’t have Pinterest/Instagram-worthy shelves. I have Ikea bookshelves that are not attached to the walls, so lean forward & sideways. They are not filled with pretty knickknacks or plants. They contain my books & I love them. I have my little system for shelving books & today; I revamped it because I also got real with myself & decided to donate a few stacks of books I am either no longer interested in reading or have read & know I will not re-read.

Here are my wonky but loved bookshelves.

Yes, friends, I own a shittone of cookbooks. And no, I don’t cook from them all. The last bookcase holds all my unread books plus my sewing machine. Some of the non-fiction books are unread, too, but not many.

I have a little list of books that are missing from my cookbook collection & from my “authors that I collect all their books” collection so that when I am next in an op shop or at a book sale, I will know what I am looking for. But let’s be honest, I mostly go with vibes when buying books.

As I said above, I have been journalling a lot since Christmas day & reading as often as I can. I’ve read four books so far & started my 5th one last night. Both of these hobbies make me really happy. I like that I am making time for them. I feel like the truest version of myself when I am writing and reading. Most of my journal stuff is clearing my head of thoughts that swirl for too long, and there was a little bit of manifestation on NYE, but I am leaning into filling the pages with things like my book lists, my votes for Triple J’s Hottest 100, quotes that I like. I’d love to have a Commonplace book that Pip has written about; I guess this is my version.

Ok. Enough rambling about books & journals for now. I think I’m going to try, with a big emphasis on TRY, to do a monthly recap of what I’ve read, watched, listened to, made, ate, and bought at the end of each month this year. I’ve never been one for planned writing; I write when I have something to say, but maybe this will be the year I have more structure around here. Let’s wait & see. It’s only January, so much can change!

Tell me what is happening in your book & journalling life if those are things you are into. I am VERY interested in hearing all about it!

Talk soon xx

P.S. I have a one-month FREE subscription to Pip’s new Substack, Wallflower Cordial, to share. If you would like it, DM me your email & I’ll send it to you. xx