The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper by Roland Allen (Biblioasis, 2024) is a fascinating chronology from the zibaldoni kept by the people of Florence in the mid-fourteenth century to record poems in Tuscan, prayers, excerpts from books, songs recipes, lists to the many ways people have kept notebooks of their travels, recipes, and of the natural world.|

Authors’ notebooks are particularly fascinating as are the notebooks of artists like Leonardo da Vinci of which thirteen thousand pages survive.

I was drawn to the chapter “Express yourself” on journaling as self-care and the chapter on bullet journaling as created by Ryder Carroll called “Attention deficit.”

“In search of lost time” refers to journaling as a wellness practice I hadn’t heard of before. The chapter is about notebooks kept by nurses and family members of patients who are in a coma. When they awake, they learn something of what transpired around them and the practice has shown that the risk of PTSD is cut by over 60 percent.

I couldn’t help but make my own list of the many types of notebooks I’ve kept over the years. In some cases, the notebooks are made up of lists.

I have kept notebooks

on the garden;
about movies I’ve seen;
books I would like to read;
various wines and the occasions on which they were served;
drafts of book reviews;
notes made while watching ‘webinars;
passwords;
ideas for gifts and gifts given;
jottings for poems and poem excerpts;
a work journal (as suggested by Austin Kleon. This goes along with a scrapbook with images and collages);
a daily journal with (night) dreams, activities and musings;
a small handmade journal titled “What If”:
a small notebook of written exchanges between Sarah and me.

For many years (probably 50), I’ve kept notebooks with mini reviews of books I’ve read. Sometimes, they weren’t so mini. These are notebooks separate from the ones in which I draft reviews for publication. While I still have many of those notebooks with mini reviews, I’ve transferred many of the book titles to a computer document. That’s how I know what I read in 2024. Among the books listed below, I reviewed several for The British Columbia Review, Story Circle Book Reviews, and my blog.

Poetry

Tilling the Darkness by Susan Braley
A Brief and Endless Sea by Barbara Pelman
Hologram: An Homage to P,K. Page edited by Yvonne Blomer and DC Reid
45 by Frieda Hughes
Water Forgets Its Own Name by Jude Neal with art by Nichola Jennings
Midway by Kayla Czaga
Hazard, Home by Christine Lowther
The Meaning of Leaving by Kate Rogers
Anatomy of the World by Celia Meade
Doom eager by Karl Meade
Berberitzen by Susan Alexander
If I Have Known Beauty: Elegies for Phyllis Webb by Lorraine Gane
The Wonder of Small Things: Poems of Peace & Renewal edited by James Crews
The Weight of Survival by Tina Biello
Cauterized by Laura Apol
Best Canadian Poetry 25 selected by Aislinn Hunter

Memoir

George: A Magpie Memoir by Frieda Hughes
Winter: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May
Permission to Land by Judy LeBlanc
Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted by Suleika Jaouad
Honeymoon in Purdah by Alison Wearing
Splinters: another kind of love story by Leslie Jamison
The Absent Moon: A Memoir of a Short Childhood and a Long Depression by Luiz Schwarcz
Dear Current Occupant by Chelene Knight
A Life in Pieces, essays by Jo-Ann Wallace
Oscar of Between: A Memoir of Identity by Betsy Warland
The Upstairs Delicatessen on Eating, Reading, Reading about Eating, & Eating while Reading by Dwight Garner
Writing on Empty by Natalie Goldberg
Ongoingness: The End of a Diary by Sarah Manguso
This and That by Emily Carr
Hunger: A memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay
The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year by Margaret Renkl
Travel Light, Move Fast by Alexandra Fuller

Mixed Genre

Absence of Wings by Arleen Pare

Fiction

The Librarianist by Patrick deWitt
Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney
The Wife by Meg Wolitzer
Writers & Lovers by Lily King
Father of the Rain by Lily King
Euphoria by Lily King
Five Tuesdays in Winter by Lily King
We Meant Well by Erum Shazia Hasan
This is Happiness by Niall Williams
When God Was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman
Little Fortified Stories by Barbara Black
The Innocents by Michael Crummey
The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams
Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout
The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese
The Secret History by Donna Tartt (reread this from several years ago – so well done!)

Crime Fiction

Blood Test by Jonathan Kellerman
Bury the Lead by Kate Hilton & Elizabeth Renzetti
Past Lying: A Karen Pirie novel by Val McDermid
Resurrection Walk by Michael Connelly
Find You First by Linwood Barclay
A Minute to Midnight, an Atlee Pine thriller by David Baldacci
Invisible Dead by Sam Wiebe
What She Knew by Gilly Macmillan
The Ghost Orchid by Jonathan Kellerman
Disappeared by David Fraser
Death at the Sign of the Rook by Kate Atkinson

Non-Fiction

Held by the Land: A Guide to Indigenous Plants for Wellness by Leigh Joseph
How to Say Goodbye by Wendy MacNaughton
Writing by Heart: A Poetry Path to Healing and Self-Discovery by Meredith Heller
The Art of Flower Therapy by Dina Saalisi
You the Story by Ruta Sepetys
The Power of Fun by Catherine Price
Lytton by Peter Edwards and Kevin Loring
The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller
The Myth of Normal by Gabor Mate and Daniel Mate
Writing – the sacred art – Beyond the Page to Spiritual Practice by Rami Shapiro and Aaron Shapiro
Stories Sell by Matthew Dicks
Seven Secrets to the Perfect Personal Essay by Nancy Slonim Aronie

As well as astrological, tarot, palm, and tea leaf readings, much can be said about a person from the list of books they’ve read! Happy reading in 2024.