One handmade page out of every book you finish

The Borrowed Shelf is a reading journal you make one page at a time, and a card game that tells you which page to make. It runs on the books you were going to read anyway.

Most reading journals are a list with a rating column. Here the list is the smallest part. Each finished book gets a page you made rather than a score you gave, and because the card chooses the page idea, about a quarter of what you make is of a kind you would never have picked.

How one book becomes one page

1 · Finish a book

Write the title, the author and the date on the reading list. A finished audiobook is a finished book.

2 · Turn one card, then put it back

The deck is never used up, so every book is a fresh draw from fifty-two.

3 · Make the page the suit names

Hearts, a person from the book you are not finished with. Spades, a place you would go back to. Diamonds, a thing the book made you look at. Clubs, one sentence copied out by hand.

4 · Follow the book prompt, or save it

Ace to king, thirteen prompts for the next book, every one possible from a library shelf. If you already know what you want to read next, write the card’s number in the Saved prompt column and choose freely.

Every four books you start a blank two-page spread. The four titles and their cards go on the left, and the next of nine spread ideas goes on the right.

Nothing happens on a date

A month with no reading in it is a month with no new page, and the game picks up where it stopped. If you decide the reading year ends in October, it ends in October, and the book gives you two end-of-year actions for it.

It works as a plain reading log too, because the reading list does that job on its own. It sits underneath a reading challenge rather than competing with one, since it never sets you a number.

What you download

The game

An illustrated 18-page book: the four page ideas, the thirteen book prompts, nine two-page spread ideas, the end-of-year steps and worked examples. Page two is a diagram of one book from start to finish.

Three printable sheets

The reference card, which fits inside a notebook cover. The reading list, one line per finished book. The spread record, for the four-book groups.

Printer-friendly copies

The same pages with the cream page wash removed, which saves close to half the ink.

A copy for A5 journals

The book again at two pages per sheet, in both versions, so it prints and folds to A5.

Six PDFs · US Letter, prints on A4 with fit to page · the download links stay in your account · print as often as you like for your own journal. Please do not share or resell the files.

Borrowed Shelf

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