My Life with Bob

I have been reading the book My Life with Bob. When I first went to collect it from the library I was thinking it was more about the homeless man with a cat, but that was a A Street Cat Named Bob. This Bob wasn't a cat at all but an acronym for Book of books. The author (Pamela Paul) started using a journal to record the books she had read when she was a teenager. No reviews or details of plot just date, title and author. Now why didn't I do that?
I've been an inveterate list maker over the years. Back in the seventies and eighties I kept a record of how many eggs my chooks supplied - enough to sell - and how many times a night my babies woke up - lots and for years. I used to keep a graph of my weight and gave that up as a bad job years ago. When I paid money to join the gym in the mid nineties I kept a list of every visit to make sure I got my money's worth - and I certainly did.

So why not a list of books I've read? I've been a reader all my life and now I'm beginning to have trouble remembering which books I've read. Several times I've started keeping track and given up (like many an attempt at writing a diary). Once upon a time the library had  a history of books borrowed, which would have gone some way to tracking my reading, but now with the wonderful Onecard system I order books from all over the place and read them avidly and then forget what I've read.

Of course some books are memorable. I doubt I'll forget Kerry O'Brien's A Memoir which in hardback is about six centimetres  thick.Annabel Crabb suggested that if you put it together with a few other memorable tomes including Shane Warne's story you should be able to reach any shelf in your kitchen!
In my retirement I have the enjoyment of reading many hours a week, but without a list of what I've already read, and with my sometimes dodgy memory, there is the real possibility that I will only need to have about five books and cycle them round and round. Now there's a thought....