I have a book journal that has four pages dedicated to each book I read. . There is room for name/author. Type of book- ebook, audible, soft cover, etc. A place for publishers info. You get it.
There is also room for a photo if you like. Writing and character ratings. Overall ratings. There is a page for thoughts. Then the third page has questions. Best character and why? Worst character and why? Is this book a page turner? How did it make you feel? What were the main themes? The writing style? And last but not least did it have a good ending? These are fun questions to answer. But the last page is a page I’ve not encountered before in any book journal I’ve looked at. What scenes do you remember from this book.
Not everyone is a visual learner. Reading a book to me is like watching a movie. I see the locations, the people, the animals, the emotion as if I’m in the same room with them. I can even visualise shapes to a book.
I have a friend who cannot visualise much at all but hears the book in her head. She can hear the sounds, the voices, the language. She cannot visualise what she sees coming up in a book. I find it all very interesting as I am not auditory at all. I could never hear to count syllables in a word as a primary school child. I don;t hear accents unless really pronounced. Lectures were difficult if I didn’t take notes.
I just finished three books that I put in my journal and I decided to think of two or three “movie” scenes from each book so I can write them down in my journal. I didn’t realise it would be so much fun.
So here goes.
What scenes did I remember from Two Women Living Together by Kim Hana and Huang Sun Woo? This was the book of the two Korean women who bought a house together as they didn’t want to get married and end up living with a mother-in-law or having to spend a life time in domestic duties.
***Looking back I can see them moving into the house they bought together and organising the furnishings in it.
*** I can see the two cats they live with and how they treat them like family members.
In the book The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
*** I see four images. This is the story of the four people who were brought back to current days from past centuries. I even vividly imagine their clothes.
*** I can see our narrator in the room when she first meets Captain Graham from the Franklin expedition 1830s and is asking him questions about the past as he tries to adjust to what she is telling him.
*** I can see the narrator and Graham in their now intimate relationship acting as though they are a modern couple and hanging out.
***I can see the past scenes of Graham telling his men aboard the Franklin ship that the food is contaminated and spoiled and the reactions of the men.
And last but not least I have images in my head from the book Time of the Child by Niall Williams. The story of the found infant who the doctor and his daughter Dorothy save and Dorothy as an unmarried woman in the 50s wants to keep and raise as her daughter.
*** I see Dorothy hiding upstairs in the house trying to keep the baby quiet while the doctor sees patients in his surgery downstairs. I see the layout of the bedroom.
***I see the local Priest coming to her front door and Dorothy and Graham sending him directly into their parlour so he doesn’t know there is an abandoned baby in the house. I remember thinking how in the world do they think they’re going to get away with this as time goes by. Where can it be hidden?
*** I remember Dorothy sneaking out of the house one winter’s night thinking she must leave the village with the baby in order to keep it. The street is snowy, the lights are dimmed due to the falling snow and wind. Her scarf is wrapped around her head.
With the images now embedded in my mind I know I won’t forget them as I wrote them down and thought about them. I know you could ask me about these books in the future and these are the memories that will remain and I should be able to discuss the book around those images. For me it will contribute to my memory.
I also realise I can transfer images into my diary as I wrote about events that happen on a daily basis. I don’t need to write today I had coffee in town at such and such cafe but I can visualise the memory and write a description of what I see in my mind. The server had green in her hair and earrings I liked them as they were gum leaves. The croissant was toasted and the coffee was in a cup I’d not seen at that restaurant before.
I like descriptive writing and this seems to make my own writing in journals more alive. I know it isn’t a new concept but recording images is a new concept for me.
Do any of you do the same thing? What makes you remember what book you read and what happened in that book? I’d love to know.
Travellin' Penguin 
I’m more like your friend. I’m not so much a visual as an auditory person. I love hearing language, and – this might sound silly – feeling the words in my mouth. If the language of a book is not captivating I lose interest. I love good description but it’s because of the language and how that makes me feel about what I’m reading, not because of what I “see”.
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Yes, I ‘see’ scenes too, sometimes incorrectly, as when I imagined Mrs Danvers from Rebecca all wrong, but also sometimes when I don’t want to, which is why I avoid stories of sexual and child abuse. But if you look at my latest review of Edwina Preston’s Sororicidal, you can ‘see’ what I ‘saw’ when Preston describes a gift given by one of the sisters. The late Marion Halligan was also brilliant at describing domestic interiors.
I don’t think I ‘hear’ the dialogue, I read too fast for that.
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What an interesting question – something I hadn’t thought about before. I do definitely “see” events or scenery as they are described. I can even pinpoint when I started doing that.
I was about 10 I suppose, and reading a book about King Arthur. I had come to the last battle when he and Mordred fought. I still remember the feeling of horror as I “saw” what was being described. Until then I had just read books for the story – and maybe, given my age, it was the first description of violence I had read, which is why it has stayed with me all these years.
On a more cheerful note, I love Penguin’s pyjamas and nightcap!
Cheers, Eleanor.
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Interesting thought. I don’t keep a diary or a ledger, but I’m beginning to think I should. There must be 80 years of “things” in my memory and I’m finding, these days, that I need to look at the time/date on my computer, then check the day on the calendar!
But, like you, I visualise characters and places in what I read. Even accents come easily to me. I thought everyone had this internal editing system, but apparently not!
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