BONUS Teaser - Reading Our Secret Book Journals!

Summary

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Reading Glasses – BONUS Teaser: Reading Our Secret Book Journals!

Hosts: Brea Grant & Mallory O’Meara
Date: April 21, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this playful and vulnerable bonus episode, Brea Grant and Mallory O’Meara dig out their old, private book journals and share the evolution of their reading habits and tracking methods. With self-deprecating humor and candid revelations, the hosts invite listeners into their personal reading histories, offering an authentic glimpse into how their reading lives have been shaped over the years. This episode teases content available exclusively to Maximum Fun members and is filled with relatable bookish moments and behind-the-scenes admissions about book tracking, ratings, and the anxiety of sharing one’s private journals.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Genesis of Their Book Journals

• When and Why They Started Tracking
  • Brea: Started around the inception of the podcast in 2017, with intermittent use of Goodreads prior to that.
    • “I had GoodReads before that, and then I quit doing Goodreads for many years, and then we started doing this podcast, and I was like, ooh, I gotta remember what I'm reading.” (02:22)
  • Mallory: Began her focused tracking in 2015, after using Goodreads only sporadically before that.
    • “I don't think I made a concentrated effort to track everything I read until 2015. I have the journal. Here it is. The Reading Woman engagement calendar.” (02:46)

2. Vulnerability & Humor in Sharing Private Book Logs

• Mallory’s Reluctance
  • Humorous pact that if Mallory dies, Brea must “burn all her book journals” and “throw her computer into the ocean.” (01:28–01:37)
  • “I feel so, so, so vulnerable. I've literally never showed anybody these. This is why Bria is gonna burn them when I die.” (04:00)

3. The Mechanics of Book Journaling

• Systems Used

  • Tracking not only books read, but also the days they were completed, ratings, number of pages, formats (graphic novels, audiobooks), and other categories (gender of author, etc.).
    • Mallory kept a meticulous system: “Every single year, I've tried a slightly different rating system.” (04:19)
    • Brea was more selective and admits to throwing out some journals.

• Rating Systems

  • A range from “A” to “C minus”, with some entries marked as “DNF” (Did Not Finish).
    • Mallory’s noted generosity: “You’re giving a lot of A’s and B’s. Lots of A’s and B’s.” (07:29)
    • Occasional DNF entries: “There's a DNF, though. I found a DNF.” (07:32)
  • Not all books rated: “You don't give a rating to all of them, which is interesting.” (07:13)

4. Evolution of Their Journaling Habits

• Changes Over Time

  • Switching from detailed logs with ratings, pages, and details (earlier years) to simpler title-only lists (later years).
    • “I was writing down the days that I read these things. But there's no... it's just the title of the book. There's no rating system.” (05:21)
  • End-of-month stats tracking (number of books, gender of authors, etc.): “At the bottom, are tracking one audiobook, 13 books, three by man, 10 by women, plus a Nat Geo.” (09:05)

• Stickers and Sentimentality

  • Stickers marking moments or places alongside book entries (e.g., “sacred tattoos in New York”, “the last bookstore in LA”). (05:13–05:21)

5. Memorable Reads & Moments

• First-tracked Books

  • Mallory: “The first thing I ever have recorded in here is Saga of the Swamp Thing by Alan Moore. Thursday, January 1, 2015.” (03:30–03:36)
  • Brea: “My first one is from December 4, 2008. I read Love is a mixtape, Life and Loss, One Song at a Time by Rob Sheffield.” (03:38–03:49)

• Ratings Examples

  • Sex Criminals (graphic novel): “You gave it an A because it's awesome.” (04:35)
  • Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut: “You gave a B to. Yeah, you know, a B is fine. It was written in 1963. You wrote 287 pages.” (04:41)
  • Paper Moon (98th book of 2016): “Can I say what you gave it? Yeah, baby.” (06:54–06:59)

• Vulnerable Moments

  • “This is maybe the most vulnerable I've ever been on the Internet.” (07:01)
  • “I feel like I'm showing my underpants to the Internet.” (09:38)

6. Bonus Fun and Listener Engagement

• Call for Listener Emails and Newsletter
  • Encouraging listeners to send in their book journal stories or sign up for the newsletter for more book lists. (01:50)
• Tease of Extended Content
  • Additional journaling content available to Maximum Fun members, with the cliffhanger of a notable book rating left unrevealed: “Do you want to know how Mallory rated Priest Daddy? Well, this is the time for you to join Maximum Fun right now...” (09:44)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Mallory actually has told me that if something ever happens to her, I'm to go to her house and throw her computer into the ocean and burn all her book journals.”
  — Brea Grant (01:28)

• “I feel so, so, so vulnerable. I've literally never showed anybody these. This is why Bria is gonna burn them when I die.”
  — Mallory O’Meara (04:00)

• “Every single year, I've tried a slightly different rating system.”
  — Mallory O’Meara (04:19)

• “There's a DNF, though. I found a DNF. Oh.”
  — Brea Grant (07:32)

• “You’re giving a lot of A’s and B’s. Lots of A’s and B’s.”
  — Brea Grant (07:29)

• “I feel like I'm showing my underpants to the Internet.”
  — Mallory O’Meara (09:38)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:27 – Introduction to the secret book journals
• 01:28 – The burn/bury/throw-in-the-ocean pact
• 02:14 – When Brea & Mallory started tracking reading
• 03:30 – Mallory’s first-tracked book: Saga of the Swamp Thing
• 04:00–04:07 – The vulnerability of sharing book journals
• 05:13–05:21 – Stickers and location-based memories in journals
• 06:52–07:13 – Discovery of DNF and a spectrum of book ratings
• 09:05–09:23 – End-of-month stats: audiobooks, author genders, and Nat Geo
• 09:38–09:44 – Most vulnerable share; the fate of Priest Daddy's rating is teased

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Tone and Takeaways

With their trademark blend of warmth, humor, and self-deprecation, Brea and Mallory take listeners on an intimate tour of their reading lives—complete with evolving systems, nostalgic memories, and the very real anxiety of letting someone read your secret notes. This episode is a celebration of all forms of book journaling, the quirky metrics readers use, and the delight of reflecting on who you were through what you read. For the full, unfiltered experience and more literary vulnerability, listeners are invited to join Maximum Fun and support the show.

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Transcript

[Bray Graham]

Hey there, Glassers. We are so thrilled to be dropping this bonus episode into your feed. And sure, it's not the whole thing, but it's part of it, and it gives you a little taste of what it is like to be a member of Maximum Fun. It's the drive this week. We are very excited to be doing all sorts of fun stuff for you, and we talk about it a little bit in the show. But mostly this is just a bonus episode where Mallory and I go through

our old journals, our old book journals,

which Mallory swore she would never do. So we are excited to share a little bit of this with you. And if you want to hear more of it, go to maximumfun.org join to

get the full thing.

[Mallory Omera]

You're listening to Reading Glasses, a show about book culture and literary life designed to help you read better. I'm author and book devourer Mallory Omera.

[Bray Graham]

And I'm Bray Graham, filmmaker and e reader.

This episode, it's our bonus episode for

the 2026 Maximum Fun Draw.

We've passed through the portal.

We're in the midst of. Of the drive. Here we are. We're in the Max Fun Drive danger zone. That. I don't know, except it's a.

[Mallory Omera]

It's a book podcast. It's really not that dangerous.

[Bray Graham]

No, it's actually like the. The corners are all, like, covered in, like, a nice foam, and, like, we're soft, and the plugs have been, you know. Yeah, we're. We're all. We're. We're very safe here. But we're doing something that we, or Mallory at least swore we would never do. We're going to take out our old book journals and go through them on the show.

[Mallory Omera]

Pretty wild.

[Bray Graham]

Mallory actually has told me that if something ever happens to her, I'm to go to her house and throw her computer into the ocean and burn all her book journals.

[Mallory Omera]

Yeah, I want you to burn these.

[Bray Graham]

This is good.

[Mallory Omera]

We're doing this episode so you can see what they look like.

[Bray Graham]

Okay, I got them. There's so many here. I only have this one that I could find, but wow, there's so many. How do you want to begin this?

[Mallory Omera]

Well, first off, we want to thank the listener.

[Bray Graham]

Yes. You.

[Mallory Omera]

Right now.

[Bray Graham]

You.

[Mallory Omera]

Thank you for being a Max Fund member. It really means the world to us that you're here. We really appreciate you. You're the reason why we're able to do this. And if you want to send us emails about book journals, you can send them toreading glasses podcastmail.com. if you want a list of all the books on the show that we talk about delivered to your inbox every month? You can sign up for our newsletter. There's a link in the show notes. All right, Bria, so when did you. When was the first time you started tracking your reading?

[Bray Graham]

When did we start doing this podcast?

[Mallory Omera]

2017.

[Bray Graham]

I think 2017 is when I started. Wow. So we were. We would. Because that time it was like, oh,

no, that's not true.

I had good reads before that, and then I quit doing Goodreads for many years, and then we started doing this podcast, and I was like, ooh, I gotta remember what I'm reading. And so I started tracking it then. And I cannot find the. I can't find the journal from them. I don't. I know it's like a small blue one, and I don't know where it went. I may have thrown it away. I don't know. I do. I throw shit out. So I guess maybe at some point I decided I didn't need it anymore. When did you start?

[Mallory Omera]

I found my first one. 2015.

[Bray Graham]

Okay, cool.

[Mallory Omera]

Yeah, I used Goodreads before then, kind of sporadically, but I don't think I really started concentrating. I. I don't think I made a concentrated effort to track everything I read until 2015. I have the journal. Here it is. The Reading Woman engagement calendar.

[Bray Graham]

Oh, I love it.

[Mallory Omera]

From 2015, I should say.

[Bray Graham]

My Goodreads goes back to 2008. Wow. But I. But there's, like, probably a good, like, eight years in there that I didn't do anything. But I. When I was, like, reading a lot and I would. I. I was on a TV show and I was bored, and I was doing Goodreads all the time. Wow.

Okay.

Yours is real thick. Oh, wow. Lots on every page. Lots on every page.

[Mallory Omera]

So I'm gonna look at this. This 2015.

[Bray Graham]

Okay.

[Mallory Omera]

So I checked, tracked two things I wrote the days that I read them.

[Bray Graham]

Oh, interesting.

[Mallory Omera]

Wow. The first thing I ever have recorded in here is Saga of the Swamp Thing by Alan Moore.

[Bray Graham]

Wow. Okay.

[Mallory Omera]

Thursday, January 1, 2015.

[Bray Graham]

Wow. My first one is from December 4, 2008. I read Love is a mixtape, Life and Loss, One Song at a Time by Rob Sheffield. Wow, that makes sense. At that time.

[Mallory Omera]

Oh, my God. I have all the ratings.

[Bray Graham]

And what kind of rating system did you do?

[Mallory Omera]

I'm gonna. I'm gonna hand this over to you. I'm just making sure there's nothing bad in here.

[Bray Graham]

Like what? I don't know. I would never say.

[Mallory Omera]

I feel so, so, so vulnerable. I've literally never showed anybody these. This is why Bria is gonna burn them when I die.

[Bray Graham]

What is gn? Graphic novel.

[Mallory Omera]

Yeah.

[Bray Graham]

Okay, so you got, like, graph. I'm not gonna read graphic novel number two. Okay. Huh. And then you have number four. Oh. Oh. These are like different graphic novel things.

[Mallory Omera]

Yeah, I think I have up until. No, actually up until this year. Every single year, I've tried a slightly different rating system.

[Bray Graham]

Got it.

[Mallory Omera]

I think back then I was trying to read a certain amount of graphic novels every month.

[Bray Graham]

It looks like it. Because you have. Here's graphic novel number 10, Sex Criminals. Can I say what you gave it?

[Mallory Omera]

Yeah.

[Bray Graham]

You gave it an A because it's awesome. Yeah. And you wrote down the year it was published and. Oh, graphic novel number 10 for you. But it's number two of that series. And then you have. Oh, and you've numbered the number of books. I see. So then you have number 10 here, which is Cat's Cradle. That was the 10th book you read, whatever month. This is January you did Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, which you gave a B to. Yeah, you know, a B is fine. It was written in 1963. You wrote 287 pages. So you were tracking, like, some. A lot here.

[Mallory Omera]

And then if you fast forward to the next year, 2016. Wow. I feel so vulnerable.

[Bray Graham]

By the way, there's stickers on this. She has sacred tattoos in New York. Were you living in New York?

[Mallory Omera]

Yeah, I was living in Brooklyn at the time.

[Bray Graham]

That's the last bookstore in la.

[Mallory Omera]

Yes, I was. I was living in Brooklyn, but I was coming out to LA, like, every few months. And so this is 2016. So I was. This, this next one for the, For. It was a calendar, so I was writing down the days that I, I, I read these things. But I was. There's no. It's just the title of the book. There's no rating system.

[Bray Graham]

Let me see that. Okay, so we're here in July 2016, and you read Wild at Heart on July 11, and Dark Knight Returns. Oh, that was the movie. That's a movie? I don't know. Is that a movie?

[Mallory Omera]

Maybe it's a book.

[Bray Graham]

And then. Oh, and then July 12, you read Smoke gets in your eyes and Last call at the Nightshade Lounge. Is that a book or a movie?

[Mallory Omera]

Book, I think.

[Bray Graham]

Okay. This is your life. Harriet somebody.

[Mallory Omera]

Harriet Chance. Oh, I like that book by Jonathan.

[Bray Graham]

So this is interesting because you have two.

Are you reading two books a day here? Is that what's happening.

[Mallory Omera]

I think maybe that's the day I finished them.

[Bray Graham]

Oh, so you finished them on the same day you read like a towel on.

[Mallory Omera]

Yeah. Cause last there's a couple. Like, the second one is usually like a poetry collection or something.

[Bray Graham]

Yeah. So you're doing Picnic. Picnic at hanging rock on October 3rd. But you also read something called Dagon. Yeah. Ring. The Ring. You read the ring on October 5th. I'm about to start that Dagon.

[Mallory Omera]

I think it's a graphic novel, but

[Bray Graham]

no rating system here.

[Mallory Omera]

I think maybe it's in the back.

[Bray Graham]

Oh, oh, oh, oh. It is.

Wow.

You're still doing it the same way where you write. Okay, so November. The 98th book you read this year,

[Mallory Omera]

I assume this is so vulnerable, folks,

[Bray Graham]

is Paper Moon, 1971. Can I say what you gave it? Yeah, baby.

[Mallory Omera]

I like that book.

[Bray Graham]

308 pages.

[Mallory Omera]

Oh, my God. This is. This is maybe the most vulnerable I've ever been on the Internet.

[Bray Graham]

But then also, you have a graphic novel number 16 that month. Oh, you marked that one out. Number 17, graphic novel 18. You read she Wolf, which came out in 2016, which you did not give a rating to. You don't give a rating to all of them, which is interesting.

That is weird.

I guess you mostly do, though. And you're giving a lot of A's and B's. You're. You're pretty generous here back in. What year is this?

[Mallory Omera]

2016.

[Bray Graham]

2016.

[Mallory Omera]

Pretty generous.

[Bray Graham]

A's and B's.

[Mallory Omera]

I'm hand over. So this is James.

[Bray Graham]

There's a DNF, though. I found a DNF. Oh.

[Mallory Omera]

Because I don't normally track those.

[Bray Graham]

Yeah, I found a dnf. I found a C minus. Oh, yeah. So it seems like there are some.

So you would write it in the

calendar, like, on the pages, and then you go to the back and give your rating.

[Mallory Omera]

Yes. Which I.

[Bray Graham]

Interesting, I think. Oh. And then you'd write at the bottom, like. Like, this is April. Six books and five graphic novels. Seven books, one graphic novel.

[Mallory Omera]

All right, I'm about to hand you off. Hand you January 17th or January 2017. This is when. This is the month where we had our first meeting for reading glasses.

[Bray Graham]

Oh, okay. And this is a different. Okay. January 17th. Okay.

[Mallory Omera]

So I'm still. At this point, I'm still writing down.

[Bray Graham]

And this is why.

[Mallory Omera]

This is why I don't often look at old journals, because I don't remember that. Like, I guess I was using the calendar, but I wasn't. It must have been the day I finished the books and then in the back in a list. I was writing the title, the author, and I think at this point I had stopped writing anything else besides maybe the year and the rating.

[Bray Graham]

Yeah. So it looks like. Okay. Yeah. So flipping through this, I'm looking at the calendar and we got like, it's just on the big calendar. You're not doing like the day to day calendar you like. You read rabbit cake on September 3rd. Mm. And then I guess you flip to the back and we can see if you liked rabbit cake. But we have to go to September. But yes, it looks like January. You know, you're reading so sad today. That's your seventh book of the year. Or January. 203 pages, 2016. You wanna know your rating?

[Mallory Omera]

Yes.

[Bray Graham]

Is an A. Wow. You liked it. You're giving a lot of A's and B's. Lots of A's and B's. Oh, and you also, at the bottom, are tracking one audiobook, 13 books, three by man, 10 by women, plus a Nat Geo. The next month you do the same thing you do, plus a Matt Nat Geo.

[Mallory Omera]

I love me my. I love me some.

[Bray Graham]

I love a Nat Geo.

[Mallory Omera]

I have been a Nat Geo subscriber for 20 years this year.

[Bray Graham]

Wow. I have to say, this is very important. April. In April, the 61 61st book you read was Priest Daddy by Patricia Lockwood.

[Mallory Omera]

I feel like I'm showing my underpants to the Internet.

[Bray Graham]

It's obviously more vulnerable that.

Do you want to know how Mallory rated Priest Daddy? Well, this is the time for you to join Maximum Fun right now. Maximum fun.org join. That's how you hear the rest of this episode and all of our other episodes that we've done in the past. We've done so many great episodes, so many, so much bonus content for your ears. Plus you get to support us every month and that helps us to feed our hungry animals, pay our rent and survive and keep making this podcast for you. So go to maximumfun.org join to become a member of Maximum Fun and support reading glasses and get more episodes just like this.