Seven Journaling Archetypes and Books to Inspire Everyone!

Hello Readers, Journal-Keepers, Art-Makers and Outdoor Enthusiasts!

Today I am sharing an outstanding booklist that I compiled based on feedback from my last few Youtube videos. They all reflect a journaling life, or approach in some capacity, and I, after sorting through thousands of comments on my channel, decided to group these books into categories of my own imagining. I am sure if you have read this far, you will no doubt have a point of view on these categories, and on the books that I chose to include. Wonderful! I’ll continue to add books across all categories and I might even add a category if I feel it necessary to do so…

I feel very comfortable and not at all arrogant in calling this list OUTSTANDING because truthfully, most of it has come from the hive mind of all of you genuine journaling enthusiasts, so I can take no credit aside from compiling the list and organizing it with some pretty (well, pretty unsophisticated) graphics. I have emphasized a few of my favorites just to keep the video fresh.

Of course, your comments began almost immediately after I posted this one — notable omissions include: Anais Nin, Annie Dillard, Stephen King’s On Writing, and Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones, not to mention The Artist’s Way. Still, I stand my the list as it is. I had to make hard choices to make the information digestible. Maybe we’ll turn this into an annual list so that I can refresh and gather some of the older and newer titles each year.

Mainly, I just have to say how much fun it is to talk about books. For those who know me IRL, this should come as no surprise as I worked in the book business for more than 20 years. In some ways, compiling the information here felt like coming home to something I truly love to do! And how inspiring to have a community with whom to connect! One commenter suggested also suggested looking at epistolary works like The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh and A.S. Byatt’s Possession, and I think we could do an entire series on letters a a close cousin or even sibling of keeping a journal. In fact The Correspondent and Dear Exile were two titles I had to cut from this collection but I feel could easily be added to this conversation. Maybe an upcoming video should focus on correspondence… yes, I can see it coming into view already.

But I digress. Let’s jump into the meat of the matter. Here are the journal keeping archetypes and the corresponding books. Enjoy! And let me know if you pick up some of these, or what you’d add or drop from the list.

Books about journaling for memory, grief, ordinary life, and preservation.

• Just Kids — Patti Smith

• Speak, Memory — Vladimir Nabokov

• The Year of Magical Thinking — Joan Didion

• Hollywood — Eve Babitz

Books about journaling for introspection, crisis, creativity, solitude, and emotional survival.

• A Writer’s Diary — Virginia Woolf

• Between Two Kingdoms — Suleika Jaouad

• The Book of Alchemy — Suleika Jaouad

• Journal of a Solitude — May Sarton

• Women Who Run With the Wolves — Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Books about journaling for travel, discovery, exploration, nature, wandering, and adventure.

• Into the Wild — Jon Krakauer

• The Lost City of Z — David Grann

• Nowhere for Very Long — Brianna Madia

• A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains — Isabella Bird

• The Invention of Nature — Alexander von Humboldt

Referenced explorers/figures:

• Ernest Shackleton

• Charles Darwin

• John James Audubon

Books about about journaling for observation, sketchbooks, field notes, art journaling, and nature study.

• The Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling — John Muir Laws

• Walden — Henry David Thoreau

• An Illustrated Journey — Danny Gregory

Referenced artists/journal figures:

• Frida Kahlo

• Peter Beard

Books about journaling for knowledge systems, productivity, note-taking, organization, and intellectual work.

• The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper — Roland Allen

• How to Take Smart Notes — Sönke Ahrens

• The Bullet Journal Method — Ryder Carroll

Books focused on privacy, secrecy, inner worlds, and diaries as protected space.

• The Diary of a Young Girl — Anne Frank

• My Dark Places — James Ellroy

• The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾ — Sue Townsend

• Meditations — Marcus Aurelius

Books explicitly structured around diaries, letters, or daily records.

• The Berlin Diaries, 1940–1945 — Marie Vassiltchikov

• The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn — Robin Maxwell

• The Color Purple — Alice Walker

• A Tale for the Time Being — Ruth Ozeki

Here’s a link to the full video if you haven’t seen it yet.

On a personal note: my archetype has shifted over time. This past few years with my parents dying, I have shifted strongly toward the Memory Keeper, but all of my life I most identified as an Outer Explorer. And for those who asked: we can absolutely be a combination of all seven! But I find these categories interesting for unlocking some focus and inspiration so I may use them in the future for prompts during my live streams, and even for future videos and letters here. Let me know what you think!

I hope everyone is out exploring on this beautiful Sunday.

Thanks as always for reading and see you soon!

Amanda