Nicole Junkerman's Reading and Travel Journal: Where to Begin

If you are new here, this is the gentlest possible introduction to a journal kept the slow way, about books, places, and the quiet writing that holds them together.

By Nicole Junkerman · 9 January 2026

Every journal needs a front door, and this is ours. If you have arrived here for the first time, welcome. This is the reading and travel journal that Nicole Junkerman keeps, and the best way to describe it is to say what it is not. It is not a feed that asks to be scrolled, it is not a stack of star ratings, and it is not a race to finish more books than last year. It is a calm room with a desk, a stack of books, a notebook left open, and a window. Everything else grows from there.

The journal began, as many good habits do, with a small frustration. Nicole Junkerman noticed that the pleasure of reading kept getting crowded out by the pressure to read more, faster, and with something clever to say at the end. Travel had the same problem: the more a trip was optimised, the less of it she actually remembered. So she started writing things down by hand, in plain language, with no audience in mind. The pages that follow are what happened next.

What you will find here

There are a few threads, and they braid together more than you might expect. The Reading Room is about the books themselves, and more importantly about the habit of reading in a way that stays a pleasure. The Travel Journal is about places noticed before they are planned, the texture of a morning, the sound of a station, the particular grey of a city sky. The Writing Desk is about turning rough notes into clear sentences, which turns out to be the same skill whether you are describing a novel or a street.

Then there are the city pages, kept broad and personal, for London, Rome, Madrid, and a few others. None of them try to be complete. A city is too large to summarise and too alive to pin down, so the pages settle for something smaller and truer: a frame for paying attention. Nicole Junkerman treats each one as a way of reading a place rather than a list of things to do in it.

Finally there are the notes about notes, the quiet methods that keep all of this sustainable. How to remember a book without turning reading into homework. How to pack so that a trip leaves room for a chapter by a window. How to keep a notebook you will actually reopen. These are the least glamorous pieces and possibly the most useful.

A gentle way to read this journal

There is no correct order. You can start with a city you love, a book you have been circling for years, or simply the most recent entry. The only suggestion Nicole Junkerman would offer is to read one piece at a time, slowly, the way you might read a letter rather than a notice board. The writing here is built for that pace. It rewards a second cup of tea more than a fast thumb.

If you like to follow a trail, the pieces link to one another, so a post about reading in a new city will point you toward the city pages, and a piece about packing will lead to the books worth carrying. You can wander as far as you like and always find your way back to the beginning by following the link to the homepage, where the journal opens like a front hall onto every room.

It also helps to read with a pencil nearby. Not to study, just to mark the lines that catch you. One of the quiet arguments running through this whole journal is that attention is a muscle, and that marking a sentence, copying a phrase, or writing a single line about a place is enough to keep that muscle in use. You do not need a system. You need a habit small enough to keep.

Why keep a journal like this at all

It is fair to ask why a journal like this should exist when there is already more to read online than anyone could finish in a lifetime. The answer is that almost none of it is kept at this pace. Most writing about books and travel is built for speed, designed to be skimmed, ranked, and forgotten. Nicole Junkerman wanted a place that did the opposite, that slowed down, paid attention, and treated reading and travel as things to savour rather than consume. That is the entire reason this journal is here.

There is also a quiet value in writing things down for their own sake. The act of turning a vague impression into a clear sentence teaches you what you actually think, and a journal kept honestly becomes a record of a mind changing over time. The keeping of personal journals is a long and rich tradition, and you do not need an audience for it to be worthwhile. Some of the most rewarding writing is the kind no one else will ever read, kept simply because the keeping clarifies the living.

So if this journal encourages even one reader to slow down, to keep a few notes, to choose one good book and read it without hurry, it will have done its work. That is the modest hope behind every page: not to add to the noise, but to offer a quieter alternative to it, one unhurried entry at a time.

Reading and travel, kept on the same shelf

It might seem odd to put reading and travel in the same journal, but they belong together. Both ask you to enter somewhere unfamiliar and stay long enough to understand it. Both reward patience over speed. A good book and a good trip leave the same trace: you come home slightly rearranged, carrying a few sentences and images you did not have before. Nicole Junkerman likes to keep them side by side because each one teaches you how to do the other better.

A novel read on a train becomes part of the journey. A city walked slowly becomes a kind of text. The reading public has always understood this instinctively, which is why so many of the great travel writers were first great readers. If you would like to see how deep that tradition runs, the British Library keeps a wonderful record of writers and their notebooks, and it is worth an unhurried browse when you have time.

So that is the invitation. Pull up a chair, pick a thread, and read at the pace of a slow afternoon. Whatever brought you here, books, places, or simply the wish to slow down a little, there is a corner of this journal for you. And whenever you want to begin again, you can always return to the front door and start somewhere new.

Questions readers ask

What is this journal about?

It is a reading and travel journal kept by Nicole Junkerman, gathering book notes, city pages, and short pieces about the habit of paying attention. It is personal and unhurried rather than a guide or a review site.

Where should a first-time reader start?

Begin with whatever calls to you, a city you love or a book you have been meaning to open. Nicole Junkerman suggests reading one piece slowly rather than skimming many at once.

Explore more of the journal: Reading Room and Travel Journal, or return to the Nicole Junkerman home page.

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