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Rating: 
Summary: Shallow
Review: After reading several journaling books this my least favorite. It spends much to much time on unimportant topics and doesn't show the journal to be the real tool it can be. Spend your money on something worthwhile and buy "The New Diary" by Tristine Rainer.
Rating: 
Summary: Helpful Beyond Belief
Review: As a Mormon, I've been trying to keep a creative and meaningful journal for years. I had so much I wanted to say, and say it well, but until I read this book, I had no idea how to do that. Now, with the information and ideas that this journaling book has given me, I'm keeping the kind of journal I've always dreamed of. I'm not only writing more creatively, but find myself leaning toward the more spiritual aspects of journal writing and growing. Give yourself the gift of this Idiot's Guide and quit feeling like an idiot.
Rating:
Summary: Worst book on journaling I have ever read.
Review: I agree with some of the reviews written below...it was 250 pages long. It was like reading a textbook. Some of the suggestions were too basic..the book was plain awful. Search amazon for better book on journaling. This one was a waste of money.
Rating:
Summary: Worst book on journaling I have ever read.
Review: I agree with some of the reviews written below...it was 250 pages long. It was like reading a textbook. Some of the suggestions were too basic..the book was plain awful. Search amazon for better book on journaling. This one was a waste of money.
Rating:
Summary: About 250 pages too long
Review: I bought this book to give me some ideas about how I could expand on the theme/historic journal I am keeping. It didn't. The author instead goes on at great length to enumerate different types of journals and presents the advantages of keeping a journal... over and over and over again. It took me about a half an hour of reading to decide that the author was repeating the same information in different ways chapter by chapter. The actual core content of the book could be summarized in something about the size of one of those small pocket booklets one can see at the supermarket checkout. A product (That's really what it is) like this only reminds me of something that F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, and I paraphrase here: Why are you wasting valuable time listening to someone else when you could be writing?
Rating: 
Summary: A Good Overview of Journaling
Review: I have now read two books on journaling. I was pleased with this volume's range of material, and the simplicity of the presentation. Neubauer presents a variety of journaling methods, and many of those methods were new to me. I also appreciated the tips on good writing techniques. This book is an excellent starter for journaling, providing much breadth and little depth. Read Neubauer's work, see which journaling types appeal to you, then buy books that focus on those types. If you want a journaling primer, this one should serve your purpose.
Rating:
Summary: Save your money
Review: I have only read half this book,and its already helping me. I keep 4 diffrent kinds of journals, and this book has help me with all of them,I try to read a chapter a day and in each chapter it goes over a diffrent kind of journal like the dream journal,healing journal,spiritual journal,or the reflective journal which is just few of the virieties they have in this wonderful book! It also talks about what kind of journal whould be right for you, what kinds of pens would be suitable, and where and when to wright, what the aurthor mostly talks about is just have fun with it and do it when you feel you want to and it also goes into how to find the time to set down for youself and wright in your journal even if its just 5 mins a day. I bought this book at B. and N. where I live and I had to pay [...] but if you buy it on Amazon (which I should have done)you can get it cheaper!
Rating:
Summary: Obviously not for Idiots
Review: I usually bypass the ...for Dummies and Idiot's Guides but after reading this Idiot's Guide I might be looking at others more closely. This book is well-written and thorough, a very good compendium and probably the first journaling book to read before considering purchasing others. It details the many types of journals as well as the many reasons a person might want to keep one in the first place as well how as what to journal in and how to keep the writing private. It goes into specifics for each type of journal ('the unsent letter', for example, toward healing and resolution) and generally serves to enlighten one about journaling.
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Summary: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz ...
Review: I've kept diaries, notebooks, and journals for 30 years, and for fun and new ideas I like to read books about writing and journaling. This was the most boring book on journaling I have read yet. It makes journaling sound like a chore or school assignment. This book did not make me want to put it down and do my own writing, which is one of the things I look for in books on writing. It made me want to lie down on the couch and sleep. The author includes NO actual diary entries, either her own or other people's, and she goes on repetitively about the benefits of keeping a journal, as if trying to resell the idea, chapter after chapter. She also overstates both the need to schedule one's writing and the pleasures of writing for new journalers. I don't write every day unless I feel like it; never have. And I don't set aside one special pen for writing -- how limited! Although she gives lists of types of journals one can keep, they are obvious and lifeless, with almost no discussion of visual (non-word) ways of journaling. Sad to say, I got only about 1/3 of the way through this book before giving up, skimming each chapter, and just reading the box at the end of each chapter, "The Least You Need to Know." There is so much more potential energy and enjoyment in journaling than this book conveys. Fortunately, many other books do cover this ground vibrantly; find one of them instead. But most importantly, just get yourself a nice blank book, a comfortable pen, and START. Write when you feel like it, when you have time, and when you feel a burning issue or a lack of clarity. Read other people's published journals and get inspired. And don't destroy your journals (especially if you're young); find a good hiding place, treat them lovingly, and they will reward you with insight into your own patterns and a treasury of memories to which you can return again and again.
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Summary: Overview on Journaling
Review: Journal writing is an area I've been interested in for quite awhile, and I've read several books on the subject. I was disappointed by this book. It spends a lot of time categorizing different kinds of journals, such as the log journal, the unsent letter journal, and the cathartic journal, but I couldn't fit my journal writing into any of the categories and thought that a better approach might be to combine several of the approaches into your journal, an idea which is only mentioned briefly near the end of the book. Such rigid categorization goes against my idea of what a journal should be - in addition to the many categories of journals, there is a section on setting up a journal schedule where you map out the days of the week and times of day you will write in each of your journals, if you have more than one - and while this approach may work for others, I think that fitting my journal writing into categories and schedules would inhibit my creativity and make me like the process of journal writing less. I also didn't like this book's strict adherence to the idea that you should force yourself to write every day for a certain amount of time to get yourself into the habit. I'm not saying this isn't a good thing to do - I think that in many cases it would be - but I don't think journal writing should be something you force yourself to do. If you start out with that mentality, it's less likely that you'll have fun with writing in your journal. The book says that deciding to keep a journal is making a commitment, and that if you don't think you can stick to a regular writing schedule then maybe you shouldn't make that sort of commitment. I disagree with this. I think that getting yourself to write in your journal every day is a good way to give yourself the habit of writing in your journal, as is having a regular writing time, but the most important thing is to enjoy it, whether you write every day or only every couple of months. In the section on the family journal, which is a journal that all the members of the family get together to write in, one of the suggestions the book gives for keeping teenagers participating in the family journal is to take away privileges if they refuse to participate. I think that journal writing should be something to enjoy, and punishing teenagers for not participating in it makes it nearly certain that they won't view it this way. Journal writing should not be seen as a chore, and if this mindset is imposed on teenagers then it's much less likely that they'll want to keep a journal after they're grown up. All in all, I think that this book focuses too much on journal writing as a responsibility and a method of goal-setting and self-improvement, and not enough on self-expression, creativity, and enjoying journal writing.
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