Notebook Stories

The blog All Women’s Talk features a variety of cute and colorful notebooks, including these:

See more at 8 Fab Notebooks to Write in ….

I know I should probably show a little more love to Field Notes brand notebooks. Lots of notebook fans seem to adore them, and it’s very admirable that they’re designed and made here in the good old US of A. And it’s nice that their aesthetic celebrates a bygone era of promotional  memo books used by farmers. But their aesthetic is what sometimes makes me say, enough already! Can’t you just make a nice, plain notebook that isn’t so self-consciously “about” its own design?
It’s an interesting era to be selling notebooks: Moleskine’s marketing was the first to up the ante, and other brands like Ecosystem have jumped on the bandwagon with over-the-top marketing. Field Notes has done lots of interesting things to expand their brand and encourage collectors to make frequent purchases: limited editions in beautiful colors, add-on products like pens and pencils, and now County Fair notebooks for each of the 50 states, available in 3-packs with a red, yellow and blue for a single state, or 1 per state all collected in a $99 box set: From AL to WY and Everything In Between.

The makers of Field Notes have actually journeyed to at least one country fair to promote their product: there they are in Onawa, Iowa in July:

Other field trips have included such hotbeds of authentic agricultural Americana as Brooklyn and Manhattan (NYC, not Kansas), where I’m sure the presence of hipsters hawking expensive, design-fetish-y memo books was a bit less incongruous.

Anyway, I can appreciate what they’re trying to do– their marketing is creative, their products (and website) look great, they’re supporting independent manufacturing in the USA, and from what I’ve read, the paper inside performs well. But although at least one reviewer finds these “less ostentatious” than Moleskines, my verdict is that Field Notes end up being a little too twee. I’ll stick to plainer notebooks that stop touting their own coolness once you’ve taken off the wrapper.

The Art of Manliness blog muses on the long tradition of keeping a notebook:

The idea of carrying around a pocket notebook has become quite popular these last few years, revived by the introduction of the current incarnation of the “Moleskine” into the market. It’s become so popular that I’m afraid it has come to be seen as trendy or faddish, and this is putting some men off to starting this important habit themselves. Some find the Cult of the Moleskine and its faux history understandably distasteful. The company shills their pricey Made in China notebooks as the notebook of Hemingway, Van Gogh, and Matisse, when the company that currently makes them only got into the business in 1997.

But don’t let the pocket notebook’s current image dissuade you from carrying one around. The truth is that you don’t need to use a Moleskine (unless you really like them)-even some note cards clipped together will do. And far from being a modern fad, the pocket notebook has a long, important, and manly history. Pocket notebooks were part of the arsenal of a long list of great men from Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Edison (we’re working on an in-depth post of how these men used their notebooks for the future). The repositories of eminent men’s personal effects nearly always includes a pocket notebook full of their ideas and musings.

Of course, all of this can be equally valid for women too!

The best part of the article is all the examples he’s found of notebook use throughout history by different types of people, including “the farmer,” “the salesman,” “the minister,” and “the student.” Here’s an example:

The Boy Scout
“In one of the pockets there should be a lot of bachelor buttons, the sort that you do not have to sew on to your clothes, but which fasten with a snap, something like glove buttons. There should be a pocket made in your shirt or vest to fit your notebook, and a part of it stitched up to hold a pencil and a toothbrush….

No camper, be he hunter, fisherman, scout, naturalist, explorer, prospector, soldier or lumberman, should go into the woods without a notebook and hard lead pencil. Remember that notes made with a hard pencil will last longer than those made with ink, and be readable as long as the paper lasts.

Every scientist and every surveyor knows this and it is only tenderfeet, who use a soft pencil and fountain pen for making field notes, because an upset canoe will blur all ink marks and the constant rubbing of the pages of the book will smudge all soft pencil marks.

Therefore, have a pocket especially made, so that your notebook, pencil and fountain pen, if you insist upon including it—will fit snugly with no chance of dropping out.” -The American Boys’ Handybook of Camp-lore and Woodcraft, By Daniel Carter Beard, 1920

Read more, including lots of readers’ comments on their own note-taking habits at The Manly Tradition of the Pocket Notebook | The Art of Manliness.

This is one of the most gorgeous examples of notebook art I’ve ever seen:

See more at Juan Rayos – Chinese Moleskine | Aqua-Velvet.

Monica posted this nice stack of journals on Flickr:

There isn’t any commentary, so it’s hard to tell if she’s truly an addict, but I think anyone who photographs a nice, worn-in stack of notebooks so lovingly must surely qualify!
See more on Flickr.

I love this:

From Make Something Cool Every Day 2009 on the Behance Network.

Now here’s a book many of us might like to read! Or write ourselves…

From Old Notebooks is a memoir, a novel, a poem, an essay — a self-styled memoivel — which exemplifies how love of language and literature enriches our lives, and explores, often with great humor, the many pitfalls confronting a young writer and father on his journey to maturity. Each entry in From Old Notebooks is literally that — an idea written in a writer’s draftbook. Within this unconventional format, Lavender-Smith is able to tell us the story of his life while ruminating on subjects ranging from fatherhood to philosophy, art, football, music, politics, TV, teaching, fear of death, and everything in between. In the process, Lavender-Smith lays bare the day-to-day trials and tribulations of an artist confronted by the pressures of culture, family, writing, and, simply, being. Witty, original, poignant and deeply insightful, From Old Notebooks is a coming-of-age story, an ode to writing and reading, to living and loving — a celebration of “human thought in all its glory, all its mundanity.”

Find out more at Evan Lavender-Smith or buy at Amazon.

I LOVE the “Collection a Day” blog. Vintage office supplies are often featured, and the other day she posted these old journals:
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A Collection a Day, 2010: Day 228

Imagine buying 100 at a time! From a Flickr user:

One Hundred (and three) Moleskine Notebooks

I have just finished writing my book on Moleskine notebooks titled “Moleskine: How to make use of the “legendary” notebook”.

I wanted to send a Moleskine notebook to each and every book reviewer and prominent reader of the book, so I bought a hundred of them.

It’s like Bruce Chatwin’s dream come true, isn’t it?

The book can be ordered here (in Japanese):

www.amazon.co.jp/dp/4478013268/

via One Hundred (and three) Moleskine Notebooks | Flickr – Photo Sharing!.

Heather at A Penchant for Paper asks How Many Notebooks Are Too Many?:

The true notebook addict would probably say that it would be impossible to have too many notebooks, but I am not so sure.  I have been feeling overwhelmed lately by the number of notebooks that I am currently using, as well as feeling the need to simplify and use fewer notebooks.  Here are all of the notebooks that I am using right now: