Notebook Stories

I’m glad this is big news for the Wesleyan Student Assembly: Firke Christens New Notebook:

On Wednesday evening at approximately 9:07 p.m. (EST), Ben Firke ‘12 was sighted writing in a brand new black-and-white patterned notebook. This new notebook is surely only the first of many more to come, as Firke is known for his tendency to maniacally scribble down everything that happens in his life. Whether he is taking notes during the WSA general assembly meeting, rehearsing what he is going to say to someone, or drawing the dinosaurs that persistently hijack his imagination, you can always be sure of one thing–his trusty notebook will be involved, and there will definitely be chicken-scratch.

Says Firke: “Using notebooks is what I live for.”

Hey, why not?

Here’s a notebook that I’ve never seen in any stores, but spotted on a couple of websites, including Amazon and WB Mason. The online images made the Tops Designer Notebook look like a typical Moleskine-type notebook but in nice colors like blue and red, and the price was quite low. But how does it really compare when you see it up close? Let’s take a look!

Here’s the front and back cover. The removable paper band is made of a translucent vellum paper.

The back view provides the first departure from the standard Moleskine set of features– the elastic band attaches in the middle of the notebook instead of at the top and bottom

As you can see from the next photo, there is quite a large overhang of the cover beyond the paper.

The outside dimensions of the notebook are about the same as a Moleskine, but the pages inside are much smaller.

When you open the notebook, that elastic starts to seem really weird– the way it’s attached leaves it hanging quite loose.

At first I thought it might have been made that way so you’d have the option of wrapping it around sideways like a Ciak or Piccadilly Primo journal, but it’s too loose to work that way.

Here’s a closeup of the cover material– it’s hard to see, but it has an unusual texture, not the usual vaguely leather-ish feel. The closest thing I can compare it to would be the surface of a cinder block, or a stucco wall!

The inside front cover is blank:

But when you turn to the first page, there’s the space for writing your info, on the inside of the endpaper. The binding is a bit tight and the notebook doesn’t open flat very easily.

There’s no pocket in the back, just a logo.

So how about the paper? I’m sorry to say that it’s quite disappointing. It’s quite thin and showed some of the worst bleed-through I’ve seen in any notebook I’ve reviewed:

I have to say that I found this notebook very disappointing overall. The weird elastic and small, skimpy pages just bothered me. The price for these notebooks on Amazon is currently $5.49 (or $8-12 for a larger size), though I think it was about a dollar less when I bought mine. Unfortunately, I don’t think they’re even worth that much– Piccadilly’s notebooks cost less at Borders and are far superior in quality. The only upside to these might be the color and texture of the cover, but that’s a matter of taste.

Specs:

96 lined pages

132 x 85mm

Made in Malaysia

This week’s addict is Catherine Sharp, a writer living in Northern Ireland. She got several comments on this article from people confessing that they shared her (our) addiction! I have to say, this may be the first time I’ve posted an addict photo where I couldn’t positively identify a single notebook brand! (I thought one might be Black & Red, but I’m not sure.)

I love buying notebooks. I buy them even when I don’t need them.

The photo shows the notebooks I found in my study. (Which admittedly is a large room, and I don’t think there are too many other notebooks lying around the house; maybe just 3 or 4.) As you can see, I like my notebooks to be hardbacked, or spiral-bound, or preferably both…

Out of the 12 there, 3 have never been used, and another 3 are currently blank because I ripped out the old unwanted scribbles that they had. (I didn’t lose anything meaningful – just Italian vocabulary lists, a few pages of holiday spending, and some old work notes.)

All the ones that have been used have some sort of history. Even the ones that haven’t have something about them. That grey, blue and red striped one in the middle? Bought in Asda for £1 the other week just because I liked the look of it. No idea what I’ll use it for.

Read more about each of the notebooks at Sharp Words: A strange obsession with notebooks.

Here’s something very cool from the British Library, which I noticed my friend at notizbuchblog.de posted about recently. On the library’s website, you can look through some wonderful old books, including priceless items like the poet and artist William Blake’s notebook below:

See more at Virtual books: images only – The Notebook of William Blake: Introduction.
They also have selections from Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks:

See more at The Leonardo Notebook- Introduction.

These are just gorgeous!

This set of eight books is a treasure.  The books are the journals of a kasuri weaver/dyer from Omi, an area of Japan (present-day Shiga Prefecture)  which produced some of Japan’s finest hemp and ramie kasuri textiles, known as Omi jofu.

The books date from 1859 through the beginning of last century.  Within them are countless pages of sketches, notes, ideas, technical renderings and working drawings of the patterns and motives that will be dyed and woven by the atelier.  This is a remarkable archive.

Remarkable and very beautiful! See more at A Very Rare Group of Eight 19th Century Notebooks from a Kasuri Dyeworks in Omi | Sri Threads.

I’m a big fan of the Hand Book Journals, so I was excited to see that Blick has 3-packs at a great price, 53% off the suggested retail. Unfortunately it’s only for the large size, and only in black… but if you use them, it’s a good chance to grab a few!

Hand Book Artist Journal Value Packs

This is a funny story about a lost and found Moleskine and a lost and found suitcase. That reminder to write your name and contact info can save the day!
Moleskine Dumpster Diving and Facebook Save the Day – Philip Morris – Proctors, Schenectady NY – timesunion.com – Albany NY.

Here’s another reader who sent in a photo of all the journals she’s completed– she’s currently working on journal #36. I think I see hardcover and softcover Moleskines, and maybe an Ecosystem journal?

Thanks to Laura for sharing her addiction, and sorry it took me a while to post it! If you are a notebook addict too and want to show your obsession to the world, email me a photo!

Nrepose of Unposted tipped me off to this rather nice-looking variation on the classic moleskine-ish notebook: the Little Blue Book, from a website called The Forgetful Gentleman. (They also sell a few styles of cards, which will please all who advocate the preservation of handwritten correspondence.)

This may be another case of over-the-top marketing for a notebook, as evidenced by the photos above and this description:

“While the Little Black Book has gained notoriety as the pocket companion of playboys with more show than substance, its a little known fact that throughout history true gentlemen have always carried a Little Blue Book to capture fleeting moments of inspiration and genius, wherever or whenever they may be.”

Uh-huh, and true gentlemen also probably know when to put an apostrophe in “it’s” and a hyphen in “little-known.” But getting past all that, I have to say that I LOVE the fact that it’s blue. Not fluorescent blue, not turquoise blue, but a gorgeous, old-fashioned navy blue, just like the pocketbook your grandmother took to her DAR luncheons. (Actually, they should make a version for women and call it the “Grandma’s DAR Pocketbook Journal,” or something like that, to appeal to gentlewomen!)

In all other details, it’s pretty standard: 9×14 cm size, ribbon marker, elastic closure, lined pages, interior pocket, embossed logo on back, and a place to write your name on the inside, with the header “This notebook belongs to a Forgetful Gentleman.” The cover is said to be made of “PU Leather.” While my inner third-grader wants to claim they mean it’s “pee-eww” smelly, stinky leather, my online research uncovered this definition:

Bicast leather (also known as bycast leather, split leather or PU leather) is a split leather with a layer of polyurethane applied to the surface and then embossed…. The use of the term ‘leather’ in relation to this bicast treatment is considered a misrepresentation and therefore not permitted in the United Kingdom and New Zealand. Furniture made with bicast exhibits none of the characteristics associated with genuine leather; it will not develop a patina or suppleness nor otherwise “improve with age”. With constant use the polyurethane layer will crack and split free of its backing.

I’m glad I looked this up, as I’d wondered about the “bonded leather” cover of the Markings notebook — sounds like a similar process of making a cheap, leather-like material that has enough leather content to allow it to be called “leather,” at least in some countries.

The Little Blue Notebook is $12.00 plus $5.95 shipping (within the continental US) for up to 4 notebooks. At 5, the shipping increases to $12.95. At 13, it’s $24.95. At 17, it’s $32.95. I didn’t test all the other quantities beyond that, so suffice it to say that this will not be the cheapest notebook you’ve ever purchased, nor will it be the most expensive. Which seems very gentlemanly to me.

This notebook has a lot of sentimental value for me, as it belonged to my father. I remember seeing it in his desk when I was a kid and wishing he’d give it to me– my notebook lust started at a very young age. But I wasn’t supposed to be poking around in Dad’s desk, and I never saw him actually writing in this notebook– so to ask him for it would reveal that I’d been doing something naughty! But when I was going through all Dad’s papers after his death last year, I found it again, still in the same drawer where I’d remembered finding it 30 years earlier.

The notebook was bought in the Boston area, I’m guessing in the late 1960s or early 1970s based on a few dates noted within. The cover says that it was distributed by Brooks, of Melrose, MA– this was a drugstore chain which has now been absorbed by Rite Aid. I love how the notebook was marked down from 29 cents to 23 cents!

What’s most fascinating to me about the notebook is the window it provides into my father’s mind. He was always compiling lists of numbers– data on various things such as the economy, household projects, etc.– and jotting down books and music that he wanted to buy.  This notebook was no exception. The page below was gas mileage tracking:

The next one has a company address, and seems to note that they sold a certain type of ring binder for holding film negative strips, which he must have bought as he had several that held old negatives and slides.

My dad was pretty obsessive about his lawn, and obviously did extensive research on the topic, though I’m not sure if his huge book collection actually included the title noted below:

There are lots of other weird things like this– notes about rainfall, distances between streets in our neighborhood, the heights and diameters of various food product cans, and lots of other cryptic numbers whose meaning I’ll never know.

But the best thing about the notebook are the pages below (click on the images for a larger view). My father always liked to tell stories about the funny things I said as a toddler, and this was where he wrote some of them down. The dates indicate that I was between 3 and 5 years old, and I have to say I’m kind of impressed by some of my attempted vocabulary! I’m also a little embarrassed by a few things– how did I manage to think there was a fairy tale called “Pencil and Gretel?”

My mom was pregnant with my little sister when I was about 4, which is where the “baby might be ready to blast out” and “open your mouth so I can talk to him” comments came from. Notes on other pages have me talking about my dad’s “poundcake check jacket” (i.e. houndstooth) and saying I was going to “deject some blood” into a patient while playing doctor! (But I don’t know who “Dr. Turnoff” was.)

Inside the back cover were more quotations, and a slip of paper where I’d done my best to write the Jack and Jill nursery rhyme.

My father was not a very emotionally expressive man– though I always did know that he loved me and was proud of me, it still means a lot to see these concrete signs of it. This will always be one of my favorite examples of the way notebooks can preserve precious things.