In Praise of Handwriting

Do you ever look at your notebooks and wish you had better handwriting to fill them with? And do you ever notice that notebooks from the past always seem to be full of beautiful script? If so, you might be interested in this book about the history of handwriting. In this electronic age, it just [...]

Amateur Economist Reviews the Piccadilly Primo Journal

Quick link: Amateur Economist: Review: Piccadilly Primo Journal. Sounds like it gets pretty a good rating for use with fountain pens.

Notebook Addict of the Week: Jonel

A reader named Jonel sent me a link to her Flickr page, where she has some great photos of her prodigious notebook collection:

This photo only captures about half the spread– it was too big to fit in one shot! (The Flickr shots are tagged with notes.) And it doesn’t end there, as Jonel added in [...]

Question from a Reader: What Does Paper Weight Affect?

Reader DJ writes in with this question:
I have recently stumbled upon your blog along with some others. I am thrilled to finally have an outlet for my pen and paper passion. I’ve been reading a lot about Rhodia pads and some of the notebooks I already owned. I see that there are different paper “weights”? [...]

The First Carnival of Pen, Pencil and Paper

Welcome to the first edition of the Carnival of Pen, Pencil and Paper!
Some carnivals have roller coasters, fried dough, and oversized stuffed animals as prizes. This carnival offers just as much fun and variety, if you love handmade Japanese paper, fountain pens, Filofaxes, and 15-year old spiral notebooks. Every month, a different blog will host [...]

The Euphoria of Buying a Journal: Andorra, by Peter Cameron

Last weekend, I read a wonderful novel called Andorra, by Peter Cameron. It’s elegantly and beautifully written, with some lush descriptions, including this scene, which takes place right at the beginning of the book, just after the narrator has arrived to start his new life in Andorra:
I decided to visit the stationers. The front part [...]

The Most Beautiful Ink Review I’ve Ever Seen!

Check out Drawing with a Squirrel, reviewing J. Herbin foutain pen inks in a Clairefontaine notebook:

Colm Toibin’s Notebook

Here’s a notebook belonging to the Irish writer Colm Toibin, whose latest novel, “Brooklyn,” has just been published:

He wrote “Brooklyn” while teaching at Stanford, and this spring, in little more than a month, he turned out two book reviews and a 10,000-word short story, the first thing he has written on a computer. He usually [...]

Journal and Fountain Pen Catch My Eye

I was in a store recently where a book called The Wednesday Sisters was a staff pick. I was struck by the cover image, which features a diary and a fountain pen. There is always something so nice about the look of handwritten words on a page…

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