My Nolty addiction went a little overboard this year. I was so intrigued by some of the 2020 formats that I ended up buying 4 diaries, including the new Nolty Daily Book. I’m not totally sure how I’m going to use all of them!
First, the Nolty Efficiency Notebook Gold. This is my second year using the Nolty Gold (click that link for more details). It is an indulgence, but the leather cover is so lovely. I also love that it comes with extra lined booklets that can be tucked in the back– handy for long-term lists like books to read or movies to watch. This notebook is a daily carry, where I track various habits, note appointments, daily exercise and meals, and weekly to-do and shopping lists.
I also got a regular Nolty Efficiency Notebook model 1221 (see my detailed review of my first 2019 Nolty Diary). This one has the standard vinyl cover and black page edges. I got the version with the extra Japan railway maps, for no particular reason other than that they are fun to look at, and because the version that includes these maps has a slightly different texture on the vinyl cover. I am using this as my 2020 “image diary.”
This year was the first time I tried model #1181, which they seem to call the “Lights Memo.” (Google’s translation calls it that, anyway.) It is the smaller size, which fits in a passport Travelers Notebook. I was interested in the week-on-2-pages layout with small blocks for the days across the top and free-form squared space underneath. But once I had it in my hand I felt like the daily blocks were too small to really be useful. This Nolty has a removable vinyl cover. The inner notebook tucks into clear plastic vertical pockets in the front and back. There is a plastic pen loop on the cover. A supplemental graph paper booklet is included in the back. I may just use this for handwriting practice and doodles, and don’t plan to buy another one next year.
I ordered those 3 diaries last fall. Shortly thereafter, Nolty announced some additional new products celebrating their 70th anniversary. When I saw the Nolty Daily Book (model #1227, also available with a red cover as #1228), I totally fell in lust. A chunky day-per-page Nolty was my dream, the perfect alternative to the Hobonichi Techo, which is a bit too big for me. I kept hoping I’d be able to order the Daily Book from the Rakuten Global seller where I bought my other Nolty diaries, but they didn’t have it. For a while, it looked like the Daily Book was out of stock, and I wondered if I’d missed my chance. But I kept checking, and saw stock was available on Japanese sites, but not anywhere I could understand how to order. After lots of waffling, I finally special ordered it in January through Kinokuniya, even though their price was rather high ($36.99 plus tax, for pickup in their NYC store. The Japanese price on Nolty’s website is 2420 Yen, or around $22, but shipping direct from Japan would add cost. For context, Kinokuniya I think was charging around $45 for the Hobonichi Techo. JetPens charges $37 for the Hobonichi.).
When I got my Daily Book, I wished I had pulled the trigger earlier. and not missed being able to use it all through January. It is quite adorable. I love the extra thickness. I love the page layout, with some blank space at the top and grid lines underneath. The paper seems to be the same as in the Efficiency Notebooks– thin, creamy, smooth and fountain pen friendly– writing does show through somewhat, but no bleed-through or feathering. For some reason, this Nolty has a big red headline saying “REMARKS” on the page that seems to have space for you to write your name and contact details. (Kinokuniya didn’t put their price sticker there, I just decided to save it there myself.)
Here’s a few shots comparing the Nolty Daily Book to the Hobonichi Techo:
There are a couple of things about the Daily Book that I wish were different, though. This has a removable cover with a pen loop, similar to the #1181. It’s nice to be able to tuck things in the front and back, but it makes the cover overhang a bit wider, so I think I prefer the glued-on cover of the regular and Gold Efficiency Notebooks. (But on the other hand, a removable cover means the interior block could be put into some other cover. I checked to see if it would fit in my emptied out Moleskine City Notebook cover, but it’s a little too fat. It might work if I ripped out the endpapers and back pocket. It would fit in an emptied out Moleskine Daily Planner cover, but there might be too much extra room…)
I also wish the monthly pages in the beginning were the Gantt chart available in some of the Efficiency Notebook versions. The Daily Book only has the month-on-2-pages layout. The Daily Book doesn’t include any supplemental booklets to tuck in the back, and it’s not really designed for that extra thickness, although you can add a booklet from another Nolty without it causing any problems. And a supplemental booklet might be needed with the Daily Book, because it only has one lined sheet and one graph paper sheet in the back for extra notes. (The Daily Book has a yearly layout and monthly pages in the front, then the daily pages, and at the end, the lined page, the graph page, and then a few pages of Japanese info and transit maps.)
So now my new dream is that Nolty will make a Daily Book Gold. The leather cover would be glued on, without too much overhang. And they’d add a supplemental squared booklet in the back.
How am I going to use the Nolty Daily Book? I’m not sure. I’ve owned a couple of Moleskine Daily diaries and never really formed a habit of using them, but I never liked their lined page format. Using both the Daily Book and the Efficiency Notebook Gold might be kind of overkill. I’m thinking it may be nice to use for a daily doodle and drawing, and maybe more detailed notes about what I did each day, since there’s not as much space for all that in the Efficiency Notebook. But the Efficiency Notebook is thinner and more portable. I might prefer to leave the chunky Daily Book on my bedside table or desk… though I think I’d miss having it with me! My daily carry is ballooning…
If they continue to offer the Daily Book in future years (and I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t), I’ll have to decide how best to justify buying all my favorite models!