This book would be a great gift for any child, parent or teacher: Notable Notebooks: Scientists and Their Writings brings to life the many ways in which everyone from Galileo to Jane Goodall has used a science notebook, including to sketch their observations, imagine experiments, record data or just write down their thoughts. You also … Continue reading Notable Science Notebooks
The notebook below shows Emily Wilson’s work. She’s the first woman to translate The Odyssey into English. The classicist Emily Wilson has given Homer’s epic a radically contemporary voice. Read more at: The First Woman to Translate the ‘Odyssey’ Into English – NYTimes.com
This sounds like an interesting exhibit, at the Concord Museum in Massachusetts: This Ever New Self: Thoreau and His Journal. “The show centers on the journal Thoreau kept throughout his life and its importance in understanding the essential Thoreau. More than twenty of Thoreau’s journal notebooks are shown along with letters and manuscripts, books from … Continue reading Exhibition Featuring Henry David Thoreau’s Journals
Grace Coddington is well known in the fashion world as an editor, former model, and author. Now she’s also a spokesperson for Smythson. Most of the linked article is promoting their various leather bags and accessories, but I loved getting a glimpse of this well-worn address book! I bought a Smythson address book a long … Continue reading Grace Coddington’s Smythson Notebooks
An excellent article at LitHub by Bradford Morrow, author of the just-published Prague Sonata, among other books. Really interesting look at a writer’s process and why he prefers physical note-taking to digital methods. Big thanks to reader Raymond for sending me the tip! “My memory is good, but capricious at times. My scraps of paper … Continue reading Bradford Morrow’s Boorum & Pease Ledger
Some great quotes about journal-keeping, from a variety of writers, including the ones below: “People who keep journals have life twice.†– Jessamyn West “The diary taught me that it is in the moments of emotional crisis that human beings reveal themselves most accurately. I learned to choose the heightened moments because they are … Continue reading Writers on Keeping Diaries and Journals
This photo of artist Gary Panter caught my eye– I wish I could get a better look at that little sketchbook! Panter creates art in various media, but the New York Times article this photo accompanies focuses on his new graphic novel, Songy of Paradise. The article notes that he does not use digital tools … Continue reading Gary Panter’s Sketchbook
This book looks great– an entire graphic novel in facsimile notebook form: My Favorite Thing is Monsters “Set in the same 1960s Chicago where Ferris spent her youth, the book’s main character is Karen Reyes, a 10-year-old obsessed with movie monsters…. The central gimmick of the comic is that Karen is the cartoonist behind its … Continue reading “My Favorite Thing is Monsters,” a Graphic Novel by Emil Ferris
I’d love to see this in person– this art installation is a glowing flat circle that turns out to be made of thousands of recycled notebooks! “Commissioned by Azkuna Zentroa, Luzinterruptus crafted Denboran Zehar for the 10th anniversary of Gutun Zuria (Bilbao Internacional Literature Festival) in April 2017. In light of the anniversary, the designers … Continue reading Glowing Circle Made of Notebooks
David Sedaris has a new book out called Theft By Finding, which contains entries from diaries he’s kept from 40 years, including while he was a student at the Art Institute of Chicago. The diaries themselves are quite interesting– he made many of them himself and decorated the covers: Read more at: David Sedaris: The … Continue reading David Sedaris’ Diaries