Several weeks ago, I went to the Renwick Gallery in Washington D.C., where there was a large exhibition about Burning Man, the annual festival in the Nevada desert where lots of creative people gather to enjoy each other’s art and self-expression in a variety of forms. The Renwick exhibition included a couple of notebooks: This … Continue reading Notebooks from Burning Man
A reader pointed me to Baron Schwartz’s excellent comparison of a lot of different notebook brands he tried while searching for “the Holy Grail of notebooks.” Here’s some of them, along with his handy list of what they are: An Italian leatherette journal by Markings A Semikolon Il Creativo, large A Quo Vadis Habana An … Continue reading Notebook Addict of the Week: Baron Schwartz
A nice look at the history of the ubiquitous marbled composition book. I haven’t actually used one in years, but I love them nonetheless! Reading this made me want to buy one! “Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat sketched in marble composition books, and Italian architect Ettore Sottsass used the covers to make furniture. Marble notebooks also furnish … Continue reading In Praise of the Basic Composition Book
This week’s addict emailed me photos of her notebook collection: Hi, my name is Mary and these are my notebooks: I guess you could say I’m addicted to them. I mean, everybody needs a notebook sometimes, right? If I didn’t have these, I wouldn’t have anyplace to write stuff down. I wrote something in this … Continue reading Notebook Addict of the Week: Mary
This week’s addict came to me via a tip from a reader (Thanks Raymond!), and I was delighted to see this story: Nancy Hanst has kept a food diary since 1962. I love Nancy’s stacks of little spiral-bound notebooks, and her consistency in keeping them for over 50 years! From Nancy’s article: So, here … Continue reading Notebook Addict of the Week: Nancy Hanst
Mike Sheehan shares his excellent sketches documenting the Murrieta immigration protests: David is excited that the “Trapper Keeper lives!”. Renee shares the story of a teacher who is looking for donations of journals for her students. She successfully collected 100 journals for the 2013-2014 school year, and now she needs to do it again! Please … Continue reading From Our Readers
Some of the notebooks I’ve spotted on recent shopping trips, first these “Carnets de Poche” at a gift shop in Bethesda, MD. They’re a bit large to really fit in your poche, perhaps, but rather cute nonetheless, with a nice mix of papers inside: I was quite intrigued by these Mead planners I saw … Continue reading Notebook Sightings
This week’s addict blogs at xaprb, where he’s done an in-depth comparison of various notebooks to find the brand that works best for him. Here are the candidates: And here are the criteria: So what do I want? The size. It needs to be large enough to write on easily, leaving readable margins, without wasting … Continue reading Notebook Addict of the Week: Baron Schwartz
From Jennie, a link to an article with some more great reasons to favor paper over digital note-taking: “The notebook has an immediate tactile advantage over phones: they aren’t connected to the Internet. It’s intimate in a way computers aren’t. A notebook has never interrupted me with a screen that says, “Wuz up?†Notebooks are … Continue reading More Good Stuff from Our Readers
This week’s addict also emailed me photos of her excellent notebook collection, with some commentary: I enjoy pocket journals, the saddest part is that they run out of pages so soon and I always feel like I’m abandoning a best friend when I have to start a new one. My pet peeve is that I … Continue reading Notebook Addict of the Week: DreamerO