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 … Continue reading The Euphoria of Buying a Journal: Andorra, by Peter Cameron
There was an interesting article a few weeks ago in the New York Times, about electronic tools for note-taking: Bringing Order to the Chaos of Notes: MODERN life is a mess of notes, a tangle of countless scraps of information that we accumulate during our waking hours. In the morning, you attend a meeting with … Continue reading Paper vs. Electronic
Jackie loves notebooks–here’s her stack: Read more at Letters and Journals.
An interesting story I stumbled across: Retired colonel sees a rich future in hardbound print: The Book Factory produces custom books, lab notebooks, log books, journals. DAYTON — Don’t tell Andrew Gilmore that print and high-tech can’t be married. As president of the Book Factory, Gilmore presided over the wedding ceremony. Gilmore, 54, is a … Continue reading A Retired Colonel Makes Great Notebooks
[UPDATED Jan. 2020: This store seems to have permanently closed. Sad!] Here’s an appealing website featuring stationery from France and beyond: Skripta-Paris. The site is in English and offers approximate US dollar conversions for their prices. (What you’ll actually pay is based on Euro prices converted at the prevailing rate by your credit card company.) … Continue reading Skripta-Paris
These look like rather nice journals, available at Jenni Bick: Petit Voyage European Bookcloth Diary They come in several other gorgeous colors.
Over at Moleskinerie, an interesting discussion of the merits of paper vs. electronic note-taking. What do you think?
One of my readers needs your help! She bought this notebook at Hobby Lobby, but she’s wondering if they can be purchased anywhere else. I’ve never seen this exact brand, and my own web searching has produced no leads. It’s hard to tell from the photos, but it looks similar to the Pen & Ink … Continue reading Help A Reader Find This Sketchbook!
This Fringe Magazine article shares a title with, and quotes from one of my favorite Joan Didion essays, “On Keeping a Notebook.” In her essay, Didion says she doesn’t keep a notebook as any kind of attempt to record the facts of her daily life or to fossilize the events of the world around her. … Continue reading On “On Keeping a Notebook”
At From the Living Room, some musings on “My Notebook“: It used to be that my notebook was the most important thing in my handbag. It used to be that I would get through a notebook in a matter of months. I have a box full of used notebooks, each with the date they were … Continue reading Changes in How We Use Notebooks