Isn’t that just the best headline ever? It kills me that this story didn’t include a photo of the actual notebooks! It is a story that is, literally, as old as the hills, yet its history can be traced in just eight small notebooks. The accounts ledgers of Victorian bookkeepers in the upper Dales, meticulously … Continue reading “Old notebooks that open a window on lost world of Wensleydale cheese”
A few weeks ago, New York Magazine’s “Strategist” column ran an article ranking the 100 best notebooks. I bookmarked it but it took me a while to go back and absorb all the info. Having now read through the whole thing, let’s just say I have some issues with it! The best spiral-bound, leather, lined, … Continue reading The Strategist’s 100 Best Notebooks
A nice glimpse of a sketchbook belonging to a 2019 high school graduate from Oregon, who is heading to art school next. Melody Mendez won McKay High School’s award for the top artist in the Class of 2019. She created a web comic, No Where Here, set in a fantasy world and has been drawing … Continue reading An Art Student’s Sketchbook
I love this collection of notebooks, which have been used to record hundreds or even thousands of haiku. (The original post at Notebookers.jp is in Japanese, so I am relying on Google translate.) I don’t know much about Japanese writing and only know the most basic structure of haiku, but short poems with this kind … Continue reading Haiku Notebooks
I must have missed this Brainpickings article when it was originally published in 2014, but I’m glad I discovered it via Pinterest! Artist John Vernon Lord created amazing illustrations to accompany James Joyce‘s Finnegans Wake in a collectible edition published by the Folio Society (now out of stock, alas). The illustrations are stunning, but of … Continue reading John Vernon Lord’s Notebooks
The National Library in Jerusalem, Israel has just revealed to the public for the first time a collection of Franz Kafka’s papers, including some notebooks. The writings themselves have been published before, but without access to the original papers, people couldn’t see how he wrote, and doodled and sketched, as in the example below! Trove … Continue reading Franz Kafka’s Notebook
Betye Saar is a 93 year old artist I hadn’t heard of until reading about her in the New York Times Fall Preview. She is getting a lot of attention right now, with two major solo exhibitions this fall at MoMA and LACMA. Betye Saar’s sketchbooks play an important role in her work: Everywhere she … Continue reading Betye Saar’s Sketchbooks
Japanese public broadcaster NHK has obtained documents showing that former Emperor Hirohito repeatedly felt sorry about World War II and tried, unsuccessfully, to express his feelings by using the word “remorse†in a 1952 speech. The records of conversations with Hirohito spanning several years were kept by Michiji Tajima, a top Imperial Household Agency official … Continue reading Post-War Japanese Notebooks Recording Hirohito’s Regrets
Yet another reason I’m dying to go to Japan! This library in central Tokyo is like no other. Instead of offering volumes ranging from the usual, it displays the decidedly unusual. How about a bittersweet story of unrequited love between two high school students, a man’s passion for job-hunting or someone’s fixation on a pop … Continue reading Techorui Toshoshitsu: A Library of Notebooks
A lot of professional athletes seem to keep notebooks to track their successes and failures, their physical conditioning, diet and motivational strategies. Often, I want to share these stories but there isn’t much detail and the article lacks a photo of the notebook. But here’s one that’s a bit more satisfying! Before every game, one … Continue reading Adam Ottavino’s Notebook