The Kolo Essex Travel Book is an interesting hybrid of a Moleskine-type notebook and a Filofax. From the outside, it looks a lot like a Moleskine, but with some important differences. The binding is cloth, with a window in which you can insert your own image. An elastic band holds it shut. On the back, … Continue reading Review: Kolo Essex Travel Book→
Not long ago, I traveled to Istanbul for a vacation. I was of course excited to see what kinds of notebooks I might find there! The only Turkish brand of notebooks I’d ever heard of was Arwey, but oddly enough, I didn’t spot a single Arwey notebook on my trip. I did see some other … Continue reading Notebooks in Istanbul→
Here’s some nice looking leather bound journals– they’re not cheap but they can be personalized and would make a nice gift: Graphic Image Leather Journals & Notebooks. I particularly like that travel journal with color maps in the back!
I’ve been reading Orhan Pamuk’s fascinating book Istanbul: Memories and the City. It’s an interesting mix of city history and personal memoir, and here’s a passage I had to share: “My grandmother always kept with her a slim leather-bound notebook in which she wrote something every day. This notebook, in which she recorded bills, memories, … Continue reading A Turkish Grandmother’s Notebook→
The Art of Manliness blog muses on the long tradition of keeping a notebook: The idea of carrying around a pocket notebook has become quite popular these last few years, revived by the introduction of the current incarnation of the “Moleskine†into the market. It’s become so popular that I’m afraid it has come to … Continue reading The Manly Tradition of the Pocket Notebook→
I’m a longtime fan of the Urban Sketchers website. Small notebooks aren’t necessarily the only way to do urban sketches, but they’re probably the most practical and frequent tool, so the site offers lots of notebook eye-candy, as well as some great art. Here are a few recent favorites: The site has also organized an … Continue reading Urban Sketchers→
I always love coming across stories about kids using notebooks: My son commented that he needed more notebooks. I asked him why. Didn’t he have several notebooks that weren’t full? Yes, he said, but one was for thoughts on his school work, and the second was about the environment, and the third one was for … Continue reading Kids Who Love Notebooks→
This week’s addict has quite a stack of super-stuffed Moleskines! One of them has an interesting patterned cover– it’s a Viktor & Rolf limited edition. See more and read the comments at My Moleskine Collection 2006-2010 on Flickr – Photo Sharing!.
Here’s an interesting topic on Ask MetaFilter: I have a graph-ruled Moleskine that is begging to be turned into a compendium of obscure, fascinating, and perhaps occasionally useful reference material. Some of the things I want to put in there are Rubik’s Cube algorithms, keys to reading non-Latin alphabets, some simple math formulas (Trachtenberg math, … Continue reading How to Turn Your Notebook Into a “Mental Swiss-Army Knife”→
Notebooks, journals, sketchbooks, diaries: in search of the perfect page…