These photos were submitted by former notebook addict of the week Paul, who is always a source of interesting tips! These diaries were kept by one of his family members from 1941-1944. The interior of the first one is an earlier version of the western diary I wrote about in this post, both made by the Whitman Publishing Company of Racine, Wisconsin.
What a treasure to have. I’m sure those diaries contain some interesting notes about an eventful time. Thanks for sharing these, Paul!
These are some stumpers! Please chime in if you can help these readers!
From Jeffrey:
I’m looking for a specific kind of notebook that I can’t figure out if it exists or not… looking for a soft cover with elastic closure (like the soft moleskines). Â Also want it to be perforated on every page (like the ecosystem architect). Â Finally, hoping it had a dot grid (like the rhodia, leuchtturm, etc). Â Does such a notebook exist? Â It seems like I can have 2 of these things easy, but not all 3. Â Am I missing something? Â I can’t even seem to find a soft cover moleskine-style, all-perforated, lined book. Woe is me!
I think he’s right– 2 out of 3 isn’t that hard, but 3 out of 3???
From Stephanie:
I’d love a list of films that feature journals and diaries and blank books! Â For example, in Finding Neverland, J.M. Barrie scribbles in his blank book to capture ideas and produce plays, and he gives one of his young friends a blank book of his own. Â The blank books totally have a starring role in the film!
I know other readers will be better at this than I am, I am drawing a blank right now…
From Asstou:
I’d like to buy a notebook with a leather cover (but not a hard one, I want it supple), and with a binder inside (and not spirals), so that I can have loose leaves. Moreover, I don’t want a small notebook but a rather large.
Filofax makes a line of “A5″ size organizers, with paper measuring 5 3/4 x 8 1/4”. Some are available on Amazon
From Jennifer:
I’ve been stuck in a Moleskine rut for awhile as I haven’t found anything better. Qualities I’m looking for:
-narrow line-spacing ( I have tiny handwriting and the Moleskine makes it look even smaller)
-lays flat and is sturdy enough to write with it on my knees
-a color other than black would be nice, but not necessary
-I don’t use a fountain pen so as long as the paper holds up to a Pentel Energel it’s fine with me
-not a fan of spiral binding
I’ve been looking at the lined Ecosystem but I have a blank one already and it feels too bulky next to the streamlined Moleskine, plus the cover extends beyond the paper which in my opinion looks silly. The lime green color shows every ink smudge (ink always manages to get on my fingers which in turn gets on everything else). I have also been considering a Picaddilly Primo (love red notebooks!) but it doesn’t look like it lays very flat and I’m not sure about the horizontal elastic band.
The narrow line spacing makes this challenging…
From Lucien:
Looking for a walletsize booklet with alphabetize pages to record addresses, location, tel #.
The one I did have once measured 3″ by 2″
Now these I have seen, often just in very basic office supply stores. Amazon has a really cheap version, $3.99 for a 2-pack!
2 Classic Black Mini Address Books Small Pocket Size
From Skippy:
Anyone ever find those hard, clothbound blank journals they used to sell at Borders for about $7?
No branding, no silly flowers or designs. Â Just good, simple, durable lined notebook at a reasonable price.
I think he may mean the Piccadilly notebooks. I am not sure if the plain black “Essentials” notebooks have been picked up by other retailers, though their more colorful designs are for sale at Barnes & Noble and other shops. Piccadilly’s website does have a list of retailers.
From Sylvain:
I need some advice. I search a notebook which looks like a Moleskine (cover, pocket inside, something to close it) but with a better paper.
I have some Moleskine, Paperblanks and Legami, but using them with a foutain pen is impossible. The paper isn’t good enough. The ink is drooling and passing trough.
The Rhodia Webnotebook
Thank you to everyone who submits questions and answers– sorry I can’t answer them all personally!
Spotted this in a magazine a while back:
Some nice looking notebooks, plus a pen and cool old cameras as a bonus. Kind of a funny ad, though, given that it barely looks like a closet!
In honor of Inauguration Day, I thought I’d revisit a post I did 4 years ago about various members of then-President-Elect Obama’s staff who happened to be photographed holding notebooks. (Yesterday’s New York Times Magazine also looked back at that photo series in an article about Obama’s first term from the viewpoints of some of these staffers.)
The full text and images of my 1/19/2009 post follows:
In yesterday’s New York Times Magazine, there was a photo essay called “Obama’s People,” with portraits of the President-elect’s various cabinet members and staff. I couldn’t help noticing that a few of them were photographed with their notebooks!
Here’s Eugene Kang, 24, Special Assistant to the President. His notebook is the highlight of the photo! It sort of looks like a Moleskine Cahier, but I don’t think it is– wrong color, and it looks like it has more of a pocket in the back. Can anyone identify this notebook?
This is Mark W. Lippert, 35, National Security Council Chief of Staff. His notebooks– 2 of them– look kind of like the larger-size Moleskines, but again, wrong color. I think they must be some other brand.
Here we have Peter R. Orszag, 40, Office of Management and Budget Director-Designate. It’s a little harder to tell, but he seems to have a small notebook or two in his shirt pocket. They could be the same type as Eugene Kang’s above.
Will notebooks have a prominent place in the new administration? Perhaps Barack Obama will start carrying a Moleskine if he’s forced to give up his trusty Blackberry!
This week’s addict emailed me a photo of some of her notebooks. Rebecca says:
“I have been buying notebooks wherever I go since I can remember.
I love coming across antique notebooks. This was a random find on RobMan170’s Flickr feed:
The journal belonged to someone named William Lee who sailed from Hong Kong to England in 1894. There are scans of what seem to be every page of the notebook, including some drawings and the manufacturer’s info on the inside cover of the notebook. A fascinating historical document.
See more at 1894 Far East Trip Notes – a set on Flickr.
LOTS of linkage to catch up on from the mailbag!
Handmade leather journals by papersandtschai.com and on Facebook at Papersandtschai
“Handmade sketchbooks, journals, pads and other gathered paper products with recycled materials, vintage materials and an eye toward durability” from nekoheavyindustries.etsy.com
Elephant dung notebooks at new.poopoopaper.com.
A notebook kept by someone who worked on the movie “Being There”:
A cool penholder clip you can attach to any notebook:
“A set of notebooks designed to encourage people to draw, write, and create, instead of clicking around the internet:
The notebooks are hand printed and part of line of other handmade products that are all aimed at encouraging people to slow down and reconnect with life: http://idlemouse.org.”
A laser-engraved leather notebook cover:
Colorful notebooks from India: KarmicKrafts
Suw Charman-Anderson has an interesting article at Forbes.com about the best ways to use a notebook for creative endeavors. She refers to another series of blog posts called The Entrepreneur’s Notebook, which brings up a controversial approach:
I’ve always used my notebooks for everything, whether that was notes from a meeting I was in, to do list items, shopping lists, ideas, random notes, doodles, the whole nine yards. What Masukomi [author of The Entrepreneur’s Notebook] points out is that you need to keep your notebook pure, just for ideas and maybe doodles:
“Doodling doesn’t affect the quality of the content in your notebook because it doesn’t contain information your brain needs to parse, but things like grocery lists contain information that’s irrelevant to your projects and become random noise that pollutes an otherwise useful resource.”
Always a great debate: one notebook, or many? Should you separate your notebooks according to their purpose, keeping mundane lists in one and creative ideas in another, or even further sub-dividing specific projects into separate notebooks? Or should you just dump everything into one notebook that you have with you at all times? Or keep two or more notebooks with you at all times?
Lately, I’ve been using the one-notebook-for-everything approach, pretty much. But I do have separate sketchbooks, and I’ve been wondering if I should be carrying one at all times to encourage me to draw more. I do sometimes draw in my main notebook, but not as much as I’d like. And for some reason, I don’t doodle in it all that much– I doodle a lot in meetings at work, but that usually ends up on work papers and a larger notebook that I use for note-taking at meetings. I sometimes wonder if I should bring my small notebook to meetings so I can capture my doodles separately there, and keep my work papers looking more professional!
Suw found that she didn’t really want to carry two notebooks, so she came up with a good compromise:
I started carrying round a new notebook just before I went on holiday to Malta and whilst I was away I jotted down a load of really cool ideas…
But I still needed somewhere to jot down to do items and grocery list stuff, and I didn’t fancy carrying round two notebooks. This turned out to be an easy problem to solve: In the back of the book I stuck a few sticky notes and anything that doesn’t belong in the notebook gets put on a sticky note, then transferred to my writing slope once I get home to my office. This separation of church and state is really important because it means that when you open your notebook, your focus is undiluted by reminders to do this or that later on. It’s all about the ideas, nothing else.
What’s your method?
Read the full articles referenced at:
The Author’s Notebook – Forbes.
The Entrepreneur’s Notebook Part 1
The Entrepreneur’s Notebook Part 2 – Tips for more productive note-taking
The Entrepreneur’s Notebook Part 3 – Searchability, Notebook choices, and backups
Roz tests a Moleskine sketchbook with some unhappy results… but beautiful art!
“Gouache test on Moleskine sketchbook spread. You can see that even with a controlled amount of water the pages will buckle. On the bright side you can do some fun and drippy things on the page, and you can use the “repelling” qualities to add texture to your page. The repelling qualities can be clearly seen in the lower left of this page spread where the paint bubbled up and wouldn’t settle on the page.”
Aside from the paper buckling, sounds like she ran into some serious problems with chemical odors from the sketchbook, enough to cause an asthma attack! I’ve noted some strong fumes from new Moleskines at times, but this one sounded really bad…
Read more, and see lots more of Roz’s fantastic collaged sketches at Working in a Moleskine Sketchbook—2012 – Roz Wound Up.
This week’s addict emailed me from the Philippines:
