I retrieved a ton of old notebooks from my parents’ basement– I had totally forgotten about some of these! I am looking forward to rediscovering some favorites from my childhood collection and posting them here!
Journal and Fountain Pen Catch My Eye
I was in a store recently where a book called The Wednesday Sisters
Finally Bought a Couple of Piccadilly Notebooks
On a weekend trip to a Borders bookstore, I finally purchased two Piccadilly notebooks. I have to say, they didn’t make it easy! First of all, the notebooks were scattered in various places throughout the store– on an endcap tucked away in the fiction section, on another random rack near the fiction area where a few Moleskines and other notebooks were also displayed, and then in a large metal rack right in front of the customer service desk. Back in the fiction section, they had medium and large notebooks, lined and plain. By the service desk, they only had lined notebooks, but in all 3 sizes.
I bought a small lined notebook and a large plain notebook– before I checked them out, I showed them to the employee at the customer service desk and asked “You’ve got these right here with lined paper in all sizes, and you had the plain paper in medium and large in a couple different racks back near the fiction section. Can you tell me if you have any small ones with plain paper anywhere?” Her response was that if they did have any, they would be in the stationery section upstairs and they wouldn’t be on clearance if they did have them! In other words, they’d be Moleskines, is I guess what she was saying! I find it bizarre that Borders does this schizo thing where they consider the Piccadilly notebooks a “bargain book” and merchandise them separately from their other full-priced stationery products. And yet this store didn’t have any Piccadilly notebooks in any of their bargain book displays!
I won’t do a detailed review here, but suffice it to say that these are pretty nice little notebooks, especially for the price: $3.99 for the small and $5.99 for the large. The small is ever so slightly smaller than a Moleskine when you hold the covers side to side, and the edges overhang the paper within a bit more, so the writing space is noticeably smaller. I had the impression that my Uniball Signo pen might have bled the teensiest bit more on the lined paper than the plain, and perhaps more on one side of the page than the other, but I didn’t really have any complaints from my very limited test.
My only issue was with the pocket on the small notebook. Piccadilly notebooks have an all-paper pocket, lacking the black fabric-lined fold that Moleskines have. On my small notebook, the pocket was incorrectly attached, so that the fold is trapped under the outside of the pocket– it’s still sort of usable, but it’s no longer an “expandable” pocket. It’s just a flat pocket and you’d have difficulty getting things out, I think. My large notebook, fortunately, didn’t have this defect, but the corner of the large pocket was slightly torn.
I may still buy some more small Piccadilly notebooks if I find them with the plain or squared paper, but next time I think I’ll unwrap them before leaving the store to make sure they’re not defective! And we’ll see how they stand up to long-term use. But otherwise, I think I could be quite happy with these as opposed to the way more expensive hardcover Moleskines.
Piccadilly notebooks reviewed at Black Cover
Buy Piccadilly notebooks direct (prices slightly higher than at Borders, but unfortunately Borders doesn’t sell these on their website.)
1980s Notebooks from My Collection
Here’s a few blank books from my childhood:
Remember those Nothing Books? They were all the rage for a while. They sold them at a local bookstore and they became quite a fad at my school– kids mainly used them for autograph books, I think, where you’d just have your friends sign a page and write nice things about you.
I like how I underlined all these things on the front cover– I obviously associated myself much more with some roles than others!
I could never decide whether I liked it best with the dust jacket on, or with the funky silver cover showing!
Here’s a little historical context:
Some scribbles from friends… names blurred to protect the innocent!
Another key use of notebooks at that time was if you and your friends had a club. You had to write down important stuff like “Grease” and “Saturday Night Fever” even if you hadn’t been allowed to see the movies!
Here’s some pages from the other notebooks with calico covers. Another important use: display of stickers!
But I wasn’t entirely superficial. This page shows some attempt at creativity and pondering more serious pursuits:
But this is my favorite page of all. I used it to do a drawing… of another notebook… titled “My Notebook!”
French Filmmakers on Notebooks
“I like to have my notebooks with all the crossings out.”
This quote was from an article about the French writer-actors Agnès Jaoui and Jean-Pierre Bacri. I’ve seen a couple of their films, and recommend them: The Taste of Others and Look at Me. Here’s how they work:
Though Jaoui directs their films, the process is still collaborative. “I deal with technical stuff, but I don’t make artistic decisions unless Jean-Pierre is in agreement.” As for the writing, they still do it longhand, side by side on a sofa, going through their scripts line by line. “We’re not really computer people,” says Jaoui. “I like to have my notebooks with all the crossings out.”
I have to agree– I’ve used and continue to use electronic organizers in addition to notebooks, and each have their benefits, but there is something to be said about seeing all those old crossed-out things: tasks accomplished, former homes, events in the past– they all form a sort of history of our lives, and when you record things on paper, you can go back and remember everywhere you’ve been, everything you’ve done. On an electronic screen, it’s just not the same.
“Old Notebooks Stuffed With Inconsequential Factoids”
Found at Archives Tragic:
…she describes her life-long diary and note-keeping habits, and the shelves of “battered old notebooks stuffed with inconsequential factoids†that have accumulated as a result. She never opens the notebooks once they are finished, but can’t bring herself to destroy them either.
From a review of The Feel of Steel
Subu Designs at Etsy
Subu is another Etsy seller with some funky handmade notebooks made of recycled paper– very literally recycled, post-consumer paper, as you’ll see someone else’s printouts on the packs of some pages! It’s not for everyone, but some will enjoy the serendipitous finds and be curious about where these paper scraps came from…
Print Your Own Graph Paper
Here’s something that may be of interest to those who like to make their own notebooks: downloadable PDFs you can use to print your own graph paper in a variety of designs! There are options with lines, dots, triangles, octagons, trapezoids, circles, bricks, etc. There are also papers for special purposes, such as music notation, guitar fretboards, and Chinese characters. Very cool.
Rhodia Webnotebooks Now Available
I’ve been curious about the Rhodia Webnotebook ever since seeing them reviewed at Black Cover and Amateur Economist and eagerly anticipated at Spiritual Evolution of the Bean. I have been in a few stores that carry a wide range of Rhodia products, but none seem to have these yet. But they are now available at The Daily Planner, at $12 for the pocket version. I was disappointed, though, to see that they list the size as 4.5 x 6″. I thought they were supposed to be the same size as a Moleskine, 3.5 x 5.5″. Also, lined paper seems to be the only option– no plain or squared.
Oh well– guess that’s one new product I don’t need to add to my ever-growing piles of notebooks!
Rachael Ray Wants Notebooks for Christmas
Here’s an amusing news item: celebrity TV chef Rachael Ray is having throat surgery, and since she won’t be able to speak for a couple of weeks while she’s recovering, here’s her plan:
“I’m going to get lots of notebooks,” she explained. “I’m going to get the callous I had in grade school back from writing!”