Here’s some nice colorful notebooks from a UK website called “Papergrain: The Stationery Boutique.” Unfortunately, I think they’d get pretty pricey with the exchange rate and shipping from the UK…
Picasso Sketchbook Found: Was it a “Moleskine?”
I wish this news flash came with a photo!
October 15, 2008 – 5:16 PM
Picassos found at Zurich airport
A sketchbook containing 14 original Picasso drawings has been found in a spot check by customs officers at Zurich airport.
The Federal Culture Office said on Wednesday that the total market value of the sketches, dated May and June 1971, had been put at between SFr1.2 and 1.7 million ($1.06 million and $1.5 million).
Since there were no papers accompanying the sketchbook, it was sent to an auction house for valuation.
No details were given about the nationality of the passenger, or where he had come from. He was passing through the Nothing to Declare channel when he was asked to open his bags.
The Culture Office said the incident occurred two or three weeks ago.
The passenger violated three laws at once. He faces fines for trying to avoid paying customs duty and VAT, and he also broke the law on the international transfer of cultural property, under which cultural items must be declared even when they are in the possession of their rightful owner.
Meanwhile, the book has been returned to the passenger.
Penguin Notebooks
Ooh, I want one! There are various book titles available. [via Retro to Go] You can buy them from Colloco, but be warned if you are a fan of the pocket Moleskine shape– the website says the notebooks measure 16.6 x 9cm, which would make them taller than they appear in this photo.
A Rare Problem
I’m a writer by trade; so I tend to horde notebooks. And yet tonight to my chagrin I found that I didn’t have a single empty one to use for class in the morning.
I found this funny– I think I can safely say I have never found myself in this situation! Running out of notebooks? Never!!
Weekend Shopping
I stopped by a Borders store in Southbury, Connecticut this weekend, and look what I saw:
Barnes & Noble isn’t the only chain bookstore offering some exclusive Moleskine items– Borders offers this “brick,” a lined notebook bundled with 2 cahiers:
This display of journals was quite attractive. I tend to use mainly plain black journals, but these colorful designs are a bit funkier than others I’ve seen. I might have been tempted to buy some, but they tended to be a bit larger than my preferred size:
There were a number of notebooks and journals on the markdown shelf– pictured here are some Ciak notebooks, and there were also a few Moleskine watercolor notebooks.
The main reason I stopped at Borders was to see if they were carrying the Picadilly notebooks reviewed at Black Cover. Black Cover had suggested that Barnes & Noble was the big Moleskine supporter and that was why Borders was going with Picadilly, but I think both big chains are equally in bed with Moleskine. Borders had a large Moleskine shelf presence, including all the regular notebook styles, a number of planner styles and the custom package above, and this store, as well as another Borders I visited recently, had no Picadilly notebooks in the stationery section. But on my way out, I did spot a few large format Picadilly notebooks right by the front door, displayed with all the bargain-priced books. I’m not surprised they ended up there, given the very low prices: I didn’t get a photo but the large Picadilly notebook was priced at only $5.99!
Recovered Moleskine City Notebook
Here’s someone who has re-covered her Copenhagen City Notebook. If scenes of notebook destruction make you squeamish, beware! But the end result is quite nice, if you are someone who gets bored by plain black covers:
Black Cover’s Contest: Win Piccadilly Notebooks!
Head on over to Black Cover to enter the contest to win some samples of the Picadilly notebooks, a low-priced Moleskine alternative.
Enter by October 30th!
Notebooks With Pre-Formatted Pages
Biffybeans has a review of an interesting travel journal.
Although I’m sure this is a great product for some people, I was somewhat turned off by the highly formatted nature of the pages:
Sometimes it’s nice to be prompted to enter certain data, but for the most part, I think I am more of a free-form person, and would prefer to just take my own notes about places I visit. These pages, for me, would probably have too little space for “grub and grog” and too much space for “recommended guidebook” etc. It would end up just being messy and inefficient.
Do you ever use notebooks that are pre-formatted with spaces for specific information, or do you prefer to use totally blank books?
The Buzz of a “Simple, Quality Notebook”
How true this is:
A simple, quality notebook can give you just as much of a buzz as owning the latest iPhone, Palm, Blackberry or other device.
How to rank your Moleskine addiction at Put Things Off.
Thinking on Paper
I found this fascinating: The Paper Version of the Web. I love seeing the way people think out concepts on paper, especially things like websites, which to me seem almost too fluid and flickering to nail down that way.