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 course I find the notebook pages documenting his creative process even more beautiful!
Hot news today! I just happened to see a post on Instagram where JMAM, the makers of Nolty diaries, announced some additional 70th anniversary products. Most exciting to me is that they are introducing a Nolty page-per-day Efficiency Notebook! It looks like they are calling it the “Daily Book.”
It looks a lot like the regular 144 x 95mm Nolty diaries, but the layout is similar to the Hobonichi Techo, with a header across the top of the page and a gridded section below. The page per day notebook is available in black and red covers. It seems to have most of the same features as the regular Nolty notebooks, such as a double ribbon marker and some transit maps. It is 18mm thick, with a total of 414 pages and weighs 190g, vs the regular Nolty being 11mm thick and 190 pages at 121g. This made me wonder if the paper is the same weight– the ratio of the thicknesses and the grams per page would indicate that it’s not, but maybe the cover throws that off? I hope the paper is just as fountain pen friendly!
I can’t wait to get my hands on one of these daily books. I’m such a fan of the Nolty diaries I’ve used so far. And when I reviewed the Hobonichi, I said I wished someone would make it in a slightly smaller size: now my dream has more or less come true! The page per day Nolty looks to be priced at around $22, which is cheaper than a Hobonichi.
The other new products Nolty announced today include some notebooks with gridded paper and covers in assorted bright colors. This is translated as “Metty” or “Memoty,” I guess as some variant on “memo.” They say “dated” but I think there is just an annual calendar on one page at the beginning, with the rest of the notebook being squared pages. These are also 144 x 95mm, but have just 174 pages and weigh 88 grams. The price is approximately $8. For those who just want freeform pages rather than a diary, they look like a nice option.
Guess I’ll be placing another overseas notebook order soon…
Let’s say you’re packing for a short trip. Like, just a long weekend. In your own country, in an area with plenty of stores where you could conceivably buy any of the widely-available brands of notebooks. Maybe even in an area with a few cool gift stores that stock cute upscale Japanese notebooks. And let’s say you have plans for the weekend that include lots of activities with family or friends, so it’s not like you’re going to be sitting around writing or drawing all weekend.
And let’s say your current journal has about 10 pages left in it, which should last you at least a week at your normal pace of writing. And you also have with you a sketchbook and a planner.
If you’re me, you get nervous and pack a brand new spare journal, just in case. Of course in this case, and probably in every other similar situation, I didn’t end up needing it, but I couldn’t help myself– I am always paranoid about being caught without a notebook.
What is your tolerance level? Do you always bring extra notebooks on trips? How long a trip does it have to be? How many pages do you need to have left before you feel like you don’t need a spare notebook?
I would be buying a few myself, except that I already bought a few on eBay, in hopes that what I’d get might miraculously turn out to be the older stock I like better… That probably won’t be the case, which is annoying, as I paid more than what Moleskine is charging!
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 includes journals, drawings and notebooks and a Hebrew article about a 1922 strike by Jerusalem teachers
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 went, she carried small sketchbooks that did double duty as memory banks and portable studios. Many are repositories for quick, preliminary ballpoint pen studies for future assemblages. Others are filled with watercolor paintings that are polished creations in themselves. The show at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, “Betye Saar: Call and Response,â€Â which opens on Sept. 22, will reunite several sketchbooks with related finished works.
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 who took office after the war.
NHK obtained 18 notebooks through Tajima’s family and aired a special program this past weekend.
Although it’s not surprising that Hirohito had deep regrets about the war, the documents highlight how painfully strong such emotions had been.
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 idol?
These glimpses of the emotions of total strangers are available courtesy of personal pocket notebooks and diaries.
Called Techorui Toshoshitsu, the cubbyhole of a library located within the art gallery Picaresque near Sangubashi Station in the capital’s Shibuya Ward is generating quite a stir.
Visitors are able to browse through the “honest feelings†of nameless people they have never met.
Set up in a small space about the size of four and a half tatami mats, shelves in the small space house 300 diaries, pocket notebooks and jottings. A list of the materials available allows visitors to choose notepads they like based on an author’s personal data, or perhaps a specific period when the stuff was written.
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 of the linchpins of the Yankees’ talented bullpen, Adam Ottavino, finds a spot in the clubhouse to sit and write.
To combat the six-month mental minefield of self-doubt that is baseball’s regular season, Ottavino has found solace in a daily routine of writing in a journal. In it, he tracks how he cares for his powerful right arm, how he sharpens his focus, how he plans to attack an opposing lineup and, sometimes, he gives himself a pep talk by writing such messages as, “I am a great pitcher.â€
[…F]or more than seven years, Ottavino, 33, has written down what he calls mental and physical cues — basically, reminders — to keep him focused. At the suggestion of his father, Ottavino began jotting down thoughts in his cellphone in 2012 because his mind wandered too much on the mound. It later morphed into hand writing into a pocket-size black notebook, which has helped him become a bullpen star for the Yankees, who beat the visiting Texas Rangers, 4-1, on Wednesday.
And while Ottavino, whose devastating slider has him leading the bullpen with a 1.66 E.R.A., was willing to discuss his prized notebook, the exact contents were for his eyes only and he was careful to hide it in his locker. He’s on his second of the season, with the rest stored at home.
I continue to use my Nolty notebooks quite faithfully. A couple of weeks ago I started seeing news online about the 2020 Nolty diary offerings, which go on sale in September. Once again, I’ve been exploring the Nolty website with the help of Google Translate to try to figure out the various options!
Just a few of Nolty’s 2020 diaries!
The new 2020 Nolty Diary items I noticed are most notably larger B5 and A5 versions of the Efficiency Notebook. Actually, these are just new to me, as I realized they’d actually began offering these in their series of diaries that starts in April 2019. (These are timed to the Japanese school year, which starts in April.) Anyway, for people who aren’t interested in the typical 144 x 95mm or 130 x 85 Nolty formats, the larger versions should be a nice option.
2020 Nolty Diary Model # 2020-6126 in B5 size
The other Nolty style that interests me this year is the series whose name is translated as “Lights” or “Rights.” These are very similar to the Efficiency Notebook in some ways, but they don’t offer the Gantt chart in the monthly pages. Versions with either a horizontal or weekly block layout are available. For the weekly pages, you can either get a similar basic layout to the Efficiency Notebook, with a week on the left side (each day is divided into 3 sections, a difference from the Efficiency Notebook) and a blank page on the right, or the more traditional week on two pages layout, or a very unusual layout with small blocks for the days of the week across two pages, with an open area of grid lines underneath. This week plus grid layout , which they seem to call “Lights Memo,” looks like it’s only available in the 130 x 85mm size.
2020 Nolty Diary Model # 2020-1241, 144 x 95mm with monthly block layout2020 Nolty Diary “Lights Memo ” week plus grid layout
I made a spreadsheet to track the Efficiency and Lights/Rights options shown on Nolty’s website as best I can figure them out. (This is not a full list of every Nolty style, but I think I’ve captured all the Efficiency and Lights options.) The ones in bold are what I’m considering ordering this year, though I will probably narrow it down to just two. The leather cover Gold version costs about $50 US (not including shipping) so I’m not sure whether I’ll go back to the regular plastic one next year, since it is only about $13. If I do plastic, I think I’ll get the one with the railway maps, even though I can’t read them and don’t need them! What I’d really love to try is the Lights Memo week plus grid layout in the 144 x 95 mm size, but it doesn’t seem to be an option.
My spreadsheet listing Nolty’s 2020 diary options in the Efficiency Notebook and “Lights” styles
One other thing I stumbled across on Nolty’s website was a selection of notebook covers designed to fit the Efficiency Notebook. These are really pricy, and they’d add some extra size to the notebook, but some of them look rather beautiful!
Beautiful notebook covers for the Nolty Efficiency Notebook
Rakuten Global seems to be the best source to order, if you are an English speaker in the US, at least. Kinokuniya should also have them on their web store, but their shopping site is closed for maintenance as of this writing. Hopefully they’ll be back soon, as you can save on shipping by having special orders shipped to a store if you have one near you.
Have you tried a Nolty diary? Will you be buying one for 2020? Which style would you pick?
Notebooks, journals, sketchbooks, diaries: in search of the perfect page…
