Thanks to a tip from a reader, I found this nice little post by Macy Halford, at the New Yorker’s publishing blog, The Book Bench:

Not too tall, not too short, not too fat, not too thin, not too flimsy or with too stiff a spine. And most of all, not with lines too far apart.

These are the criteria that must be met by a notebook if it is to be called mine (my mother always said, “Never settle when it comes to a notebook”), and if you are anything like me, you are constantly on the lookout, constantly wondering when you stroll into a bookshop whether Mr. Moleskine will finally have come up with something just right, something you. Because even though the legendary notebook of Hemingway is undeniably handsome, and even though the line has expanded to include those delicate, brown-paper-bound cahiers (my favorites), I always end up disappointed. A few scribbles and I find myself asking, Is this all there is?

Truth be told, I’ve been searching so long that I’d just about given up hope. I thought I was doomed to a life of half-completed notebooks, nearly the same as half-completed thoughts. And then one day last week, while wandering the wilds of the Upper East Side, I ventured into Shakespeare and Co., and there it was, just sitting there: the perfect notebook.

Which brand was it that earned the “perfect” accolade? Whitelines (buy), in particular their A5 spiral-bound graph notebook.

Read more at White on White: The Book Bench : The New Yorker.