The readers of this blog continue to challenge my notebook wisdom, proving again that I’m more of an enthusiast than an expert. But maybe others will have suggestions, so I share these with all of you:

From Bobby:
I’m trying to find a notebook that is “normal” sized ~8.5×11 and is cream/light green colored like the computation pads, and have a grid that is very faint to the point where if you photocopied it, it probably wouldn’t show up. (not a deal breaker, but that’s the type of faint I’m looking for). I’d like it with either spiral bound or some other type of binding that allows for laying flat. I’d love some sort of classic retro-y looking cover, but really it’s the guts that count. I’m not really interested in the engineering computation notebooks that are available mainly due to the heaviness of the grids on those notebooks. I guess they figured since its a notebook and you can’t use the grid-through-the-back-of-the-sheet trick, they’d just make them normal darker grid.
This is a stumper! Whitelines notebooks shouldn’t show their grid lines when photocopied, but the greyish paper might not be pleasing compared to a cream/light green. I’ve also seen legder notebooks with greenish pages and fairly faint lines, but not spiral bound. Does anyone else have any ideas for Bobby?

From Howard:

Do you know if there are Moleskine like notepads with legal pad yellow colored pages?  It seems weird, but I find jotting my notes down on yellow tinted pages quite pleasing.

I’ve seen small notepads that have yellow legal paper, but never anything in a Moleskine-like notebook.

From Nena:

I am looking for a really thick notebook – i.e. it has many many pages that is lined. Do you have any suggestions?

I’ve seen very thick notebooks with unlined pages, such as this one, but the thickest lined notebooks I’ve seen are probably these ones from Miquelrius, which have up to 300 pages and are available in squared and lined pages.

From Jeffrey:
I am wondering if you know what the best best book for me would be. I mostly like to draw with technical pens or pretty much put the ink straight on the page. I have one of the Handbook notebooks, I like it, buts its just not quite there. If it had smoother paper, it would probably be it. I like the thickness of the paper in them. What other notebook would you recommend other than the Handbook ones?

If you want something with smooth but thick paper, I would try one of the Moleskine Sketchbooks, or the Pen & Ink Heavy-Weight Sketch Book. Either of those should work well with that kind of pen, I think. I like the Hand Book Sketchbooks best for watercolor, pencil, or magic markers, but with fine-point pens, I love the creamy texture of the Moleskine, and the heavier paper used in the sketchbooks bleeds through much less than the lighter paper used in their other notebooks.

From Claudia:
I am trying to find a softcover notebook with “wide rule” lines and can’t seem to find anything besides the old marble-composition books, and I have a ton of those. Any ideas?

Have you tried Clairefontaine notebooks? I think the lines are usually wide rule and they have various cover and binding options.

Whew! That’s a lot of questions, and I have more on hand that I’ll feature in future posts. Thanks for writing, everyone, and thanks to all the readers out there who may also have suggestions!