I’ve been reading Orhan Pamuk’s fascinating book Istanbul: Memories and the City. It’s an interesting mix of city history and personal memoir, and here’s a passage I had to share: “My grandmother always kept with her a slim leather-bound notebook in which she wrote something every day. This notebook, in which she recorded bills, memories, … Continue reading A Turkish Grandmother’s Notebook
The Art of Manliness blog muses on the long tradition of keeping a notebook: The idea of carrying around a pocket notebook has become quite popular these last few years, revived by the introduction of the current incarnation of the “Moleskine†into the market. It’s become so popular that I’m afraid it has come to … Continue reading The Manly Tradition of the Pocket Notebook
This is one of the most gorgeous examples of notebook art I’ve ever seen: See more at Juan Rayos – Chinese Moleskine | Aqua-Velvet.
I’m a longtime fan of the Urban Sketchers website. Small notebooks aren’t necessarily the only way to do urban sketches, but they’re probably the most practical and frequent tool, so the site offers lots of notebook eye-candy, as well as some great art. Here are a few recent favorites: The site has also organized an … Continue reading Urban Sketchers
I always love coming across stories about kids using notebooks: My son commented that he needed more notebooks. I asked him why. Didn’t he have several notebooks that weren’t full? Yes, he said, but one was for thoughts on his school work, and the second was about the environment, and the third one was for … Continue reading Kids Who Love Notebooks
This week’s addict has quite a stack of super-stuffed Moleskines! One of them has an interesting patterned cover– it’s a Viktor & Rolf limited edition. See more and read the comments at My Moleskine Collection 2006-2010 on Flickr – Photo Sharing!.
Here’s an interesting topic on Ask MetaFilter: I have a graph-ruled Moleskine that is begging to be turned into a compendium of obscure, fascinating, and perhaps occasionally useful reference material. Some of the things I want to put in there are Rubik’s Cube algorithms, keys to reading non-Latin alphabets, some simple math formulas (Trachtenberg math, … Continue reading How to Turn Your Notebook Into a “Mental Swiss-Army Knife”
If you happen to be in Singapore, you might want to stop by a store called Books Actually. They have a nicely-curated selection of notebooks, some of which they create themselves, and others from international brands such as Cavallini and Serrote: Read more at BooksActually: wall of notebooks.
You might think April is a little early to be declaring a Notebook Addict of the Year. Well, I’m ashamed to say I have been trying to get this post ready for months, so it really should have gone up last year. But I’m not sure it even matters what year it is, because Carmen … Continue reading Notebook Addict of the Year: Carmen
Here’s a shop to add to your travel itinerary if you’re hitting the West coast: Rare Device, a funky shop in San Francisco (they used to have a location in Brooklyn too, but alas, it closed). Here’s a couple of favorites spotted on their website: A colorful notebook by O-Check: And this is the birch … Continue reading Notebooks at Rare Device