Last weekend, I read a wonderful novel called Andorra, by Peter Cameron. It’s elegantly and beautifully written, with some lush descriptions, including this scene, which takes place right at the beginning of the book, just after the narrator has arrived to start his new life in Andorra: I decided to visit the stationers. The front … Continue reading The Euphoria of Buying a Journal: Andorra, by Peter Cameron
Maybe someday I’ll be able to interview some celebrities about how they use a notebook! I caught this mention of notebooks in an article about the singer Ne-Yo: How do you relax? Writing, not necessarily writing a song, just writing in general. I have little notebooks that I carry around with me; some of them … Continue reading Ne-Yo’s Notebooks
Introducing my first (rather amateurish!) notebook video– this is a look at the notebook I just finished using. I’ll try to post more notebook videos in the future, and if any readers want to submit links to their own YouTube videos of notebooks, I’ll share those too.
What would you expect to find in Jack Kerouac’s notebooks? Probably not this: Jack Kerouac — Mr. On the Road, the King of the Beats, who begat the beatniks who begat the hippies who begat the hipsters — Jack Kerouac, the fountainhead of cool — that Jack Kerouac was obsessed with — guess what. Freedom? … Continue reading Jack Kerouac’s Notebooks: Not What You’d Think!
This Fringe Magazine article shares a title with, and quotes from one of my favorite Joan Didion essays, “On Keeping a Notebook.” In her essay, Didion says she doesn’t keep a notebook as any kind of attempt to record the facts of her daily life or to fossilize the events of the world around her. … Continue reading On “On Keeping a Notebook”
I like the look of this forthcoming book! What a beautiful cover. The Blue Notebook is not available until July 2009, but here’s a teaser: An unforgettable, deeply affecting tribute to the powers of imagination and the resilience of childhood, The Blue Notebook tells the story of Batuk, a precocious 15-year-old girl from rural India … Continue reading The Blue Notebook, by James Levine
From Affinity, by Sarah Waters, a dark and moody novel of psychological suspense set in the Victorian era: I saw her looking at the pictures I have pinned at the side of my desk, and then at this book. I had closed the covers, but had my pen between the pages to keep the place. … Continue reading A Victorian Journal Full of Dark Thoughts
I’ve been wanting to check these out for a while, and it seems they are finally more widely available. I picked up a set of 3 small dotted notebooks at Paper Presentation on West 18th St. in NYC. They also had the large size, and ruled and plain paper versions in both sizes. I’ve read … Continue reading Kikkerland WritersBlok Notebooks Now Available
A WikiHow page on “How to Keep a Notebook:” Step 1: Decide the purpose for your notebook. Will you write down your inventions? Will you write ideas for the screenplay, novel, poems you will someday write? Will you write down thoughts and ideas related to a particular project? Or do you simply want to have … Continue reading How To Keep a Notebook
I was in a store recently where a book called The Wednesday Sisters was a staff pick. I was struck by the cover image, which features a diary and a fountain pen. There is always something so nice about the look of handwritten words on a page…
