In my post about Denbigh notebooks, I linked to a site that had a photo of a Denbigh notebook from the 1960s: Drew Family Diaries. These diaries are worth a post of their own! Roger Drew created a website to share this amazing collection of diaries kept by members of his family, starting with his … Continue reading The Drew Family Diaries
Here’s a few things I discovered over the past few weeks, at least one of which I think might be under my Christmas tree already. The rest will be purchased with a gift card I just received! J.M.W. Turner: The Wilson Sketchbook This looks like a lovely facsimile sketchbook to add to my collection. Turner … Continue reading What I Want for Christmas!
I lived in Brooklyn for years, but never went to Gage and Tollner, an old-fashioned steakhouse that was an institution there for over 100 years until it closed in 2004. They’re working on reopening soon, and in the process, came across some amazing artifacts. From an article in the New York Times: For an individual, … Continue reading Gage & Tollner Notebooks from the 1960s and 1970s
Yet another reason I’m dying to go to Japan! 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 … Continue reading Techorui Toshoshitsu: A Library of Notebooks
There is currently an art exhibition on view in Australia featuring a work called “Chinese Bible” by Yang Zhichao. It is a “monumental installation of 3000 notebooks and diaries inscribed between 1949 and 1999. These small books were collected by the artist from Beijing markets from 2005 to 2008 and ritually washed before presentation. Once … Continue reading Scanned Notebooks From Yang Zhichao’s Chinese Bible
I’m very fortunate to have friends in Paris and Amsterdam that I’ve been able to visit a few times. I went in 2014 and bought quite a few notebooks. This past year, I went again, and also included Belgium on my itinerary. I wasn’t expecting to buy as many notebooks this time, but I ended … Continue reading Notebooks from Europe
September 12, 2008: 25 people died in a train collision in Los Angeles. Top Wall Street bankers and US government officials met in a panic to try to save Lehman Brothers, as the country began to tumble into the biggest financial crisis since the depression. David Foster Wallace committed suicide. But on the brighter side of things, … Continue reading Ten Years of Notebook Stories!
David Sedaris has a new book out called Theft By Finding, which contains entries from diaries he’s kept from 40 years, including while he was a student at the Art Institute of Chicago. The diaries themselves are quite interesting– he made many of them himself and decorated the covers: Read more at: David Sedaris: The … Continue reading David Sedaris’ Diaries
I’ve been posting less frequently here lately, due to some time constraints, but I’m still always searching for interesting notebooks! If you are hungry for notebook eye candy in between blog posts, please make sure you also follow me on Pinterest. Lots of beautiful notebook pages and other good stuff.
This is an extraordinary story. But I hope it doesn’t happen to me someday! The 148 diaries below were found in a dumpster. Many years later, a biographer named Alexander Masters tries to decipher the writer’s identity from their contents… to say any more would be a spoiler. It’s a must read! Read more at: … Continue reading The Mystery of 148 Lost Notebooks
