From an exhibition at Dartmouth College: “James R. Crawford’s notebooks. Crawford was a ship’s engineer on the Canadian Arctic Expedition (1913-1918) organized by Vilhjalmur Stefansson. The notebooks, diaries and logs kept by expedition staff like Crawford provide valuable insight into the weather, ice conditions, and wildlife in the Arctic. Crawford, for example, kept daily detailed … Continue reading A Polar Explorer’s Notebook
From a lovely essay about using notebooks, by Elaine Fletcher Chapman: Most writers I know work from notebooks. I carry mine with me, as Jason Shinder was known to advise, along with a folder of poems I am currently revising. Even on my shorter commutes, I carry the pair. They remind me of my heart’s … Continue reading “They remind me of my heart’s desire…”
Evan emailed me to fess up about his addiction: I’m a notebook addict in the worst way-For the past few Christmases I’ve asked for journals for Christmas and received them, hopefully ensuring I won’t run out for awhile. I write everyday, mostly journal entries, but also notes, ideas, story outlines. I’ve found that actually writing … Continue reading Notebook Addict of the Week: Evan
I don’t even remember how I stumbled across this, but it looks pretty cool, even if you’re not a die-hard Indiana Jones fan: The guy who created this also offers similar products for the Hobbit and other films and TV shows, and can rebind journals in real leather, with an aged look and rubbed corners. … Continue reading Henry Jones’ Grail Diary Replica
Here’s a few things I pulled out of one of my storage boxes, about half of which is filled with childhood notebooks from the late ’70s to mid-’80s. First, a small orange looseleaf notebook. I was probably in about 6th grade when I decided to devote it to Astronomy and colored the cover with a … Continue reading Random Notebooks from My Collection
This week’s addict also emailed me photos of her excellent notebook collection, with some commentary: I enjoy pocket journals, the saddest part is that they run out of pages so soon and I always feel like I’m abandoning a best friend when I have to start a new one. My pet peeve is that I … Continue reading Notebook Addict of the Week: DreamerO
I loved this blog post in appreciation of using notebooks. The author talks about how she used notebooks as a kid, but gave them up as she grew older, feeling that it was somehow immature to be scribbling down her thoughts and ideas and the emotions of youth. But fortunately, she came back to the … Continue reading Rediscovering Notebooks
Wow, I can’t believe I never heard about this gallery show when it was in New York this past fall: Dylan Stone’s 100 Years project at Ruth Phaneuf Fine Arts. I found out about it via a recent post at Design Observer: The Twentieth Century began on the morning of the 20th of August, 1900, … Continue reading 100 Years of Diaries
These photos were submitted by former notebook addict of the week Paul, who is always a source of interesting tips! These diaries were kept by one of his family members from 1941-1944. The interior of the first one is an earlier version of the western diary I wrote about in this post, both made by … Continue reading 1940s Diary
I’ve had my eye on Bound Custom Journals for a while. The company was launched in 2011 after a successful Kickstarter campaign, inspired by founder Joel Sadler’s desire for a customized travel journal. The result is pretty extraordinary: a website where you can build custom notebooks page by page, with all manner of page templates … Continue reading Review: Bound Custom Journals