notebookism

The best notebook ever made

Nick Carr sent this intriguing submission:

"The best notebook ever made....is not the Moleskine! Blasphemy, right? Wrong!

I lived in Italy a few years back, and randomly purchased a Moleskine-like notebook in a small stationary store in Bologna. The notebook resembled the Moleskine in many ways - black oil cover, lined pages on a cream paper, pocket in the back, a bookmark, and a band to keep it closed.

What made these books special is something I have never seen anywhere else: the so-called "stifflexible" cover. In the pictures I am submitting, the hard cover has two bends in it, that allow you to literally bend it back to flip through your notebook without fully opening it (making it "stiff" and "flexible" at the same time).  It might not seem like much not to actually try it out for yourself, but it makes all the difference in the world. You can put it in your backpocket and it will bend comfortably when you sit down. You can rifle through the pages without any trouble. 

The journals were made by Giuliano Mazzuoli in 1997 (before the current Moleskine!), an Italian designer who has since moved on to the watch and pen business. His company, 3-6-5 Designs ( http://www.365-design.com/) still makes planners with this design, but they are nowhere near the same. According to the company, they have been discontinued.

I put forth that these are superior to the Moleskine, and urge Modo e Modo to try something like this for themselves. Now knowing that the five notebooks I have coming in the mail are the last ones I'll probably find in a long time, I sort of feel like Chatwin learning the Moleskine shop had closed. 

Some other minor differences: the page edges are colored red, blue, and green, and the bookmark is actually this wonderful flap from the backcover that you can stick into the pages. If anyone has any further information on these, please contact me through my website.

Recent Discussions

GeorgieR  asked:

Looking over nearly 650 photos in this group I see that nearly all of them show drawings, or drawings with notes, and very few just notes.
I only occasionally draw in my notebook as its not a sketchbook. I only draw when the note needs a picture - not when the picture needs a note as in many of the photos which have writing in them.
Is this the reason that the Moleskine is so popular here? One doesn't need to carry the notes around for any length of time, once the book is full it can easily go on a shelf - to be referred to when one wishes but only rarely away from home.
The loose -leaf notebook on the other hand is an organic thing, the notes may only be needed for a few days or they may be needed for years. The Moleskine format is too limiting for that.

grannykass says:

George, I'm with you on the notes for notes sake rather than pictures needing notes. I like to draw and sketch, but my life does not revolve around it. Sometimes I feel like it should, but I don't let SHOULD hold much power over me anymore. However, I have done the loose leaf notebook for a big part of my life and find that it is too impermanent for me. I'm the kind of person who would NEVER tear a page out of a book and that includes bound notebooks such as the Moleskine (even the ones perforated for tearing out). I carry 3x5 card for that type of thing. I have no notes that are of a nature that I have to have them with me at all times, so when a notebook is filled up it goes on the shelf, to come down when I need to reference something I wrote there last year or a quote I want to remember. Frankly, of late, my older Moles have spent more time on the desk than on the shelf and I've started doing a little more Indexing than I did in the beginning. I'm also using the Cahair's for specific topics such as NANO. All my notes for my story are going into one place. Once the Nano is over and my story written and edited, the notebook will rarely ever get looked at again, but it will be on the shelf so when asked by the press after the book is a stunning success on the best seller list I will be able to tell them just exactly where that idea came from.

As for the mass majority of people who display their 'art work' from their Moleskines, I think that they are a minority of the users of Moleskines. The visually artistic users have just found an outlet for the work they produce on a day to day level and it doesn't have to be museum quality work so the average Joe or Jane Smoo can share their artistry to a larger community of like minded people. I think that allows the everyday man/woman to have an enhanced level of self-esteem and a level of rewards for their work they otherwise wouldn't get. It is encouraging to have someone look at what you've done and say: "hey, I like that! Good Job!" That kind of affirmation is severely lacking in society today and Moleskine and places like Flickr allows people to get that little snippet of encouragement and a statement of personal self-worth.

I'd love to hear how others feel about this!

[Photo: Trumpetvine/© All rights reserved]

Join the discussion @ Notebookism/FLICKR

Chinese Painting and Calligraphy in 3D

Chinese Painting and Calligraphy in 3D

Watch on YouTube

To buy or not to buy

The Conway Stewart Shakespeare Limited Edition has been created using the art of airbrush and hand painting to evoke scenes from one of his earliest theatrical triumphs, and is thought to be the classic but tragic love story.

The Conway Stewart Shakespeare is a fitting tribute to this greatest of English writers, featuring a scene from one of his most memorable works, Romeo and Juliet on the barrel, while the cap is adorned with the likeness of Shakespeare himself, taken from the famous engraving in the First Folio of Shakespeare's works.

The 'Shakespeare' Pen
Limited Edition, 2007

Conway Stewart

Peruse
---------------------------------------------------------------
Discover and join our communities on FLICKR and GoogleGroups. Check out our Blank Page discussions.
We'll see you on Monday.

Locking Journal

Lock away your most treasured secrets in a luxurious leather journal.

• Choose (shown top to bottom) red, white, or (not shown) black crocodile-embossed leather.
• Chrome lock.
• Acid-free lined pages.
• Tonal ribbon bookmark with key.
• 7"L x 5"W.
• Made in Italy.

Locking Journal at Neiman-Marcus
Product Link

We're almost 500-strong!

As of last count, the Notebookism at FLICKR community is now 459 members. Just a few more to go before the magic number.

Discover and join Notebookism/FLICKR now!
No Notebooks Left Behind:)

Boo Book

Found this cute scary-furry "thing" at Etsy:

"The world can be a scary place, full of nightly noises, menacing monsters, and dreadful dreams. But not every monster wants to scare and terrify. With the help of a magical spell and an appetite for troubles, a monster can be your dearest friend.

Furry and fearless, friendly but ferocious, these Nightmare Snatchers are the perfect journals for writing down and drawing out all that scares, frightens, and worries. You have only to recite the spell found at the front of the book, record your woes on their aged tea-stained pages, then mark your page with their long tail and your faithful friend the Nightmare Snatcher will eat your fears away..."

Lomper- Nightmare Snatcher Journal
By Spider Bite @ Etsy

Blank Page # 40

Every Wednesday at Notebookism we open a "Blank Page" -  your chance to ask, answer and discuss anything notebook-related.  Keep it nice, keep it relevant.

Blank Page, an Open Thread.

Every Wednesday at Notebookism we open a "Blank Page" -  your chance to ask, answer and discuss anything notebook-related.  Keep it nice, keep it relevant.

Blank Page, an Open Thread.

Discussion: Your favorite pen ?

Erin Shrestha  says:

i love gel pens because of how smoothly they write--i don't think i could ever go back to a "normal" pen.

i like the pilot g2 .07 in black, but sometimes the ink skips, so...i recently found the zebra sarasa .07--also in black, because it must bei  black--and really like it so-far. (plus, the ink doesn't run through the pages in my moleskine notebook.) very smooth writing and no skipping!

The discussion continues at Notebookism/FLICKR

Image: Glasspens

The bounty of Katmandu

I have always been afraid of running out of things to read. It's not rational, but even as a child, I needed a tottering stack of library books to make me feel secure, to reassure me that there would always be another book waiting. It was not until I was in my early 20s that I actually faced the prospect of a briefly bookless life.      

I had arrived in Katmandu, Nepal, expecting to find my friend Annie waiting for me. Instead, I found a note telling me she was walking a Nepali friend to her village and wouldn't be back for at least a week. The timing was also not in my favor: It was April 1990, just weeks after the revolution, and the city was tense. There was a nightly curfew, sunset to sunrise. Alone in my hotel room at night, I read every book I'd brought with me in the first three days. Mild panic ensued.       

I was saved from despair by my discovery of the Tantric Books Shop in Thamel, the hippie traveler neighborhood near my hotel. Immediately upon entering, I found myself transported to a familiar and beloved world – shelf after packed shelf of fiction from every English-speaking country I could name, not to mention shelves of books in Spanish, Hebrew, and Japanese.      

Then everything changed for me. I may have been alone in Katmandu and nervous about the revolution, but inside the bookshop I was happily occupied and thrilled with possibilities. There were other things I might have to worry about, but books were no longer one of them.      

I chose carefully that first afternoon, finding a copy of Mary McCarthy's "The Group" for 45 Nepali rupees. I passed it on to Annie to read when she finally returned, and it still sits on my shelf today, the heart-shaped stamp from the Tantric Books Shop faded but clear..."

The bounty of Katmandu: books
By Sue Dickman
CS Monitor

Read the full article

[Thanks Chris!]