All the images above are from King Ottokar’s Sceptre.

And there’s my favorite, which is from The Red Sea Sharks:

Maybe this is where my love of squared notebooks came from!

From the post at Biblioklept:

This page is from a notebook that contains some of Joyce’s preparatory notes for Ulysses—there are notes for characters “Stephen,” “Simon,” “Leopold,” etc. as well as lists “Books,” “Recipes” and general ideas “Theosophy”. This particular page, “Rhetoric,” seems to be part of the material that went into the “Aeolus” chapter of Ulysses, which plays with the windiness of rhetorical figures. From the National Library of Ireland, via UbuWeb.

Read more at  “Rhetoric” — A Page from James Joyce’s Notebooks | biblioklept.

See more at

Sketchbook 21 on the Adweek Talent Gallery.

This is a great blog you should all follow, as there are interesting insights on creativity, and LOTS of great photos of notebook collections! Here are a few that Amy has highlighted recently:

Kami Kinard, writer:

Heidi Mordhorst, writer and teacher:

Allan Wolf, writer:

Like me, Amy is addicted to notebook addicts! I’m looking forward to reading more of her blog.

In most respects, this notebook has all the standard features: ribbon marker, elastic closure, and logo stamped on the back. The inside front cover has a space for your name.

The key difference is the leather cover. Rather than being a thin layer of leather wrapped around cover boards, it’s a single layer of thick, sturdy leather, as you can see from the edges. It has that nice leather smell, and I’m sure it will soften up nicely as it ages. One immediate benefit I can see to this type of cover is that you won’t have that fraying that often happens at the corners of the spines of Moleskines and other similar notebooks, where the outer layer of the cover starts to tear from repeated folding.

They have a beautiful selection of colors:

The spine feels a little stiff, more so in front and back than when opening at middle, but it should soften up and break in: as the company points out on their website, “If you want your notebook to lie flat, bend the book back on itself. It can take the strain; they’re stronger than you think.”

The sample I was sent has their 90 gsm plain paper, which is smooth and somewhat “hard.” (Their “sketch” notebooks have a 140 gsm paper that is said to be “not as primed,” and better for pencil and charcoal.) All my usual pens felt good writing on it, and there was no beading-up or feathering. Only the Super Sharpie bled through. Show-through was about average.

Overall, this is quite a nice notebook and I look forward to seeing how it settles in over time. Prices start at £9.99 for A6 size, which is not super cheap, but also not unreasonable for the level of quality, I think. If you’d like to try a Monsieur Notebook yourself, at the moment your best bet may be ordering online– they are have distribution in the UK and Australia, but the US is “coming soon” at this point. In the meantime, we have a giveaway!

The folks at Monsieur Notebook have kindly offered to give one lucky reader a free notebook, including customized engraving! The winner can select any A5 or A6 notebook from their shop. I’ll select a random winner from entries received in these ways:

On Twitter, tweet something containing “@M_Notebook” and “@NotebookStories, and follow “@M_notebook” and “@NotebookStories.”

On Facebook, “like” the  Notebook Stories page  and the Monsieur Notebook page, and post something containing the words “Monsieur Notebook” on my wall.

On your blog, post something containing the words “Monsieur Notebook” and “Notebook Stories” and link back to this blog.

The deadline for entry is Friday May 18 at 11:59PM, EST. Good luck everyone!
And please remember to check my posts on Facebook and Twitter for an announcement of the winner.

Washi tape is a wonder.
I carry along a few small rolls whenever I travel so that I can quickly stick down any ephemera I encounter into my journal.
I wish I’d started doing this sooner; I’d come home with packets of ticket stubs and paper coasters from a  trip and end up trashing it all because there just wasn’t enough time (or the inclination) to sit down and journal it.
Here’s a travel journal I embellished with washi and decorative masking tape:

I love the beautiful colors and patterns– such a simple and elegant way to embellish a plain notebook. This inspirted me to go looking for some more notebooks decorated with washi tape:

Washi Tape Notebook Tutorial:

Moleskine + Washi Tape:

Washi Tape Notebook:

So many colors and patterns… the possibilities are endless!

One look at the Hebrew word mahberet – notebook – arching in print on thin brown paper brings back countless memories of school days. From now on it will be possible to see such notebooks only among keepsakes in storage, for those who have had the sense to keep them. This summer, for the first time, the Dafron company’s trademark brown notebooks will not be sold on the back-to-school market, after more than 60 years. The decline in demand, in the wake of the transition to computer technology, along with cheap imports of paper notebooks from the Far East and Hebron, have made their production in Israel uneconomical. Dafron’s two major competitors, Daftar and H.M.N., both shut down more than a decade ago, and now the largest manufacturer has also given up after production drastically decreased over the past decade.

Read more at Saying goodbye to Israel’s beloved notebook – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

“I collect journals like an addict. I see one, it calls my name and I can’t rest until I buy it.”

Here’s some of her collection:

Make sure you click through to read the rest of her post about how she uses her various notebooks and journals and join the discussion in the comments: My Journals and Notebooks.