Here are two pictures of my notebooks.
In my collection you can see some FieldNotes. One of them, I use as the Archery Training Manual you see at the second picture. The rampage at the bottom comes from an arrow; wrong time, wrong place
The little black notebook on top is the one, I currently use. It’s a Brunnen Kompagnon in DIN A6, lined with a backpocket, and a pencilholder.
The one in the background with the Label “Storybook” on the front, is my Storybook (you won’t tell that by it’s name???). There, I wright down stories and fragments of stories, the world will never see. Some of them might bring me into jail…..

I’d have to say that is the first notebook I’ve ever seen that’s been pierced by an errant arrow! Thanks Michael, and please stay out of jail so you can keep collecting notebooks!

Studies show that thinking back on happy times elevates mood, and observing and preserving memories is one of the most satisfying ways of bringing order to life.

My mother started a memory-keeping tradition a few years ago that has proved to be a lot of fun.

She bought two matching lined journals, one for each granddaughter. At the end of every visit to Kansas City, my older daughter writes a paragraph about the highlights of our visit, and I write in my younger daughter’s book.

We’ve only been doing it since 2007, but already, we all enjoy looking back at the entries from past visits. It’s astounding how quickly even intense memories fade, and how effectively a brief note reminds us of highlights from the past – the time my daughter fell into the duck pond, the time my father set off the fire alarm when making pancakes, the time when my sister and her husband got locked in the bedroom.

I wish I’d thought to do this when I was younger– I have a pretty good memory anyway, but I didn’t always keep a diary, and I know there’s lots of things that have slipped away. In more recent years, I often tended to write more in my journal when I was unhappy, and re-reading those notebooks only gives a partial picture of what my life was really like. Now, I try to write more often, and capture both good things and bad. As the years go by, it can be a surprise to find that I’ve written down events that I no longer remember, and I want to have some happy surprises!

The Happiness Project: Want to a Quick, Easy Way to Preserve Happy Memories?.

Available at ModCloth for $19.99.

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Dec 08, 2009 Goldspot Pens
Jan 05, 2010 Journaling Arts
You can submit a post to the next carnival at this link. To learn more about this monthly extravaganza of notebook and pen p()rn, visit the carnival info page.

The Fourth Carnival of Pen, Pencil and Paper – Black Belt Productivity.

Then there’s the latest products, the themed, pre-formatted Passions journals and the Folio-size ring binder stuff. I don’t think the Passions series will sell very well, as they’re too specific. They may be bought as gifts but I think most Moleskine users like the open-ended versatility of their notebooks– the blank-slate quality that welcomes creativity, rather than hemming it in with forms to be filled out.
As for the ring binder, this will fill a need but it looks like they’re using an odd ring format that might not be compatible with standard hole punchers. Perhaps I’m wrong about this, but it could be a drawback. The ring-binder, at least, seems to be in response to interest from the Moleskine user community– in one of the Facebook user groups, or perhaps on Moleskinerie, there was a discussion thread about new products people would like to see, and something refillable was one of them. Otherwise, I think many of those ideas have been ignored by Moleskine, which is a shame. One idea I think would be a slam dunk is a chunkier, double-thickness Moleskine. It might not be as pocketable, but it would look great, and feel great, and serve a useful purpose for people who go through notebooks fast. It would be cool if they did it with multiple ribbons, as the City notebooks have. Other new products I’d like to see:

–a few new colors for the hardcover notebooks, perhaps more muted than the bright Volant colors.

–Cahier-format planners and address books, to be used with the next idea below:

–some sort of cover into which 3-4 cahiers can be inserted, perhaps similar to the Kolo Essex travel book. This would allow people to mix and match a few sections so they could keep an address book and planner while swapping out a notes section as it fills up, or have lined and blank pages in one notebook, for instance.

–pre-printed numbers on the pages.  Many people seem to number their pages, so I would think there’d be a market for this– maybe not a huge market, but probably no smaller than the number of people who want a pre-formatted journal for wine or books!

It will be interesting to see what Moleskine does in the future– they obviously want to grow their brand and feel that just selling more of their classic formats isn’t going to get them to their goals. But that means they have more and more products in their catalog selling fewer and fewer units each. What new notebook products would you like to see, from Moleskine or any other brand?

Antiques and the Arts Auction Listing — Rare Books, Paper & Ephemera Auction Olde Tyme Stuffe, Inc. 54 Suffolk Street Worcester MA 01604 Thursday, October 22, 2009 at 6:00 pm.

40% off coupons at Borders are indeed dangerous!

Moleskine, Doane, and Rhodia… A little much? « Cat’s Jot Spot.

I like to live a fairly minimalist life in some ways myself, and the 100 things concept is appealing… but I’d so completely blow that with notebooks alone!

» 100 things | mnmlist.com.

I love the colors they sent me– I know the white would probably get dirty with day to day use, but there’s still something very cool about it.

The black and white PSN notebooks have a slightly textured cover just like the Pen & Ink Sketchbook– almost identical to Moleskine or Piccadilly, but just slightly softer, somehow. The orange and blue “Flash” notebooks have a smooth, matte-textured cover– the texture is hard to describe, but it’s almost similar to a wetsuit. Inside, the PSN and Flash notebooks seem exactly the same, so I’m just showing the Flash. They have the standard features: a ribbon marker and an expanding back pocket. The inside front cover is totally blank.

The binding feels a little stiff when you open it, but both notebooks lie quite flat when opened all the way.

Instead of the typical embossed logo on the back cover, these notebooks have the branding stamped on the front. The back is totally plain. As you can see in the photo below, one of the notebooks has a contrasting color elastic cord rather than the usual flat ribbon– I quite liked this little detail, though the flat elastic might be more practical. Like the Rhodia Webnotebook, the slightly padded cover gets a little dented by the elastic.

Below is a comparison of the graph paper in the orange notebook (top) with a squared Moleskine (bottom). The PSN notebook has slightly darker, sharper lines.

In testing my usual pens, I found that the paper performed pretty well, about the same as a Moleskine, and maybe with a tiny bit more showthrough than a Piccadilly. It’s very smooth and pleasant to write on with my favorite pen, the Uniball Signo RT 0.38– I’d say it’s very comparable to Moleskine or Piccadilly or the Markings journal I was using recently and only slightly falls short of the ultimate smoothness of the Clairfontaine/Rhodia paper. The Pilot Varsity fountain pen I tried feathered very slightly.

The blue notebook has heavier weight sketch paper with a bit of texture to it– pens barely show through at all. It also seemed to work nicely with watercolors, holding up well without much buckling.

Overall, I think these notebooks are quite nice– I personally tend to prefer something that feels slightly more slim and sleek, as I mentioned when reviewing the Rhodia Webnotebook and the Pen & Ink Sketchbook. The thicker covers give a feeling of quality and permanence, but that ever so slight extra bulk can just make them feel a bit less pocketable. But if that doesn’t bother you, you’ll probably be happy with the paper and the rest of the features.

Specs:

The PSN notebooks shown here retail for around €4.95, and the Flash notebooks are €3.95. These are said to be A6 size, which is supposed to be 4.133 x 5.826″ but the actual measurements of the notebooks are approximately 3.5 x. 5.5″. Both styles are also available in other sizes.

The graph notebook has 192 pages of 80 gram paper. Lined and plain versions are also available.

The sketchbook has 80 pages of 150 gram paper.

Made in China.

For readers in the US, the biggest drawback to these notebooks is that you can’t buy them! They are available in the Netherlands and some European countries, and a few other places with Dutch ties such as Aruba. For more info and a list of retailers, please visit Presign International. But if you want one in the meantime, you can enter the GIVEAWAY!

I’ll be picking a random winner to receive the black PSN Sketchbook (heavy unlined paper). Here’s how you can enter:

• Follow me on Twitter @notebookstories AND post this message as a Twitter update: Win a cool notebook this week @notebookstories http://www.notebookstories.com
• If you have a blog, write a post linking to this review and email me your blog post URL at contest@notebookstories.com
  

The deadline for entry is 5pm EST on Friday October 30. I’ll announce all the winner next week. Good luck!