NotSoThoreau

Not computers, mind you, but paper notebooks. There’s a new year coming up and I am buying up notebooks for it. I like the ability to have alarms in the calendar on my phone. I use notes and Remember the Milk. But I no longer really trust digital. I haven’t since Jeffrey was in the ICU and the charger for my Palm was back at work.

I have been using Moleskines for a long time and the small Reporter is still one of my favorite notebooks. The problem is that the paper quality has gone downhill since they started making them in China. I did buy a new Reporter, so I have one if I really need it. I’d prefer to use something with better paper, since I tend to use fountain pens.

I decided to try something new and I ordered a 3 pack of the latest Field Notes special edition.

After reading reviews on them last night, I believe that most Field Notebooks have a first page, testing all manner of ink and pens. I didn’t do that. But here is the back of my first entry and bleed through is not bad on these:

I had a temporary mania for them. I like old notebooks and I like the idea of simple, retro notebooks. I will likely buy them for other purposes. They don’t really work for my daily notebook. I like to track my days and I want something larger and more permanent. If I were to use Field Notes in the same way, I’d go through a notebook every three weeks. But here is the answer for anyone looking for a fountain pen friendly notebook, Quo Vadis Habana:

I did some samples, in the Anise green one, using my calligraphy pen’s broadest nib. I can still use both sides of the paper. They are slightly larger than the Rhodia and Moleskine shown here:

I prefer the blank page ones. They have a pocket in the back. The only down side is that this is the white paper, not an ivory. They are very nice notebooks.

And, I also got this:

I like the other Word. notebooks too. I couldn’t resist this one. There is not a lot of room to jot down the day’s happenings. Think of it as tweeting your day. It will work nicely with my regular notebook. I also carry an Apica. I really love the paper on these and it might even work for my daily notebook if I used a cover on one. I use it for thoughts on my system. It seems a bit odd as I really don’t do a lot of planning. I still manage to fill one up anyway.