Black Cover

Today’s R.L. Gibson Markings Notebook bookends a set of three moleskine-style notebook reviews we’ve done, following some fierce competition from the Piccadilly and the Guildhall. Both the Piccaddilly and the Guildhall are inexpensive little black notebooks that I initially feared were nothing more than Moleskine knock-offs, and was suprised to find that both had [...]

[Read more →]

When we first began this site, one of the biggest problems we had was finding out about new little black notebooks. Luckily, as we’ve grown, you readers have become our prime source for learning of the latest brands on the market, to the point where our biggest problem has become actually obtaining copies for review. [...]

[Read more →]

Recently, I’ve seen a number of notebooks on the market whose origins are pretty creative. For example, Book Journals takes old hard cover books from the 1950s and 1960s and converts them into spiral-bound notebooks.

Urban Outfitters has recently started selling notebooks with real old vinyl records sliced up for the covers – very, very [...]

[Read more →]

Recently, Exaclair, Inc. (stationery importers of such fine products as the Rhodia line to the USA) sent me an unexpected package of notebooks for review, and by recently, I mean quite a while ago. Much apologies – as I posted last week, I haven’t been all that local in the past month, but now with [...]

[Read more →]

Hey everyone!
Contrary to popular belief, we’re still alive. The past couple months have been pretty crazy – for various reasons, I’ve been on trips to Spain, Italy, Chicago, New Mexico, and Cape Cod, and the only disappointing thing about seeing the world is that I didn’t find a single new black notebook. I figured that, [...]

[Read more →]

Since this website began a year ago, finding black notebooks has become an increasingly difficult task. We’ve covered everything from the common to those of the no-longer-available variety, and very rare is it that someone brings to our attention to one we haven’t heard of. So needless to say, I was thrilled when a package [...]

[Read more →]

If you’ve ever been to Venice, you are probably familiar with the tourist phenomenon of handmade leather journals.  I have yet to find a guide book that doesn’t recommend the best “authentic” store in Venice to pick up a handmade leather-bound notebook in which to record your travel adventures. Of course, how a place can [...]

[Read more →]

Before we get to the review of Scotland’s Alwych Book…

…I’d like to quote something from the Moleskine insert:
“Moleskine is the heir of the legendary notebook used for the past two centuries by great artists and thinkers, including Vincent Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, and Bruce Chatwin. [...]

[Read more →]

Miquelrius is a company located in Spain (near Barcelona) that has been in the stationary business for over 150 years. I happened to find their Moleskine-esque softcover notebook ($9) in a New York City art store today, and was very impressed at its quality and design, yet disappointed to see another black book failing in [...]

[Read more →]