Black Cover

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. [...]

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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 [...]

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Most of our notebook reviews fall into one of three categories. There’s the positive review, with maybe a few hints for improvement. Then there’s the generally negative review, wherein we try to be very specific about the reasons for our disappointment instead of just bashing the product. Usually, these notebooks tried to do something new [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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. This trusty, pocket-sized travel companion held [...]

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Today, we’re reviewing the Xonex Ru journal ($5.95). Check it out: Let’s get the obvious out of the way: we know it’s not black. However, it’s the best we could do under short notice. Someone had sent us an email saying we should check out the Ru journal (the company is Xonex, the notebook line [...]

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According to legend, when famed travel writer Bruce Chatwin learned that his favorite notebook, a moleskine manufactured by a small company in Paris, was being discontinued, he immediately went to the shop and bought every last one they had in stock. At least he had the forewarning. I’ve found the perfect little black notebook; in [...]

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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 [...]

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