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 impressive [...]
The Moleskine Knock-Off: The Markings Notebook
October 29th, 2008 · 19 Comments · black book
Tags:black cover·black notebooks·c. l. gibson markings·cl gibson·journal review·markings·moleskine·Moleskine alternatives·Notebook Review
Travels and Old Notebooks Revisited
September 8th, 2008 · 6 Comments · black book
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 [...]
Tags:black cover·Ciak·little black notebook·miquelrius·moleskine·Moleskine alternatives·Stifflexible
The Softcover Moleskine: We don’t hate you, Moleskine!
May 7th, 2008 · 22 Comments · black book
[Update! Several readers have written in to say the durability of these notebooks is pretty shoddy - see below] Let’s get one thing straight: we don’t hate the Moleskine. Yes, this website is dedicated to finding alternatives to what is widely considered the end-all, be-all of little black notebooks. But that has less to do [...]
Tags:black book·black notebook·moleskine·Moleskine alternatives·softcover Moleskine
Xonex Ru: The (Very) Soft Cover Black Book
May 16th, 2007 · 10 Comments · black book
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 [...]
Tags:little black notebook·moleskine·Moleskine alternatives·xonex ru
The Miquelrius: The flexible Moleskine?
May 3rd, 2007 · 22 Comments · black book
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 [...]
Tags:black cover·little black notebook·miquelrius·Moleskine alternatives·Soft Cover Notebook
The Moleskine (and why we’re still looking)
April 29th, 2007 · 20 Comments · black book
OK, let’s get it out of the way: The Moleskine. The current reigning king of the little black book. What every notebook we review on this blog will be compared to. What could we possibly have against it? The Moleskine’s beauty is in its utter simplicity: The cover: hard, durable, oily finish, black, and not [...]