Notebook Stories

This book looks great– an entire graphic novel in facsimile notebook form: My Favorite Thing is Monsters “Set in the same 1960s Chicago where Ferris spent her youth, the book’s main character is Karen Reyes, a 10-year-old obsessed with movie monsters…. The central gimmick of the comic is that Karen is the cartoonist behind its […]

I’d love to see this in person– this art installation is a glowing flat circle that turns out to be made of thousands of recycled notebooks! “Commissioned by Azkuna Zentroa, Luzinterruptus crafted Denboran Zehar for the 10th anniversary of Gutun Zuria (Bilbao Internacional Literature Festival) in April 2017. In light of the anniversary, the designers […]

David Sedaris has a new book out called Theft By Finding, which contains entries from diaries he’s kept from 40 years, including while he was a student at the Art Institute of Chicago. The diaries themselves are quite interesting– he made many of them himself and decorated the covers: Read more at: David Sedaris: The […]

This looks like a lovely book, full of travel sketches and notes on flora and fauna found in uncharted places: Explorers’ Sketchbooks. “This remarkable book showcases 70 such sketchbooks, kept by intrepid men and women as they journeyed perilous and unknown environments—frozen wastelands, high mountains, barren deserts, and dense rainforests—with their senses wide open.” Available […]

More notebooks from chefs! “Fine-art photographer Jeff Scott won the 2012 James Beard Foundation Award in the Photography category for Notes From a Kitchen: A Journey Inside Culinary Obsession…. The book doesn’t contain any recipes, but instead aims to reveal the creative process for some of the top, young chefs in America. Shot documentary-style, Scott’s […]

A new book called The Revenge of Analog has a more detailed version of the Moleskine origin story with a twist I’d never heard before: During the summer of 1995, [Moleskine’s now-VP of Brand Equity and Communications Maria] Sebregondi was sailing off the coast of Tunisia on the yacht of her friend Fabio Rosciglione. He […]

If there’s one thing I love more than a notebook, it’s a facsimile notebook! I have been building up a small collection of books that reproduce artists’ notebooks or sketchbooks and they are among my favorite art books to flip through for inspiration. I’ve already reviewed a few of them: Lynda Barry’s Syllabus (buy here) […]

This is an oldie but a goodie and worth linking to again! A collection of wonderful notebooks belonging to various artists, authors,  musicians and others: Nick Cave’s notebook: Keith Haring’s notebook: See lots more at: A Peek Inside the Notebooks of Famous Authors, Artists and Visionaries – Flavorwire Save Save

This is an extraordinary story. But I hope it doesn’t happen to me someday! The 148 diaries below were found in a dumpster. Many years later, a biographer named Alexander Masters tries to decipher the writer’s identity from their contents… to say any more would be a spoiler. It’s a must read! Read more at: […]

I love these photos, from a blog post by Jackie Morris where she’s collected a wide variety of images of writers’ notebooks: David Almond‘s notebook for Counting Stars: Robert MacFarlane’s notebooks: See lots more at Writer’s notebooks in pictures.