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murderousscottishgremlin's review
informative
medium-paced
4.5
As someone who really likes stationery, I found this quite interesting. Makes me feel like my practice of keeping a notebook is part of some wider, grander, tradition.
ralstog's review
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
4.0
Fascinating anecdotes built around the framework of notebooks
1mpossiblealice's review
informative
inspiring
reflective
5.0
I absolutely loved this. I was pretty sure I would from the description and the fact I have a notebook obsession. It's particularly fascinating because you get the history of the notebook, from the first bound paper books onwards, but also the different and significant things notebooks have been used for. So as well as the notebook physical history, you get snippets about how accounting developed, and art, and natural history, and writing, and many different subjects. Which I loved. It goes right up to date, including a chapter on bullet journaling.
I completely loved this, and like all great non-fiction it's given me loads of other interesting topics I can go off and read about.
I completely loved this, and like all great non-fiction it's given me loads of other interesting topics I can go off and read about.
shanaqui's review
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Roland Allen's The Notebook is, as the subtitle says, "A History of Thinking on Paper" -- one that ranges pretty far tracking down where we began to use paper as a way to do things we can't hold in our heads, as a tool for processing information, as a way to test things out, etc. It's almost completely Western-oriented, focusing on areas like Italy, France and the UK for the most part, discussing various different strands of how notebooks are used. First for financial accounting, then for digesting popular culture and literature, and then evolving into diaries. It also discusses artists' sketchbooks, the use of notebooks for collecting recipes, and of course, bullet journaling.
It's the kind of book I love, rambling through the topic and finding examples to discuss, casting them in their context, etc. I found the stuff about da Vinci's notebooks particularly fascinating, for example (and giggled about the cursing of his terrible handwriting), and of course, Darwin's notebooks and the famous "I think".
My favourite chapter of all was the one about ICU patient diaries and how they're used, though. I didn't expect this book to make me cry, but the topic hit unexpectedly close to home here, and I found myself crying my way through the last few pages of that chapter.
Definitely recommended if you're interested in this kind of thing -- not just notebooks specifically, but also if you enjoy history through the eye of a single object or set of objects.
It's the kind of book I love, rambling through the topic and finding examples to discuss, casting them in their context, etc. I found the stuff about da Vinci's notebooks particularly fascinating, for example (and giggled about the cursing of his terrible handwriting), and of course, Darwin's notebooks and the famous "I think".
My favourite chapter of all was the one about ICU patient diaries and how they're used, though. I didn't expect this book to make me cry, but the topic hit unexpectedly close to home here, and I found myself crying my way through the last few pages of that chapter.
Definitely recommended if you're interested in this kind of thing -- not just notebooks specifically, but also if you enjoy history through the eye of a single object or set of objects.
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