Recently a group of us in the Well-Appointed Desk Patreon decided to read The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper by Roland Allen (available on Amazon or in the Well-Appointed Desk Bookshop.org store).
While the book starts with a fun store about how the modern-day Moleskin notebooks came to be, it delves into the history of writing going back to clay and wax tablets, all the way through today’s notebooks. While I realized I was going to be reading a dense history of all the ways paper and notebooks came to be used, it didn’t occur to me in a broader sense that we’d be watching the time periods where we transitioned from purely oral stories and traditions into creating written histories for centuries to come.
The book is a bit dense, with lots of information and so many names and places to remember. But the chapters are short, and I found it was best digested a bit at a time. Some chapters focused on how knowledge was transferred place to place geographically through travelers journals, recording everything from flora and fauna to mechanical structures. Some chapters focused on how sea voyages were one of the original things to be forever altered by the possibility of keeping log books, maps, navigational charts and the like as records of months or years-long voyages. Still others focused on how the act of physically being able to draw on paper (as opposed to canvas or painting) could allow artistic masters to hone their craft so much better, or writers to research and assemble their works.
In short, the book was absolutely fascinating, and even spent a bit of time on modern icons and notebooks (bullet journaling gets a chapter!). If you’re a lover of analog tools and notebooks/journals, this one is a great read for you!
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Hey glad to read your review on this book, I literally just finished it last night. Yes I agree it was dense in places, and yes it was still fascinating to read the progression of the notebook. I wished he could have spent a little more time on where the notebook is right now in history, seemingly making a comeback in the last 20 years, but I really did enjoy it.
Hiya! So glad that you enjoyed the book! I did aim to include more about contemporary notebook culture (bloggers, and junk journals and such like) but we ran out of space… It’s already a long book and the editors and I had to sacrifice quite a lot of the original draft to keep it manageable. Such is life! Roly
Hello! Wow… I’m a little starstruck that you responded. We all loved the book! Maybe there’s a call for Part 2?
Absolutely agree: it was fascinating. It’s not for everyone, but no book is. For me, this book hit all my favorite subjects, history, technology, notebooks and paper.
Hi Laura, really glad you enjoyed the book! Thanks for reviewing it so thoughtfully. Roly
Roland, your book was our Patreon book selection for last month! The whole groups will be tickled to know you follow the blog!