The Notebook A History of Thinking on Paper
As the title suggests?
“Was there a connection between notebooks and creativity?” Page 14.
I am unsure. Saw the title and blurb on a book list. Checked out the library copy. Read the first page. Bought a copy from the bookstore. Stuck a bookmark in it. Then checked out a different copy from the other library because I like the book-reading software better.
The opening gambit sucked me right in with the brief narrative thread about the rebirth of the legendary line of Moleskine line of notebooks.
“The Romans, when they eventually succeeded the Bronze Age and Hellenic civilisations of the Eastern Mediterranean, adopted small Ulu Burun-style tablets, which they called pugillares or ‘handhelds’.” Page 19.
PDAs gave way to smart phones, and yet, the concept isn’t so new?
pugillares
Really, think it through, that’s the name that should be applied to all my handheld devices, over the years. Or?
zibaldoni
Weblogs. Blogs. Daily written diaries. The profane, profound, and mundane.
“The basic principle was simple: when you found a piece of writing that you liked, or found useful, you copied it out into your personal notebook.” Page 53.
Or, what would probably become, a commonplace book — my own spin on that, Pink Cake — its working title was “quotidian,” as a play on words. It’s a collection of useful quotes, my collations and curation.
While, ostensibly, about the history of notebooks, The Notebook also traces the history of thought, and how we think on paper, the transmission of ideas, and as noted, the common place book. Towards that end, better than any class notes I ever took, I did record quotes and such, and I’ve long since used a commonplace book as source material, but in recent decades days, almost exclusively with nothing but digital. Still, it’s how I learned. Continue to learn.
“Melville kept a small notebook in his pocket at all times, and wrote up a more formal journal each night.” Page 155.
Studying Sir Isaac Newton’s notebooks?
“The apple story, in other words, was a deliberate myth-building exercise; and it was one of many.” Page 175.
Thought so. The notebooks proved it thus.
Travel journals, based on older logbooks, those were a source, all done on notebooks. Then there was Ruffian Dick — the way I recall, that story was based on Sir Richard Burton’s notebooks from an American excursion.
Half Price Books used to sell blank books, $3.95, maybe even $2.98, my records are a little dated, and that was the perfect price point. I remember walking over to the South Lamar Half-Price and fetching up several of the blank books. Each year I’d get some for my sister. Became a thing. She claimed she loved the blank books as a starting point, and she carried one at all times, think she still does. I have a few leftover in my library, flipping through one, I found some of my original study of the tarot, the symbolism, the various cards and the interpreted meaning. Really dated material, but that was also how notebooks worked.
Other chapters include what we know to be true, at least, my own, empirical evidence suggests that this works, but an active kind of journaling, detailing thoughts and feelings around personal trauma helps relieve the complications, moral, physical, the mental aliments that derive from trauma. Not new information, but interesting to see the validations. Science in a notebook.
The Notebook A History of Thinking on Paper
The points used for illustration — the data the author selected craft a careful narrative thread about the accumulation, curation, and dissemination of knowledge via notebooks.
The Notebook A History of Thinking on Paper
• Notes:
Moleskine
Canvas Journal Covers
Ruffian Dick
Field Notes
Typical Goal Setting
A Couple of Take Aways
