I have to confess, I have a love/hate relationship with Lamy... I hate their pens... I must hold a pen oddly, because the moulded grip in their pens just kills my hands so much, I would rather swap to a ballpoint pen. Yes... I hate them that much! But... I love the notebooks. Absolutely LOVE them! Why? Well, for a start, the paper is amazing. It will handle a fountain pen without feathering, ghosting or bleed-through. If you prefer gel pens or ballpoints, the paper's also great. If you like to use fineliners, they too work well. And if you're a graphite lover, there's enough tex ..read more

Field Notes make very groovy pocket notebooks, and sometimes excellent chunky boxes to keep them in too. They've always been a bit superior - and now here's a special edition that shouts it from the front page. Bound in sturdy lake-blue card with three staples (replaced here with thread for a bit of extra rust-proofing), this is built to take a bit of a beating if needed but would look just as at home in a design studio or one of those posh coffee-houses that now serves as an office to all the people who Work From Home and thus need to get out of the house. It's a looker, for sure. Field Not ..read more

At the end of last week's post, Scrib tossed down a gauntlet and said, "Maybe we'd better let Amanda tell you about Size Well B..." Okay then! Much as A4 and A5 are great, and I have a pretty large stash of both sizes, I do have an enduring love of B5 and B6 (not B4... that would just be too big. Don't be daft.). For those of you that aren't familiar with the B-size range, they follow the same principle that B5 is twice the size of B6 etc, and that the ratio of the two sides is the same as in the A-size range. They lie roughly between the A sizes, so B6 lies roughly between A6 and A5, and ..read more

As I look out of my window, it's looking less Spring-like than it did yesterday. Yesterday was bright and sunny, and the garden was dotted with bright splashes of colour from the flowers. Today, the best word for it would be 'dreich' a Scottish word that sums up wet/grey/miserable. Time to use some lovely bright notebooks to capture the Spring! Top of the list (as ever!) would be Clairefontaine, and you really can't go wrong with any of their notebooks, but to channel my current Spring-feelings, I would plump for the Inkebana. I mean, why not? The paper is glorious, the cover is beautiful and ..read more

Danish stalwarts Viking were barely known in Blighty until Nero introduced their wares, but by goodness are we glad to have them around now. Here are some more of the stonking pencils they make. There's a lot of HB, which might not sound that novel - but Viking does it very well. The hexagonal-bodied Element pencils are a good place to start; Element 2 has an eraser, while Element 1 does not (and can therefore be slotted-in to a pencil holder when it's worn down to a stub). If you prefer your HB cylindrical, the 701 does the same job in suitably rounded style. The Verso GS150, meanwhile, is ..read more

The arrival of the latest package from Clare (the "Q" of Nero's Notes) reminded me that I haven't done any sketching in AGES! I used to sketch quite a bit, but then Life seemed to happen, and although I take a sketch book and pencils out with me when we're walking on holiday, I rarely actually do any real sketching. I must remedy that. (In my defence, I'm usually plotting books!) So, what was in the package that made me reminisce, and long for the great outdoors, with pencil in one hand and sketchbook on my knee? Well, it was an odd beast in some ways. It's a pencil with an HB end and a 4B end ..read more

The smiley has a had a strange life in advertising, designed by an American but trademarked by a canny Frenchman who saw a good opportunity. It's meant everything from 'be a good neighbour' to 'here's a dubious tablet', but it's now usually intended to connotate happiness, which is generally agreed to be A Good Thing. Word. have done their usually sound job of rendering the concept as cover art, then inserting paper which absolutely loves graphite, and can just about handle fountain pen ink too. As a classic pocket-sized notebook it has a lot going for it. If smileyness is your thing, a thre ..read more

I think I own more Age Bag notebooks than any other kind. I love them! In fact, I've said before, that if I was only allowed one notebook type for the rest of my life, I would probably choose Clairefontaine Age Bags. (NB... I said one notebook type, not one notebook!). "Why? What's so amazing? They look like a pretty simple, no-frills notebook." Yes, my friend. And that's exactly it. When I boil it down, what I want from a notebook is really very simple. I want a book that I can make notes in. The clue is kind of in the name... When I make notes, by preference, I ..read more

We do try to give honest reviews on this site and today, well, that commitment to candour is going to be put to the test. It would be lovely to claim that every product is perfect in its own way, of course it would. But this one is perhaps best described as excellent if you put the work in. If you're a regular visitor to these pages you'll already know that everyone's a fan of Blackwing pencils. They're long, they look good, they work beautifully and because you'll enjoy using them they're always good value for money, relatively speaking. A Blackwing sharpener which collects all the shavings s ..read more

I live in Scotland. In the summer, the daylight seems almost never ending. In the winter? Yeah. But finally it feels as if spring might appear. The frogs will start frolicking in the pond again, and dawn will occur closer to breakfast than lunch. The idea of going for a long walk doesn't feel like madness or potentially necessitate 45 layers of clothing. And if I'm walking all morning/afternoon/day, I will (of course) have a notebook (or two, or more) with me, not least because I am right in the middle of the madness of writing the next book. Out on a walk, I may suddenly get an idea for ..read more