Moleskine Notebooks

Moleskine notebooks! These seem to generate considerable debate among people who write in an analog manner. According to the little booklet that accompanies Moleskine books, travel writer Bruce Chatwin had a particular notebook that he preferred writing in. The manufacturer, from Tours, France went out of business and he had to buy up all he could to work on his book, The Songlines (a very good book, by the way, I just finished it). The booklet goes on to tell how in 1997, a small Milanese publisher brought the book back, hence Moleskins exist. I started noticing them in book stores around 2002 and picked up my first one, a pocket edition shortly thereafter, which I still have. I used it to write part of my book, The Grand Tour in. Usually I wrote in cheaper notebooks, as Moleskine can be quite pricey but a few years ago when I took my interest in higher level stationery products I acquired a few Moleskine, some pocket notebooks, and some of the larger and even a reporter notebook. They are sturdy, well-designed, with a handy place mark ribbon and the included pocket in the back can be useful. Back when I picked up my first one years ago, they were only available in the black variety but now have many colors and designs and have licensed out to movies, to DC Comics and Peanuts and some even have quotes on them. The issue I mentioned that generates debate is that of paper quality. There are many fountain pen users who swear off ever using Moleskines. Bleed through on to the next page. Ghosting. These are the issues that annoy many FP users. With pencil there seems to be no controversy, but with wetter pens, including some get pens, there are bleed through issues. I frequently use fountain pen. In fact I use fountain pen probably more in my writing than other pens or pencils. I notice a lot of bleed through when I use a fountain pen with a wider nib. I just tried my TWSBI Vac-700 1.1 stub nib and there is quite a bit of bleed through, not so bad that I won’t use it in my Moleskine, though as it’s not as big an issue to me personally. But, obviously it bothers some people and they will likely turn to Leuchtturm 1917 and Rhodia for their writing purposes. I find if I use an Extra-Fine or Fine, I don’t really have any issue.