THE NOTEBOOK: A HISTORY OF THINKING ON PAPER

Here’s how this week’s arts and culture column begins:

Increasingly we live in a digital world: e-cards, Google calendars, the Contacts phone app.

“The Notebook” (Profile Books, $31), by Roland Allen, subtitled “A History of Thinking on Paper” celebrates the age-old practice of writing things down — numbers, images, thoughts, dreams — and charts the evolution of this handy, humble little item that many of us consider indispensable but to which I, for one, had never given much thought.

Allen begins by recounting the surprisingly absorbing history of the Moleskine, forever romantically associated with Hemingway, Matisse, and the nomadic English travel writer Bruce (“The Songlines”) Chatwin.

READ THE WHOLE PIECE HERE.

NB: Biblioasis is publishing the North American edition of The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper, to be released on Sept. 4, 2024