I heard about The Notebook from a newsletter and a book about the history of the notebook sounded quite interesting, especially since I have three unused notebooks in my house (and probably more at my parents’ house, not to mentioned all the half-filled notebooks!). In fact, the only notebook that I’m probably on the way to filling is my book notebook, where I’ve been logging the books that I’ve read from 2024 and 2025, along with hand-written book reviews for those books that do not make it onto the blog.

The Notebook takes us through the history of the notebook, from its use as a permanent record for transactions (parchment could be scrapped clean, thus susceptible to tampering) to its evolution into a household item and then a more personal item. Along the way, Allen introduces the many ways that the notebook has been used, and three that I found interesting are:

1. Zibaldone: This is a personal notebook where you capture any piece of writing that catches your fancy, from poems to recipes, from songs to list, it’s an eclectic mix.
2. Alba Amiconnu: This is a friendship book (predating the autograph book, where you collect signatures of peope you don’t know) for your friends to write in – perhaps draw a picture, write a verse or a message, etc. This also served as proof of one’s social connections.
3. Commonplace Book: Similar to a Zibaldone where you collect pieces of writing from different sources, commonplace books are unique because they focus on quotes and because the quotes are organised by topic.

As we can see, the notebook is a very flexible device. Allen spends a lot of time exploring how different people used notebooks, from merchants (the first! the obvious!) to sailers (also obvious but somehow not the first), and of course, authors. For authors, I thought it was interesting how the ways they used the notebook could be categorised into three purposes:

• For drafting and redrafting
• For immediate observation
• For thinking about their writing as they write

Personally, I really enjoyed reading The Notebook. I found it to be a very inspiring book because it has inspired me to use my notebooks in 2026 – I’m still not sure for what (because one is for day-by-day entries) but I think at least one will be a commonplace book.

And if you enjoy books like this, I think it might be fun to read The Notebook alongside The Book Makers (my review here). The Book Makers looks at the history of the book as a physical object and some sections, like the one on Extra Illustration, would pair very well with the chapters on how the notebook has collect information and reorganise it.

Overall, this was an educational and fun book. It does feel a bit topical at times, because Allen tends to focus on one aspect of the notebook for each chapter, but if you like using notebooks, or maybe if you just like collecting pretty notebooks and thinking about the possibilities they hold, this might be something that interests you.