Age Bag A5 books – how do I love thee?

Let me count the ways. I love you to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach, that’s how much!

In fact, if I could only have one notebook type for the rest of my life, I would choose them. (NB the fact I said ‘only one notebook type’ not only one notebook!!).

Why do I love them so much? They are gorgeous to write in, they have oodles of pages and are pretty cheap. I just ordered five (Yes. Five. We had this discussion in the last post... move along) from Bureau Direct – as a pack of 5. Total price (if you’re not using a 10% off code at the start of each month) is £28.50, or £5.70 each. They have 96 sheets (192 sides) of 90gsm, white, lined, vellum paper which is an absolute joy to write on. They have a variety of coloured covers and are also available with grid paper or plain paper (though I have only bought them with lined).

Cover:
The cover is a thick card, embossed with a pattern to make it look like leather. There is the Clairefontaine emblem, along with Clairefontaine on the front cover. The back cover is plain and the notebooks are cloth bound in matching cloth. On the back is a label which is easily removed.

Front cover

logo on front RHS

Back cover

Flattability:
As the notebooks are cloth bound rather than sewn, they don’t lie all that flat immediately, but can be persuaded pretty easily.

Inside:
There is a white fly-leaf which is slightly glued to the first/last page of the notebook, but not so much that it causes any problems. There is no side-margin to the page and the lines go edge to edge. The top margin is 19mm, the bottom margin is 10.5mm and line-spacing is 8mm. There are 23 lines per page. The pages have rounded corners on the outer edge.

Interior

Pen tests:
Now this is how paper should respond to fountain pens. Smooth to write on, no feathering and no bleed-through. In a book that costs less than £6 (and if you sign up for their newsletters, Bureau Direct send you a 10% off code to be used in the first week of the month, which I did, so these were £5.13 each). No, there isn’t all the fancy ribbon-markers or pockets in the back, but, when I buy a notebook, what I want more than anything else is for the thing to cope with being written in, in fountain pen. I don’t especially care about the cover of the notebook (especially having bought leather slip-covers for them) or about a ribbon-marker or about pockets etc. I just want to write in them.
So this is what I’m looking for:

Ink splot is my fault! PERFECT pen test!

Reverse. NO BLEED-THROUGH!

In its new home!

Snug as a bug in a rug!

Overall:
Five stars out of five. I absolutely adore these notebooks, both in the A5 or A4 size.

Leather notebook covers - review

A few weeks ago, in an attempt to pacify The Black Dog and send him away for a while, I treated myself to some leather covers for A5 notebooks, along with some A5 notebooks. Well, it didn’t pacify him and he didn’t go away, but that’s a different matter.

So, what did I order?

Two gorgeous covers and a pack of five (yes, five. Don’t start joining forces with my hubby. Five is a perfectly acceptable number of notebooks to order) Age Bag notebooks. Oh, and a couple of Clairefontaine handwriting books to practise calligraphy in, but more on those in another post. I’ll review the notebooks in another post too. This post is for the leather covers.

I ordered them from eBay, from the seller oldstaffcrafts. These were the covers I ordered: click here. I ordered an oxblood cover with a diary and a green cover (with no diary), both in A5 size.

They are made to order so took a couple of weeks to arrive (possibly this was longer than normal because the lady wasn’t well). If you want quicker delivery, don’t buy made-to-order. They came last week and are glorious! The oxblood is a rich red-brown (I would have said, the exact colour of dried blood, but that’s not all that appealing-sounding when the colour is gorgeous!). The green is very vibrant and intense, but I’m a bit worried that the colour/dye will rub off on things. I’m not sure if I should use some leather cream on it to try and seal it. Advice?

The cover:
The covers are simply made, with a straight piece of leather stitched along the top and bottom to make flaps into which the covers are inserted. The inside is the suede side of the leather and so is in the same colour. When they arrived, they smelled very strongly of the dye, but this has faded over the last week. I kept my covers plain, but you can have your initials, name or a small motif from a line drawing added to them for no added cost (though understandably, the seller will not infringe any copyright, so the motif/design must be yours).

Oxblood - front cover

Oxblood open showing diary

Green (front)

Green (back)

Green - open

The pen loop:
There is a pen loop for a slimline pen sewn into the back cover. I suppose this is my only gripe with the covers, in that none of my fountain pens fitted the loop. A bic biro fits absolutely fine, as does a pencil. I have a patterned pen (seen in the pictures) which also fits well and my Sharbo Zebra diary pen fits beautifully too (this is the pen I carry in the ultra-slim pen-loop in my Baroque and is a ballpoint and propelling pencil combined). These pens all have a diameter of 8mm (yes – that narrow!!) and sadly, none of my fountain pens have such a narrow barrel. My beloved Ohto Tasche compact has a 9mm barrel and can be forced into the holder but then will hardly come out again. I’ve been slowly trying to stretch the leather on the green cover (useful “stretching pen” = Pelikan script!) and can just about now get a pen in and out (with a slight wriggle needed). Failing that working successfully, anyone know of any nice fountain pens with 8mm diameter barrels? [though I suppose, since they are made to order, if this is a major issue to you, you could ask the maker to make the pen holder a teensy bit bigger]

Slimline pen in pen-loop

The diary:
I ordered the oxblood cover with a page per day A5 diary (without many hopes that the diary would be very good). Much as I use a day per page A5 diary for a personal diary/journal, I don’t think that this one will get used for that. It might make it into work as a day book (sans leather cover!). On that basis, I still gave it the full fountain-pen test, writing on the December 31st 2013 page, with the assumption that I wouldn’t be in work on the 1st January 2014!
The pen test was pretty much as expected: horrible. Significant feathering with ink pens. Very thin paper so even biro showed through to the other side and fountain pen bled through hugely (entirely as expected). A shame, because the diary wasn’t bad otherwise. It is made by Tallon (the same makers of the A6 diaries I reviewed ages ago) and has gold edging to the pages, a ribbon marker, is sewn rather than glued so lies flat and has a reasonable page layout. It’s a nice snug fit in the cover.

Pen test FAIL

Feathering!

Epic pen fail! (this is the reverse!!!)

The cover is a true A5 size, so ‘pretend A5’ (I’m looking at you, Moleskine) won’t fit well. But then, Moleskine make pretty rubbish diaries in my opinion and I wouldn’t ever, ever, EVER buy them again.

Overall:
I never really bought these for the diary, so the fact that is sucks ink like there’s no tomorrow doesn’t bother me. I bought them to put Age Bag A5 notebooks in and for that they are perfect. The very narrow pen loop is a bit of a shame, but I am working on stretching out the leather so I can carry a fountain pen around with me! Hopefully the dye won’t rub off on the green cover (keep you posted on that).

Book-planning notebook - which one to choose?

I’m starting to plan a new book. Yes, I know none of the others are published (yet) but there’s one beginning to demand to be let out of my head.

Now, although I will use Scrivener to do the computery bit, I know I will do a huge amount of planning and writing in a notebook too. I always do. There’s something about writing on paper that triggers my thoughts and imagination in a way that typing straight into white space can never accomplish.

But which notebook to choose? I have, after all, rather a large selection to select from!

Discounting anything significantly smaller than A5 (I need space to plan and to write in and smaller books just won’t work), in the notebook emporium currently there are:

[links are to reviews of the notebook by me]

• 2x Cartesio large (13 x 21cm) notebooks
• 1x Moleskine plain notebook (13 x 21cm)
• 1x Clairefontaine school exercise book
• 1x Ciak A5 leather-bound notebook
• A spiral-bound A5 lined notebook with cats on the cover (no idea where that came from. I suspect someone gave me it as a gift as I write and have a cat)
• 1x Midori World Meister Dainel A5 book (which somehow didn’t make it into the photo!)
• 3x Oxford Activebooks
• Several A5 filofaxes
• 1x Quo Vadis Habana notebook (~15 x 23 cm)
• 1x Clairefontaine A5+ notebook (a few pages missing but still mostly intact)
• 1x Clairefontaine Age Bag A4 notebook
• 3x spiral-bound A4 notebooks

Top row, L-R: cat book, Age Bag with A5+ on top, Ciak, Habana
Bottom row, L-R: A4 spiral bound, Moleskine, exercise book, Oxford Activebook, Cartesio

How to whittle that down to one book to use?

Okay, well, it has to be fountain-pen friendly paper, so that’s the two Cartesios out.

It has to be lined, so that’s the Moleskine out.

I’m not a fan of spiral-bound books as I find the binding gets in the way, so that’s the cat books and the three A4 books out (despite all being surprisingly fountain-pen friendly!).

I’ve tried the Clairefontaine A5+ book before and although it’s lovely to write on, the very wide margin is too annoying and it won’t lie flat.

The Quo Vadis Habana book won’t lie flat enough (I use another one as a running log and it drives me batty for this!)

The Midori World Meister doesn’t have enough pages (it has just 92 sides) although otherwise is glorious (review coming soon)

The school exercise book also has too few pages (96 sides)

I’ve tried an A5 filofax before and although it worked reasonably well, I eventually reverted to a bound book, so that’s the filofaxes and the Oxford Activebooks out (though the Oxford paper would have been a dream to write on and the paper could be filed in either filofax or Mulberry A5 binders).

So what am I left with after that initial whittling?

• 2x Cartesio large (13 x 21cm) notebooks
• 1x Moleskine plain notebook (13 x 21cm)
• 1x Clairefontaine school exercise book
• 1x Ciak A5 leather-bound notebook
• A spiral-bound A5 lined notebook with cats on the cover (no idea where that came from. I suspect someone gave me it as a gift as I write and have a cat)
• 1x Midori World Meister Dainel A5 book (which somehow didn’t make it into the photo!)
• 3x Oxford Activebooks
• Several A5 filofaxes
• 1x Quo Vadis Habana notebook (~15 x 23 cm)
• 1x Clairefontaine A5+ notebook (a few pages missing but still mostly intact)
• 1x Clairefontaine Age Bag A4 notebook
• 3x spiral-bound A4 notebooks

The Ciak A5 notebook or the Clairefontaine A4 Age Bag notebook.

I’ve gone for the Clairefontaine. It lies flatter than the Ciak (though admittedly, not as flat as a bat, but not far off), the paper is divine – far smoother than the Ciak – and the acres of space invite free-flowing thought (I hope!). I used the same kind of notebook for the last book (just with a green cover) and it has been glorious to work in. Fountain-pen just glides across the paper and with 192 pages, there is more than enough space to write.

Sources:

Bureau Direct:

Clairefontaine A5+ notebook

Clairefontaine Age Bag A4 notebook

The Journal Shop:

Quo Vadis Habana notebook

Cartesio large (13 x 21cm) notebooks

Ciak A5 leather-bound notebook

Midori World MeisterDainel A5 book

Amazon:

Oxford Activebooks

A5 filofaxes

Tesco:

3x spiral-bound A4 notebooks

Gifts:

Moleskine plain notebook (13 x 21cm)

The spiral-bound A5 lined notebook with cats on the cover

Review of the Clairefontaine Age Bag notebook

Apologies for the long delay in posting any new items. I was in Malawi for a while and I returned from there very unwell. Mostly better now (and thankfully I didn’t have malaria!).

Anyway, I know I owe a zillion other reviews of pens and ink and other things, but I’m going to review my new Clairefontaine Age Bag notebook from Bureau Direct for no better reason than I already want to write in it, and once I have written in it, I won’t want to take pictures for the blog of what I have been writing!

I wanted an A4 notebook because I’m wanting to rework the outline of a novel I’m writing. The writing filofax has been doing pretty well, but I have found that sometimes, I want the space to write and draw out huge mind-maps that A5 sheets in a filofax doesn’t help with. The first book I wrote, I planned out in an A4 Moleskine and loved that space etc. Admittedly, the writing filofax has been good for filing things and moving them around, but I really am missing that space.

I’d considered another A4 Moleskine, but frankly, they just cost too much! I wanted an A4 notebook with fountain pen friendly paper. Coming in at under £6, this notebook seemed ideal.

On to the walk-through.

Cover:

The cover is thick card with an embossed in pattern to make it look like leather. I bought the green, but there are several colours available. On the front, in the bottom right-hand corner, is the Clairefontaine logo, embossed into the card fairly discreetly.

Front cover

Embossed logo

On the back cover is a self-adhesive label describing the paper, both in terms of its texture and its origins. My book has now had the label removed! It peeled off easily without leaving a scummy mark.

Back cover

Close-up of the label

Binding:

The book binding is cloth-bound, rather than sewn and so it doesn’t quite have the flattability that a sewn binding would have, but, for £6 I can’t moan!

The only problem with it being cloth-bound is that the first lined page is starting to detach but as that first page is also stuck to the first page in the book – a white page – it’s not a problem for me. I will be using the first page as an index page.

First page becoming detached

Paper and Line-spacing:

The paper is white, with a gloriously smooth texture. Line-spacing is at 8mm, in feint, with no margins. There are 33 lines per page. The corners of the pages are rounded.

 

Closures:

There is no elastic around the book to close it – neither a vertical band like the Moleskine (which I hate anyway) nor a horizontal one like the Ciak (which you can put a pen in). Nor is there any ribbon marker to mark the page. Frankly, neither of these factors bother me. As I say, I don’t like vertical bands as you can’t keep a pen in them. I also recently bought a Papelote elastic pen holder (shown below) which will hold up to five pens or pencils and also hold the book closed and I will be using that on the book. [I will review the Papelote properly soon!]

Papelote elastic binder (currently empty)

As for the lack of a ribbon marker – if I was really needing to mark the page I would stick a Post-It note in! It isn’t a deal-breaker for me, for what this book will be used for.

Fountain Pen Friendliness:

Now, you may have to take my word a little for this as I don’t want to photograph much of what I’ve written in it! I have used the wettest, most challenging fountain pen to write “Index” on the front page. There is no feathering and a little (acceptable to me at least) bleed-through. That was with the Parker italic nib and Waterman violet tendresse ink – by far the most challenging combination for paper in my fountain pen collection!

No feathering

Acceptable level (to me at least!) of bleed-through

 My more modest (less challenging) combo is a Parker Vector with J Herbin Eclat de Saphir ink. I have written over most of the first page with this and there is no feathering and almost no bleed-through. Here are some close-ups of a few words!

No feathering - J Herbin Eclat de Saphir ink, Parker Vecor nib

Reverse side - acceptable bleed-through

 

Overall:

This is a good value, entry-level, fountain pen friendly A4 notebook. It doesn’t have the bells and whistles of a Moleskine, but it is a fraction of the price. If you want a reasonably priced, attractive-looking notebook that is fountain pen friendly, then this will suit your needs. If you want something with ribbon-markers and sewn-bindings and a bigger ‘name’ look elsewhere.