While all three of the beauties are, indeed, beautiful, the pink one was my first, true, Notem love. These minimalist grid large notebooks are aesthetically pleasing. I picked up the pink one at a small, curated giftshop in Paris, in the Montmartre neighborhood (you know, Amelie’s hood). It was called Le Rocketship, and the shopkeeper was legit friendly–a rare thing in Paris. And as somebody whose French is really rusty, perhaps awful, I was both relieved and grateful to talk to somebody about stationery in English. I gravitated toward the pink Notem grid notebook immediately, and he was very excited to let me know it was a new acquisition from Denmark. His enthusiasm was infectious, and I couldn’t pass up getting this slightly spendy, but completely worth-it notebook.

What is particularly special about these pieces is their absolute paper-i-ness. Is that a word? It is now, haha. The covers are a thicker paper, akin to a light cardboard, but bendable and dependable. The lined pages appear on one side while blank on the other, and the notebooks open flat. It will make an ideal place for a large-scale project, whenever I can decide to actually put pen to paper–but maybe I’ll save the pink version and use the gray or blue instead !