What I’m reading: The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper by Roland Allen
The Notebook is a deep dive into the history and usefulness of notebooks over the centuries. The author takes a journey from the days of parliament, vellum, and finally into the world where cheap paper opened up the usefulness of notebooks to nearly everyone. He has us meet Leonardo da Vinci, whose notebooks are famous to this day, or Aminto Manucci and Luca Piacioli, the creators and philosophers of double-entry bookkeeping, who changed life in many ways beyond that. He discusses authors, thinkers, scientists, and artists, and what the notebook meant/means to them.