The notebook: a history of thinking on paper

Uittreksel

"We see notebooks everywhere we go. But where did this simple invention come from? How did they revolutionise our lives, and why are they such powerful tools for creativity? And how can using a notebook help you change the way you think? In this wide-ranging story, Roland Allen reveals all the answers. Ranging from the bustling markets of medieval Florence to the quiet studies of our greatest thinkers, he follows a trail of dazzling ideas, revealing how the notebook became our most dependable and versatile tool for creative thinking. He tells the notebook stories of artists like Leonardo and Frida Kahlo, scientists from Isaac Newton to Marie Curie, and writers from Chaucer to Henry James. We watch Darwin developing his theory of evolution in tiny pocketbooks, see Agatha Christie plotting a hundred murders in scrappy exercise books, and learn how Bruce Chatwin unwittingly inspired the creation of the Moleskine. On the way we meet a host of cooks, kings, sailors, fishermen, musicians, engineers, politicians, adventurers and mathematicians, who all used their notebooks as a space for thinking and to shape the modern world."-- Provided by publisher.

Inhoud

Before notebooks: The Mediterranean 1000 BCE -- 1250 CE -- Red book, white book, cloth book: The invention of accounting, Provence and Florence 1299 -- Slight strokes in a little book: The sketchbook, Florence 1300-1500 -- Ricordi, ricordanzi, zibaldoni: Notebooks in the home, Florence 1300-1500 -- Pepper in Alexandria: The Book of Michael of Rhodes, Venice 1434 -- Wicked wives and and mouths stopped with wool: The notebook comes to England, 1372-1517 -- The long life of LHD 244: Singing in harmony, Bologna c.1450-1600 -- "Alas, this will never get anything done..." : Two notebook-keepers, Italy 1455-1519 -- O the pains and labor to record what other people have said! : Common-place books, 1512-present -- From one mouth to the other runs East and West: The world ocean, 1519-1522 -- King of the herring: Fishbook, The Netherlands 1570 -- A dull Dutch fashion: Friendship books, northern Europe 1645 -- Several gems: Industrial observations, Germany 1598 -- Let him not stay long: Travellers and their notebooks, 1470-present -- The Waste Book: Mathematics, Lincolnshire 1612 -- A tale of two notebooks: Fouquet and Colbert, Paris 1661-80 -- But 18 pence in money; and a table-book: Table-books, England and the Netherlands 1520s-1670s -- Albetrosses: Logged journey, London to Amoy 1699 -- I think: Naturalists' notebooks, 1551-1859 -- One way to immortality: Diaries and journals, 1600-present -- You're spot on: Police notebooks, 1829-present -- Yes, better if dentist is dead: Authors' notebooks, 1894-present -- Preserving and Coockery: Recipe books, 1639-present -- Express yourself: Journaling as self-care, 1968-present -- Blue, green, red, yellow: Electioneering, Florida 1977-2003 -- Non-trivial: Climate logs, 1850s-present -- Attention deficit: Bullet journaling, Brooklyn 2010 -- In search of lost time: Patient diaries, 1952-present -- Egodocuments: Notebook studies, 1883-present -- A different part of the brain: Observing artists, 2022 -- Conclusion: Otto carries a notebook: The extended mind, 1938-present.