(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Bluesky. And her latest book, The Atropine Tree, is now available!)
One of my favorite Retro 51 releases of the past few years is their collaboration with Bat Conservation International. The vintage colors, cute bats, pretty moths, and repeating geometry all charmed me. The design reminds me of Art Nouveau wallpaper, but spooky, and I love it. I was extra excited to see that they had also collaborated with Denik on a notebook, so I could be matchy-matchy. They've done this for a handful of their pen designs, usually a rescue edition, and those notebooks also contribute funds to the rescues.
Apart from the fabulous cover design, this A5 notebook is fairly simple. If you've used a Denik notebook before, you'll be familiar with the format. The cover is thin cardstock with a matte finish. It has decorated interior covers, and then 144 pages of lined paper (it also exists with dotted paper). The binding is sewn and glued in signatures. It's a bit crispy for the first few uses, but as it breaks in, it does get to the point where it lays flat.
The paper inside is decent. Denik's paper can be inconsistent as far as its fountain pen friendliness, but so far I have had good results with this one. The only thing that bled through at all was a sharpie. There was some light feathering with liquid inks, but only visible if I held the notebook three inches from my face. It's not a notebook for paper snobs, but it's very functional and perfectly useful.
Like all Denik notebooks, this one is very affordable. It sells for $16, which is a great price for that page count. There are no bells and whistles on the notebook--no ribbons or elastics, no rounded corners or page numbers. The cover is obviously cut from a large printed sheet, so the design cuts off at the edges. It's not fancy, but it is nice. It's pretty without being precious. That helps keep the price low, and still allows them to give some of the proceeds to the bats. Everybody wins.
This is the perfect notebook for a commonplace book or ideas journal. It would be great for meeting notes. It has enough pages to be devoted to a longer project, and will very likely end up as one of my novel planning notebooks. And it's gotta be for a vampire novel, right?
(This product was purchased from Dromgoole’s at regular price.)
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