Over the past months, I gathered all sorts of notebooks. Not all notebooks are meant to be used for the same task. Some are for scratching random bits, some are good for journaling, and some are nice for sketching. For example, I use the Plotter system extensively for planning.

When I got into fountain pens again after almost a 15-year pause, I also started looking for a fountain-pen-friendly notebook. For years, I used Moleskine notebooks. They were good enough for my needs and just worked. But they do not play nicely with fountain pens. In some of my Moleskine notebooks, there was heavy bleeding (meaning the ink would bleed through the page). Somehow even within the same notebook, one page’s quality would not match another. I believe they have multiple suppliers and use different papers across their notebooks.

But the Moleskine format (around A5 size) was perfect for journaling. When I finished my last Moleskine journal, I started looking around for what I could use next with better paper of course. Here are a few I tried:

• Leuchtturm: Much better than Moleskine and they come in a variety of models. It was fountain-pen-friendly, but I did not like the feeling of writing on it. Great for random note-taking though.
• Traveller's Notebook: Traveller’s Notebook is a brand of the Japanese company Designphil, which also owns Plotter, Midori, and several other brands. They have a huge following and I also have multiple of their notebooks. These were the ones I thought I would use. A friend told me that the MD paper in the Traveller’s Notebook inserts is not the same as the original MD notebooks. Another issue is that they do not lay flat. Notebooks that lay flat are much more comfortable to use (especially for long writing sessions).
• Tomoe River: This paper is fascinating and one of the best papers I have tried for fountain pens. The pen glides effortlessly and there is almost no feedback. The paper is extremely thin, which I did not like much, but it was still very high on the list of options.
• Maruman Mnemosyne: Excellent notebooks, especially for work or for scratching random ideas. They are super smooth and have a solid cover. I still did not find them suitable as a journal. They are very white (some good papers are never almost white, they are off-white and have ivory or creamy colors) and a bit too glossy.

The world of notebooks is immense. There are notebooks that cost a few dollars and notebooks that cost hundreds. Some people love ultra-thin Japanese papers. Others prefer thick English or German papers. For me, the Japanese Midori MD notebooks are the best for my usage.

The moment I tried one, I loved the feel of the paper and the minimalist design. It had everything I wanted. The paper is superior and has a bit of tactility. You can feel how the fountain pen glides over the paper, but you can also feel the texture underneath.

It comes in A5, which is a perfect size for journaling longer entries. It lays flat. It also comes in a variety of sizes. Even the A5 has two versions, the standard with 176 pages and the Light with 48 pages.

There was only one con. The cover is thin and offers almost no protection. I later learned that Midori also sells plastic and leather covers. This is not really a problem because A5 is a very common size and there are many alternatives. You can find really nice covers from companies like RoterFaden or Galen Leather, or buy something from Amazon or Etsy.

So now I use two sets of notebooks.

• Plotter for TODOs, tracking, and planning. I am also looking into whether I can replace it with the Traveller’s Notebook. We will see how that goes.
• Midori MD for Journaling and Diary.

My journey of trying out and finding the perfect notebook will never end. At least for now I can say that I finally found something that works well for me.