Booker-Palooza 2012 Review and Giveaway #1: Levenger Wired Notebook-White Full Page Ruled (Closed to new entries)

Welcome, everyone, to the inaugural post of Booker-Palooza 2012!

Today's giveaway is the Levenger Wired Notebook-White Full Page Ruled. Usually, I link the name of the product to someplace you can buy it, but I don't see this product on the Levenger website anymore. I don't know if that situation is temporary or not, but I'm surprised to see it gone. I've been buying these for a while and usually saw them whenever I was just browsing and drooling the Levenger website. (While I'm mentioning the Levenger website, I should mention that the Labor Day Sale they have going is fantastic, and it goes through September 5. And, full disclosure: Levenger has provided products me free products (but not this one) to review.)

Anyway, on to the review.

The Review

I've had one of these notebooks opened on my desk at work for probably eight months out of the last year, using them mostly to keep my timesheets, but also using them occasionally to take research notes or to make notes for upcoming oral arguments. While it has its faults, I like it well enough to have bought seven of them when they were on sale.

It sits open at my right hand, so I can immediately jot down the tasks and time spent on my client matters, making for very accurate time reporting and detailed, accurate bills for my clients. There's nothing about the notebook itself that really improves my timekeeping, exactly, unless you count the fact that I enjoy writing in it so much. Maybe, on some subliminal level, that makes me more likely to record my time promptly. good not only for my clients, but for me, too, as billable time does not escape billing.


The reason I like writing in it is the feel of the paper. I love, love, love, heavyweight paper. Not so much for the writing, but for the handling. Once these sheets are removed from the notebook, they are a joy to shuffle, sort, or arrange. Since the paper is white, the weight of the paper (and slightly narrow dimension, as discussed below) helps my pages of handwritten notes stand out in a stack of other white papers.

The writing experience is quite nice, too. Most pens, except those with tips of less than 5 mm, tend to write very smoothly.

Levenger claims the paper is fountain pen friendly, and that was my initial impression of the paper. In my post last December year about the great variance in paper quality among various Levenger products, I wrote about this particular notebook:

This one is a standout. The white paper has great weight, smooth feel, great performance. No bleed through even with heavily saturated inks delivered through juicy nibs. This is awesome paper.

Unfortunately, that initial impression has not held up. I use a different pen and ink color virtually every day on my timesheets, sometimes with a few changes during the course of the day, so I've tried lots of different combinations on this paper. It's definitely hit-or-miss when it comes to handling fountain pen ink, at least with respect to how usable the opposite side of the papers is going to be. There's very little or even no feathering with most inks, but show through and bleed through vary significantly and are very unpredictable.  Some saturated inks barely show through and make it easy to write on both sides of the paper, while some less saturated inks through the same pen bleed through like crazy. The particular notebook I chose to test for this post seems especially susceptible to bleeding.

I've really got to learn how to take a properly exposed photograph. Sorry about that.

You also need to choose your other pens carefully. The Bic permanent marker (felt tip) I tried bled through. (I did not have a sharpie to try out.) Surprisingly, the brown Platinum Preppy (at the very bottom in the photo), despite being one of the broadest and wettest lines, showed through very little compared to the Bic. Finer gel pens did best, but finer points tend to stick a little on this paper and take away the smoothness. Some rollerballs do better than others, even with the same color ink.

None of this particularly bothers me, because I'm not worried about writing on both sides. But if you are, I suggest keeping a few pages at the back of the notebook as test pages to try out pen and ink combinations before using them elsewhere in the notebook.

I prefer the full width ruling on this paper to the annotation ruling found in so many Levenger products. This is especially helpful for my timekeeping, where I don't need to "call out" notes to the margin. Ruling across the entire page gives me plenty of real estate to track my time and to tally it up at the end of the day.

This is billed as a letter-sized (8.5 in. x 11 in.) notebook, but keep in mind that is the dimension of the paper before removing it from the notebook. Once torn out, the paper is a little narrower, approximating the width of an A4 sheet. It's just enough to be another aid in finding one's notes among other white papers in a stack, but not so much to make it difficult to include in a file of letter sized paper. Putting notes in the file is also made easier by the fact that the pages are perforated, so the raggedy edges created from tearing a page out from the binding is easily removed.

While a great desktop companion, this notebook is not very portable. Few letter-sized notebooks are, but this one has a couple of other factors working against portability.

First, this paper is so substantial that the 85 pages make the notebook nearly a half inch thick. That's fine if you carry a full size briefcase. But it can be a bit of a space hog when space counts, such as in a laptop bag or in my Levenger Briefolio, which is all I tend to carry (besides my planner) back and forth to work.

Second, it's not especially durable. I carried one back and forth to work every day (besides the space it took up in briefolio) for about 4 months. It didn't fall apart, but the covers, which are not especially stiff, got beat up a bit. And the wire for the twin ring binding is not especially strong; it eventually started to bend and separate,  so about a third of the back cover started slipping off the wire. That second problem is likely to be even worse if you remove pages as you go, because I think the rings are more vulnerable without a full notebook attached. (One indication regarding the lack of strength in the wire is that several notebooks arrive from Levenger with the end wires bent.)

If this notebook is gone for good, that's a real shame. I much prefer it to the wired notebook with multi-colored paper and annotation ruling, both because I prefer the full page ruling and because the colored paper and fountain pen ink don't really seem to get along, and it doesn't even feel good to write on the colored paper.

For all its faults —principally, the inconsistency of the paper when it comes to different inks, and the features making it unsuitable for portability — I still really like this notebook, at least to keep on my desktop. Enough to have ordered seven of them when they were on sale for $8 (they were normally $12).

The Giveaway

Entries are now closed. The following procedures will no longer work.

If you'd like one, here's how to enter the giveaway. Make sure you read through ALL these instructions, to make sure you are entered and possibly double your chance at winning, before you actually carry out any of the steps.

Send an email to me at notebookeresqATgmail.com, with the following word, and ONLY the following word, in the subject line:

WIRED

Lower case or upper case doesn't matter, as long as your email reaches me by 12:01 a.m. Pacific Time, Tuesday morning, September 4. You may send only one email per person, but . . .

if you leave a comment on this post, that comment will count as a second entry as long as your email gives the name you used to comment. I need an email from every entrant because I need to be able to contact the winner, so a comment without a corresponding email will not count as an entry.

Good luck, and check back tomorrow for giveaway number 2 in Booker-Palooza 2012.

UPDATE: Congrats to winner Gerald!

Booker-Palooza 2012 Review and Giveaway #1: Levenger Wired Notebook-White Full Page Ruled (Closed to new entries)

Review and Giveaway: Levenger Circa Dimensions Notebook

(UPDATE: The giveaway is now closed. Congratulations to our winner, Latonya Ramsey.)


 I soured on the Circa notebook system some time ago, at least for work purposes. The big obstacle to using it for work is the punched edge of the paper, which catches on everything once you remove it from the notebook and try to stick it in a file folder, run it through a scanner, or whatnot. I could cut off the edges, I suppose, but for now, it's not a realistic option for work. (If you're unfamiliar with the Circa disk-bound system, read about it here.)

That said, I haven't ruled out using Circa for some personal things, like an ink journal or some writing projects. And Daniel Marshall, Levenger's marketing manager, was kind enough to send me a bunch of sample notebooks and papers after he read about my beefs with (and praises for) various Levenger papers. So, I have to try 'em out! Then I have to give 'em away!

The Review

As Circa notebooks go, there are lots of cool things about the Circa Dimensions Notebook, and the paper's pretty good. Not perfect, but pretty good. I'll save the paper for the end and look at everything else first.

I know it's just a matter of taste, but the cover is probably the coolest I've seen on any Circa notebook. The outside looks like a carbonesque prism tape, though not quite as shiny (the inside is gray), and it's translucent. It has the kind of texture that makes a "zip" sound when you drag your fingernail on it.

It's also quite flexible. Consider this a soft cover notebook that requires a hard surface underneath it to write on comfortably. In fact, the cover — indeed, the entire notebook — can be curled around on itself. One bog benefit of the cover, in my opinion, is that it is so thin compared to the stiff leather covers, thus taking up a lot less of the disk when folded completely behind the notebook.

The cover seems way too big for the paper at first blush, extending quite a bit beyond the edge of the sheets (at the side only, not at the top or bottom). However, this is apparently to accommodate the use of tabbed dividers, and it's actually a good feature. The notebook comes with a single tabbed divider, nice and sturdy, probably to whet one's appetite for more.

It's almost impossible to tell the back cover from the front. As is typical, there is a Levenger logo at bottom center of the back cover, but it's so buried in the carbon fiber pattern that it's virtually invisible. You may need to reference the tab or put some mark on the cover to know which end is up.


The beautiful designs of some of the Circa disks (Kyoto, Golden Tortoise, and the various aluminum disks) are what made me try Circa in the first place. The disks that come with this notebook are 3/4-inch diameter shiny aluminum and  are a perfect match for the cover. They really make the notebook stand out with a futuristic, hi-tech look.

The pages turn very easily. That could be due to the size of the disks (my experience is that pages don't turn as well on larger disks), the fact that they are aluminum instead of plastic (these are the first aluminum disks I've tried), or both. I can't be sure.

Aluminum disk and carbon fiber pattern cover are a winning combination. Yes, those disks are solid, but the reflection makes it look like the paper is passing through rings.

Now, the paper. It's what Levenger calls "annotation ruled", very similar to Cornell note-taking ruling. Levenger calls the paper "soft white," and the margin is shaded gray.

There are two blank fields at the top of each page (front side only), and a perpetual calendar at the bottom of the margin on the front of each sheet for circling the month and the date. It's not very intuitive for me, because the dates are arrayed like a calendar, and the actual date may fall on a different day than it looks like on the paper. On the perpetual calendar, it looks like the first is always on a Sunday, the second is always on a Monday, etc. I suppose one would get used to it over time. But the perpetual calendar hardly seems necessary with those two blank spaces at the top of the page, the smaller of which is just perfect for writing in the date.

The paper is very smooth, both to the touch of the hand — really a pleasure to handle — and the touch of the nib. It's fairly heavy (100gsm) but does not feel as sturdy as the paper in Levenger's notepads. I didn't really give the notebook a workout, so I can't say how durable the the paper will prove to be when it's been moved over the disks a lot or removed and replaced repeatedly.

The paper is far more hospitable to ink than the paper that came with the Circa sampler kit I bought around two years ago. Only the most saturated fountain pen inks bleed through. Dry writers and less saturated inks should do fine. And I didn't get feathering with any fountain pen, rollerball, or gel inks that I tried. The showthrough can be significant, though. Choose your pens and inks carefully.

At $39, this notebook strikes me as a little pricey, but consider that the disks alone sell for $22 and the refill paper goes for $16, and it's not out of line if you're a Circa fan. (The disks do not appear to be available separately at present. Update: I was wrong.)

As usual, you can find more photos of the product (in my trademark poor photography) in the Flickr photo set for this review.

The Giveaway

All you've got to do to enter is send an email with the subject line DIMENSIONS to me at notebookeresqATgmail.com. That's it! No blog comment, Twitter tweet, Facebook "like" or anything like that. Just a simple email. But the subject line must read DIMENSIONS, or your email might be left out of the drawing.

I'll keep the contest open to entries through at least Sunday night (March 25), maybe a little longer. The winner will be selected at random and will be notified by email. If the winner does not respond in three days, I'll pick an alternate. And so on.

Good luck!

Review and Giveaway: Levenger Circa Dimensions Notebook

Review: Levenger Bomber Jacket Unifier

I mildly (I think) bashed Levenger the other week for the inconsistency of its paper quality across various of its products, but I mentioned at the time that I am a happy owner of other Levenger products. This is one of them, and my most recently acquired: the Levenger Bomber Jacket Unifier:

My stocked unifier, with my rocker blotter in its assigned spot just in front

I've had my eye on one of these for quite some time, but they're a little pricey: $155. So, I kept my eyes peeled at the Levenger outlet on eBay and picked this one up for about half retail, and I'm quite pleased with the purchase.

It really lives up to its name (unless you're expecting a product that unifies your bomber jackets): almost everything I use in the way of stationery each day is now "unified" in one spot. I love having a selection of papers to choose from every time I have to jot something down and knowing exactly where to find it.

And, it's managed to do something for me that most people who know me might have thought impossible. It actually makes me look organized, at least in one little corner of my desk. (I moved it to the conference room to take these pictures; my desk is NOT this clean.) I'm hoping that its organizational aura will radiate out from it and get the rest of my desk squared away. So far (about two weeks in), though, that hasn't happened.

Even without that effect, though, it helps. I no longer have to look through drawers or under stacks of paper on my desk to find my pens, notebooks or pads. Not only are they all in one spot, but they stay that way because I like the product so much that I always put the pens and pads back! I've written before about how nicer products have this effect on me, so maybe I should consider an entire desk made of bomber jacket leather  . . . maybe bomber jacket wallpaper, flooring, and upholstery for complete office organization. (Geez, what would that cost?)

The unifier holds quite a bit. In the picture above, it's holding:

• front left compartment:six  fountain pens, a rollerball pen, and a Sharpie marker;
• front middle compartment: six large highlighters and five slim highlighters;
• front right compartment: two Rhodia no. 12 pads, a Staples mini legal pad, and a pocket Rhodia Unlimited notebook (with a Zebra Mini T3 ball point pen stuck in it);
• in the center compartment: a hundred or so 4 x 6 cards, a Levenger junior notepad, and a Rhodia no. 16 pad;
• in the back compartment: an extra large Moleskine Cahier notebook, a Levenger letter-sized pad, and a Rhodia no. 18 pad. 

And it really isn't even a tight fit:

Heavily stocked, with room to spare

I know the front right compartment might look a little stuffed, even in this closeup:

But it's not. Every one of those items slides out quite easily.

In case you really need to plan what you can put in this, here are the inside dimensions of the compartments. The two large back compartments are each about 11-7/8 inches end to end, and 1-1/2 inches front-to-back. The front compartments are likewise about 1-1/2 inches front-to-back, but vary in their other dimension. The two outside compartments are 3-34 inches wide, but the center compartment is only 3-1/2 inches wide.

The unifier arrives with two removable foam inserts -- one in each outside front compartment -- each with 8 pre-cut holes for keeping your pens upright. I really like the way the foam insert keeps my pens apart and safe from banging into each other and getting scratched:




As you can see from some of the above photos, I opted to remove one of the inserts and use the right front compartment for small pads instead.

Some of my fatter pens tend to bring the insert along a little way when I try to remove them because they are a snug fit, but I suspect that will decrease and eventually end as the insert gets broken in. If it really bothers you, you can stick to thinner pens or glue the insert in, I suppose. You could also move the insert to the slightly smaller front middle compartment. I tried it, and the tighter fit kept the insert firmly in place even when removing my fattest pen, despite the fact that the fit of the pen is necessarily tighter, too.

I have just one beef with the product, and that is the color. I still like it, it just doesn't match my expectations. The bomber jacket leather is a darker brown than it appears from the catalog or online photos. (On my monitor, the leather looks truer to its actual color in my photos than in the catalog or online photos.) When I first opened the box, the leather looked almost black but I'm sure that was my mind overreacting to the difference between the actual color and my expectations. After a few weeks, it now looks brown to me, just a much darker brown than the catalog would suggest. That might vary from lot to lot, but keep it in mind if you're trying to coordinate with other desk accessories (or trying to match some pens in your collection . . . but no one would do something that ridiculous . . . then again . . . hmmmm . . . note to self . . .).

So, am I happy with it? You bet! I'd probably be happy with it at full price, too, but it probably would have taken a few years for me to talk myself into spending the money.

Which brings to mind a side comment on Levenger's prices. I used to think they were ridiculously expensive. Then I started looking at Filofax and Franklin Covey leather goods, as well as products form other leather products vendors, and realized that a lot of Levenger's prices are not out of whack after all. I would include this product as one that strikes me as reasonably priced.

More photos in the Flickr Photo Set.

Review: Levenger Bomber Jacket Unifier

A Levenger Paper Summary and Semi-Rant

I have a beef with Levenger. I don't write this post out of frustration, though. Not entirely, anyway. It's just that I've tried out quite a few Levenger papers, intending to review them all — and I will, eventually — but I thought it would be helpful for folks to see a summary of my experiences in one post. Think of it as a bunch of mini-reviews rolled up into a single post.

Levenger does a wonderful job of describing their paper products (all of their products, actually). A photograph of a paper tablet won't inspire desire in a lot of people, but the description of the paper's luxurious feel, fountain pen friendliness, and sturdy weight . . . well, that will get the hearts of me and a lot of my readers racing.

Levenger generally describes their various papers quite similarly in these regards, and while they all feel great and are indeed sturdy — I love how thick their papers are — they have proven to be incredibly inconsistent in performance and even appearance.

Generally, here's what I've found (with fountain pens only — I haven't tried other pens):

White Pads. Most nibs wrote smoothly, but the paper tend to absorb ink, resulting in severe bleedthrough and nibs tending to write broader lines than on other papers, but without the ink actually feathering much. As I wrote in my review (which, technically was of some discontinued pads that may differ from the current Freeleaf variety), for the limited uses I had for the pads, I could live with the bleedthrough, so that performance deficit was outweighed by the smooth writing experience.

Multicolored Freeleaf Pads and Multicolor Notebooks. Great, heavy paper. But I don't like writing on these at all. The paper is smooth, but performance otherwise varies a lot by the color of the paper. Sometimes, the paper repels the ink so much it looks like I've tried writing on wax paper; the ink doesn't so much skip as bead up and bubble.

Circa Paper. Horrible bleedthrough with a variety of inks when using fountain pens. (Not the Rhodia refills, of course).

Wired Notebook Full Page Ruled. This one is a standout. The white paper has great weight, smooth feel, great performance. No bleedthrough even with heavily saturated inks delivered through juicy nibs. This is awesome paper.

Desk Journal Refills. This is what I use for my journal (if you can call six entries in as many months a "journal"). I love it. Very heavy paper, no bleeding, no problem at all writing on both sides no matter what ink I use.

Notabilia Notebook. This probably has the most luxuriously smooth feel of the products I've mentioned in this post. It is a pleasure to write on, with great resistance to bleeding. So soft to the touch, but not up there with the R by Rhodia line.

In short: when its good, it's great; when its not great, it's pretty bad. There is very little in between. I am a very happy owner of some Levenger leather products and some pens, and I know Levenger is generally a stickler for quality control. So I just can't figure out why their paper is all over the place.

A Levenger Paper Summary and Semi-Rant

Review: Levenger Initialize Letterpress 3 x 5 Cards & Envelopes

Levenger Initialize 3x5 card

I've been leery of Levenger's personalized paper products. My experience with Levenger paper has been very hit-and-miss (when it's good, it's fantastic, but some of it is absolutely terrible), personalization is usually quite pricey, and I've read some very critical reviews of their personalized note cards.

Then I ran across the reduced price on the Initialize Letterpress 3 x 5 Cards & Envelopes. They were reduced from $13 to $8.95, so I scooped up a pack.  Levenger must be clearing them out, because they're down to $4.95 this week.

For that, you get 10 cards of very sturdy 110-lb. Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)-certified cover stock. I really wasn't prepared for how sturdy these are. Between their sturdiness and very smooth finish, they have a very high quality feel to them.

As usual, my crappy photography doesn't convey the color; the cards are off-white. In my opinion, Levenger's photography makes them look whiter than they are, and the blue initial, though described as Navy, has a slightly purple cast.

This is also the first letterpress product I've bought, and I must say I like the letterpress imprint. Some descriptions I'd read of the process made it sound like little more than using an ink stamp, so I wasn't expecting much, but the initial looks quite good. The letterpress process leaves an imprint in the paper — the opposite of engraving. So, like engraving, it give the card texture that conveys something special.

The letterpress initial and sturdy, quality feel are sure to impress . . . provided you use the right pen and ink combination. As much as these cards delight with their weight and feel, they disappoint with how they handle ink.

Gel inks and rollerballs worked fine, but most of the fountain pen inks I tried feathered rather severely. All of the bottled inks were terrible. Much better were my $4.50 Pilot Petit1s in Wine Red and Mandarin Orange. The best, without any noticeable feathering at all were my $3 Platinum Preppies and Pilot Varsity!

Inexpensive pens and inks worked best!

Bottled inks feathered so much I expected the card to take flight! (Worse than this picture conveys . . . click on it for a better idea.)

Gel inks and rollerballs worked fine, but most of the fountain pen inks I tried feathered rather severely. All of the bottled inks were terrible. Much better were my $4.50 Pilot Petit1s in Wine Red and Mandarin Orange. The best, without any noticeable feathering at all were my $3 Platinum Preppies and Pilot Varsity!

The envelopes, on the other hand, took most inks quite well. The envelopes also have a textured finish.

At their old price of $13, I probably would not have recommended these cards.  But at $4.95, it might be worth buying two or three packs. Just count on using up a few in the process of figuring out the best inks to use.

Review: Levenger Initialize Letterpress 3 x 5 Cards & Envelopes

An untimely review? Levenger Full-Page Grid Pads (Junior size)

I say "untimely" because even though I just bought a three-pack of these pads from the Levenger Outlet on eBay, I can't seem to find them on the Levenger website, leading me to believe they are no longer offered. But, since I've already been trying out these pads for a few days and putting them through the wringer for a review, why let a little thing like the fact they're discontinued get in the way?

Levenger Annotation
1/4 grid ruling
Junior Size

Besides, I'm pretty sure that Levenger paper in its pads, notebooks, and Circa refills is all the same — or supposed to be all the same, with the only difference being the ruling.

That difference is a big one, though, especially when it comes to pads in junior size, which is only 5 inches wide. (The pad is 8 inches long, but each sheet is only 5 x 7.5 inches once torn from the pad.)

The only ruling I can find in junior size pads on the Levenger site at the moment are annotation-ruled, which leaves a blank column running down the left side of the paper so you can annotate notes taken in the ruled portion of the pad. (See picture at right for the annotated ruling version of the grip pad.) To my mind, that leaves too little real estate to be of much use.



The pads I bought extend that grid to the left, so you end up with a sheet that has grid ruling over its entire surface except for the header boxes at the top 1-1/4 inches and very slender 1/4-inch margins on the sides and bottom of the grid area, which measures 6 x 4.5 inches.

You may be wondering why I bought these pads given how I panned the Circa refill paper just a few weeks ago, which is supposed to be the same weight, smoothness, etc. There are two reasons: (1) I wanted some heavy paper that I could punch and place in my Circa junior-sized notebook in order to keep relevant notes near their corresponding dates and/or tasks (and without having to trim the paper); and (2) the deal from the Levenger Outlet was good enough that I wouldn't have been too bummed out if the paper was terrible.

Turns out there are quite a few things I like about this notepad.

The paper indeed feels heavy ("substantial," Levenger often calls it) and quite smooth. I love that it does not feel flimsy once pulled off the pad, and therefore feels almost as pleasant to write on when a single sheet is on a hard surface as when writing on the pad. Writing was pleasurably smooth with all the pens I tried — rollerball, gel, and fountain.

Hey, who's worried about
a little bleed-through?

Booker, you're thinking, you're crazy. That's the same paper you were complaining about just a few weeks ago when it came in Circa refills. But I don't think I complained about the sturdy feel and smoothness of the Circa paper, only the bleeding and feathering, neither of which bother me when using the pad as opposed to paper in my Circa. With the Circa paper, I needed to be able to write on both sides, so the bleed-through wasn't acceptable. But I only need to write on one side of this note paper. I want to jot down a few notes from a phone call or short meeting, tear off the sheet, punch it, and put it in my Circa notebook so I can keep the notes close to their corresponding appointment or task (I'm trying to use Circa to implement Getting Things Done — my variant of it, anyway.)

The feathering is mild and varies by ink.
The overall effect is that the lines simply
look wider than they should, rather than feathered.

Is the paper too absorbent? For fountain pen purists, you bet it is. But despite bad bleed-through with fountain pen ink, feathering with fountain pen ink was very mild — the effect of the paper is more to widen the line of the ink rather than actually feather it. Plus, there's a benefit to that absorbency: fountain pen ink dries very, very quickly, so there's little to no smudging even when handling the paper immediately after finishing up my note. (Opinions on the fountain pen-friendliness of Levenger paper are all across the board, leading me to believe Levenger must not consistently use the same vendor all the time, so your mileage may vary.)

Besides, who uses fountain pens all the time? The rollerball and gel pens I tried did not bleed or feather at all and wrote very smoothly.

Crisp, clean lines with gel and rollerball inks. Top to bottom: Pilot G-Knock 0.38 mm. gel pen (blue);
Morning Glory Mach Pen II rollerball (red); Pilot Multi-Ball Permanent Marker (blue);
Zebra Sarasa Clip 0.4 mm gel pen. 

There was one other big difference between fountain pen inks and the others. Take a look at the close-up pictures again. See the difference yet? The gray ruling seems to repel the fountain pen ink. Look closely and you'll see that the rollerball and gel inks wrote over the gray lines, but the gray lines show right through the fountain pen writing. It's an odd effect when using a fountain pen, and noticeable enough to be distracting initially, but I got used to it.

Finally, I really like the size of the ruling. The 1/4-inch spacing of the grid lines is very comfortable for my natural writing size. If, like me, you find the 5mm grid spacing in Rhodia and other European pads to be too small to write on each line and too big to write every other line, you may like the spacing on these Levenger pads.

At first, I thought the pad could be improved by making it longer and wider so a torn-out sheet would match the junior size Circa paper (which is 8.5 x 5.5 inches), but after a few days of use, I discovered that I preferred my inserted notes to be on slightly smaller paper than the preprinted calendar and notes sheets in my notebook. It makes them stand out better, reminding me I have something to act on.

Could the pad be improved? Of course.

Less obtrusive ruling would be a big plus. I love the spacing, but the lines are a little thicker and darker than they should be. A paler gray would be nice, and thinner lines would minimize that fountain ink repellent effect I described earlier.

And it could be friendlier with fountain pens, surely.

Bottom line: I wouldn't want this quality of paper in a full-size pad or notebook for extended writing or for any application that required writing on both sides. But the writing experience is so pleasurable, and the negative effects of the paper so minimal considering the use I make of it, that I like this pad quite a bit, and would buy more . . . if Levenger carried them.

An untimely review? Levenger Full-Page Grid Pads (Junior size)

My struggle with Circa, part 2: What's up with this paper?

If you've been reading my blog a while, then you may remember that I posted a very short version of my frustrations with Levenger's Circa notebooks. That post triggered some comments from those who love their Circa, and from others who likewise found them frustrating. I promised to keep trying it out. I am discovering some good, some bad along the way.

In any event, I thought those of you that commented might be curious to see how the experiment is going.

As the title gives away, this post is about the Levenger pre-punched Circa paper. Now, I don't see any explicit claims on the Levenger website that the Circa paper is fountain-pen friendly, but: (1) I have seen reviewers make that claim; (2) Levenger has at least one picture of a fountain pen on a Circa product page; and (3) the pre-punched Circa paper is insanely expensive. With all that, you'd expect it to take fountain open ink well, but I'm here to tell you: if you want to use a fountain pen regularly in a Circa notebook, you should count on buying a Circa punch so you can buy some decent paper for doing so, because the Circa paper I checked out stinks.

I started with a letter-size and junior size Circa starter kits. The paper felt nice and smooth, and its darned heavy (60 lb.) paper. But after trying a variety of pens on it, I was asking myself how they managed to engineer such a thick, smooth piece of paper into a bloody mess. That ink has to travel a long way to bleed through, but this paper apparently makes the trip easy. I tried Rolla brand paper from Staples, too, and it was just as bad.

Levenger Circa paper bleed-through

Rolla brand paper bleed-through

 Curiously (or maybe not so curiously?), the colored Circa papers — grey, yellow and blue — performed much better:

Colored papers did better; Rolla brand paper at top right

Honestly, my office's everyday copy paper performs better.

So there I was, about to write off Circa forever just because the Circa paper did not take fountain pen ink well. The I started reading around Fountain Pen Network and DIY Planner and saw that lots of people are in search of better paper and plenty of people are willing to offer their advice.

Then I realized: I'm not going to be writing with fountain pens in any event. I mean, I love fountain pens, but for my everyday work notebook, keeping track of projects and my calendar, a nice gel pen is fine. But I did not like the layout of the CIrca paper, either. So I settled on some 32 lb Wausau paper, very slick to the touch. My Zebra Sarasa Clip gel pens slide across it like skates on ice. (It doesn't take fountain pen ink all that much better than the Circa paper, but at least I can print my own layouts on it.) So, I''ve kept going with Circa, and will post more about my ups and downs as I go.

And wouldn't you know, just as I get around to bitching about the Circa paper, Biffybeans announces at FPN that Levenger will be carrying Rhodia 90 gsm paper for their letter-sized Circa notebooks. Genuine letter-sized rather than A4? That would be great, except I use a junior size Circa (5.5 in x 8.5 in). But let's give it time and see what develops. (UPDATE: And here it is. But is 90 gsm heavy enough to stand up to repeated page turning and extraction/insertion?)

My struggle with Circa, part 2: What's up with this paper?

Just call me Tim G

After all, that's the first name and last initial of the name engraved on the Waterford Kilbarry Edge fountain pen I just purchased from the Levenger outlet on eBay. Why buy a pen engraved with someone else's name? How does roughly 75% off retail grab ya? I picked it up for $31 plus shipping, barely a quarter of its usual $116 price on the Levenger website.

Plus, it definitely passes the "are you worthy of your pen" test. You can hardly be out to impress others with a pen with someone else's name on it. Then again, if they don't know who you are . . .

Just call me Tim G

My struggle with Circa

I wanted to love Levenger's Circa notebooks. Really, I did. But I have found almost everything about it to be infuriating, and I'm trying to figure out how anybody works with this system. I feel like it's been fighting with me every step of the way.

I'm going to keep trying, and eventually get around to explaining my frustrations (not all of which, to be honest, can be laid at Circa's feet.)

My struggle with Circa