The Notebook by Roland Allen

The algorithm seems to have worked overtime to recommend this book to me again and again. This is a Eurocentric history of the notebook that sometimes seems to be endowed with powers like saving us from doomscrolling to helping get things done.

I read about the book first on Julian Hess’ Substack called Noted. I then heard his interview on YouTube with Parker Settecase.

The book showed how the notebook that started with helping many Italian city states keep accounts affected many areas of European life. It helped artists make drafts, it helped people write about important life events, it helped novels be copied into notebooks as commonplace quotes, and as a diary. I found more fun reading the last chapter on The Extended Mind, a paper written by Clark and Chalmers in 1998.

I have not been very focussed with my note taking and note making so far. I intend to get serious now.