by Roland Allen
I have no good explanation for why I follow the work of Tiago Forte, founder of Forte Labs and author of Building a Second Brain. It’s kind of ridiculous for a retired person like myself to be so interested in productivity. But he’s just an interesting thinker, and when he recently recommended this history of how people came to constantly write in notebooks, being one of those people myself, I couldn’t resist. It starts with a juicy introduction about the unlikely invention of the Moleskin notebook, of which I have always been suspicious because what could possibly make a blank book be worth $25.00, when you can buy 100 sheets of wirebound college ruled paper for about $5?
Then Allen rolls back time to before the invention of actual paper.
I’m listening to the audiobook version, and I’m not sure I will stick out all 416 “pages,” but right now we just passed through the discovery of the Straits of Magellan off of the tip of South America (where we just were in November!) through the ship’s log of some forgotten sailor in Magellan’s fleet.
I love getting a cross-section of history through a peculiar lens, and this certainly qualifies.