B5 notebook recommendations?

[dragondazd]

I am using a maruman Mnemosyne and while it's good, I don't love the paper feel or the spiral binding. It performs very well though. I used a quo vadis a long time ago and liked it but they seem a bit hard to find. I am considering a leuchtturm but they are so expensive! With only ok paper. Well, opinions are mixed in the paper or quality is mixed I don't know. I haven't bought a leuchtturm in several years. Oasis and apica don't seem to lay flat on their own.

 

I am looking for:

B5 or so

Layflat

Good with big broad/stub nibs

 

Should I go with the leuchtturm? I might even go back to an a5 with more options.

[dbs]

You can try Moleskine pro (only report style B5) or classic Moleskine B5. Try to avoid any Viet Nam made classic Moleskine, their paper has too much bleeding. Moleskine pro fiber should not have any issue.

 

Leuchtturm paper quality is worse than classic Moleskine despite higher price tag, same bleeding problem. Leuchtturm is made in Taiwan.

 

The best B5 is the one made of any Tomoe River paper. Since tomoe river is out of business now so your option is very limited.

 

 

[arcfide]

Your lay flat requirement (laying flat without assistance) is, IMO, going to be the hardest requirement to meet, especially if you don't want paper like what the Maruman uses. 

 

Clairefontaine, in the Rhodia and Clairefontaine brands, make nice B5 notebooks that are thread/glue bound instead of spiral bound, but they can be very tight, and sometimes require you to break in the book before it will lay flat. After that they will lay flat though. The Rhodia B5 Composition notebooks are pretty good in this regard. However, the paper that they use is probably closure to Maruman than you want if you don't like the feel of the Maruman paper. 

 

Apica's A.Silky 865 Premium CD notebooks come in a B5 size and are quite luxurious, easily lay flat, and have terrific feeling paper, but if you are using any very wet pens or penetrating inks, then the paper can have spot bleeding worse than many other premium papers, so this might also not be a good fit for you. 

 

Apica CD standard, Life, Tsubame, and Masuyama all make extremely good B5 notebooks, but none of them are instantly lay flat styles. The paper is different than that used by Maruman, and so you'll likely have something different to try. The Masuyama paper is probably among my absolute favorites, but their B5 notebooks are also so tightly bound that you pretty much won't get total lay flat behavior no matter what you do. 

 

Midori MD and Kokuyo Campus or Perpanep notebooks are some of the best for laying flat, but the B5-esque notebooks from the MD line only come in their Cotton artist paper, which is more absorbent than their standard cream paper, which may or may not work for your pens, while the Perpanep notebooks have a design purposely intended to lay very, very flat, but without a B5 option, though you do get 3 different types of paper of which one will almost certainly be to your taste. The Kokuyo Campus notebooks are very good in general, and their glue bindings are strong while also being very apt to lay flat. However, their B5 premium paper (CYO-BO) only comes in the small page count versions. Their standard paper is usually pretty good with most inks, though, and has a little more tooth than your typical smooth paper, so you might really enjoy it. They are also quite affordable. 

 

If you can stand the small page counts, then the B5 size is also available with a nice Cosmo Air LIght-esque paper from Oasis. 

 

If you are afraid of the paper quality in Leuchtterm, the Italian (Fabriano, most likely) paper used in the Lamy notebooks is really, really good, fast absorbing, and slightly toothy. It won't show tons of sheen, but it's definitely *not* like Maruman or Clairefontaine papers. However, they don't lay as flat as a spiral bound. 

 

Black 'n' Red notebooks come in B5 with various covers, and the paper is much like Clairefontaine, which might be too close to your Maruman paper for your liking, but the paper is excellent, and very white, so you get very good color contrast. However, they don't lay as flat as some others, having the same basic issue as the Clairefontaine notebooks. 

 

If you are okay with high page counts and grid, then the Stalogy 365 Days notebooks have a slightly toothy paper that is a little Tomoe River-like, except not quite as ink resistant (and therefore faster drying). It's relatively good at handling ink, so your nibs are likely to work fine on it, and it isn't super smooth like Maruman, so you might find it more to your tastes. The notebooks lay flat very easily. 

 

Hope this helps you a bit! 

[dragondazd]

1 hour ago, dbs said:

You can try Moleskine pro (only report style B5) or classic Moleskine B5. Try to avoid any Viet Nam made classic Moleskine, their paper has too much bleeding. Moleskine pro fiber should not have any issue.

 

Leuchtturm paper quality is worse than classic Moleskine despite higher price tag, same bleeding problem. Leuchtturm is made in Taiwan.

 

The best B5 is the one made of any Tomoe River paper. Since tomoe river is out of business now so your option is very limited.

 

 

I have old loose leaf TR and could in theory bind it myself though I don't know how to make it layflat haha. Hopefully the new TR will become available as b5 somewhere.

[dragondazd]

55 minutes ago, arcfide said:

Your lay flat requirement (laying flat without assistance) is, IMO, going to be the hardest requirement to meet, especially if you don't want paper like what the Maruman uses. 

 

Clairefontaine, in the Rhodia and Clairefontaine brands, make nice B5 notebooks that are thread/glue bound instead of spiral bound, but they can be very tight, and sometimes require you to break in the book before it will lay flat. After that they will lay flat though. The Rhodia B5 Composition notebooks are pretty good in this regard. However, the paper that they use is probably closure to Maruman than you want if you don't like the feel of the Maruman paper. 

 

Apica's A.Silky 865 Premium CD notebooks come in a B5 size and are quite luxurious, easily lay flat, and have terrific feeling paper, but if you are using any very wet pens or penetrating inks, then the paper can have spot bleeding worse than many other premium papers, so this might also not be a good fit for you. 

 

Apica CD standard, Life, Tsubame, and Masuyama all make extremely good B5 notebooks, but none of them are instantly lay flat styles. The paper is different than that used by Maruman, and so you'll likely have something different to try. The Masuyama paper is probably among my absolute favorites, but their B5 notebooks are also so tightly bound that you pretty much won't get total lay flat behavior no matter what you do. 

 

Midori MD and Kokuyo Campus or Perpanep notebooks are some of the best for laying flat, but the B5-esque notebooks from the MD line only come in their Cotton artist paper, which is more absorbent than their standard cream paper, which may or may not work for your pens, while the Perpanep notebooks have a design purposely intended to lay very, very flat, but without a B5 option, though you do get 3 different types of paper of which one will almost certainly be to your taste. The Kokuyo Campus notebooks are very good in general, and their glue bindings are strong while also being very apt to lay flat. However, their B5 premium paper (CYO-BO) only comes in the small page count versions. Their standard paper is usually pretty good with most inks, though, and has a little more tooth than your typical smooth paper, so you might really enjoy it. They are also quite affordable. 

 

If you can stand the small page counts, then the B5 size is also available with a nice Cosmo Air LIght-esque paper from Oasis. 

 

If you are afraid of the paper quality in Leuchtterm, the Italian (Fabriano, most likely) paper used in the Lamy notebooks is really, really good, fast absorbing, and slightly toothy. It won't show tons of sheen, but it's definitely *not* like Maruman or Clairefontaine papers. However, they don't lay as flat as a spiral bound. 

 

Black 'n' Red notebooks come in B5 with various covers, and the paper is much like Clairefontaine, which might be too close to your Maruman paper for your liking, but the paper is excellent, and very white, so you get very good color contrast. However, they don't lay as flat as some others, having the same basic issue as the Clairefontaine notebooks. 

 

If you are okay with high page counts and grid, then the Stalogy 365 Days notebooks have a slightly toothy paper that is a little Tomoe River-like, except not quite as ink resistant (and therefore faster drying). It's relatively good at handling ink, so your nibs are likely to work fine on it, and it isn't super smooth like Maruman, so you might find it more to your tastes. The notebooks lay flat very easily. 

 

Hope this helps you a bit! 

Thanks for all this great info! I like Rhodia. My problem with maruman is i feel like it's easy to break through the coating and get into the squishy zone. Not as much a problem with Rhodia. I think I had a stalogy and didn't like it don't recall exactly why.

 

I will make sure to break in notebooks before determining how flat they can lay. I'm also not opposed to tearing out papers if tightness is the problem.

 

I will check out Rhodia composition and masuya.

 

I have a tsubame. It is one signature so I doubt it will ever lay flat. I have an oasis (not cosmo paper, 160 pages). It has many more signatures so it may work out eventually .

[Penguincollector]

MUJI sells lay flat B5 notebooks. Some people have reported that certain inks might feather, but they are for the most part, fp friendly.  It’s been awhile since I looked, but there are several grades of notebook paper available there, but I have not noticed any feathering in their premium line.  You can buy them on their site or on Amazon. 
 

  I haven’t tried this brand yet, but I just found it today when looking for a lay flat B5 notebook- blurb says it’s bleed through and feather resistant:

Northbooks b5 college ruled notebook

[arcfide]

4 hours ago, dragondazd said:

Thanks for all this great info! I like Rhodia. My problem with maruman is i feel like it's easy to break through the coating and get into the squishy zone. Not as much a problem with Rhodia. I think I had a stalogy and didn't like it don't recall exactly why.

 

I will make sure to break in notebooks before determining how flat they can lay. I'm also not opposed to tearing out papers if tightness is the problem.

 

I will check out Rhodia composition and masuya.

 

I have a tsubame. It is one signature so I doubt it will ever lay flat. I have an oasis (not cosmo paper, 160 pages). It has many more signatures so it may work out eventually .

 

If you like Rhodia, then I can highly recommend the composition notebook by them, since it has very small signatures and lays flat very easily, with minimal extra working of the spine. If you don't like the easy to break through coating of Maruman, then you probably won't like the Apica Premium CD notebooks, even though they do lay very flat, since that paper is very "soft". 

 

You may also want to look at the soft ring notebooks from Kokuyo, and most other Kokuyo notebooks. They sometimes don't fold quite evenly along the spine because of the glue binding, but they do tend to fold flat very easily, even when they are "single signature" styles like the slim Tsubame notes, since they use a glue binding instead of a thread binding like Life and Tsubame use. 

[dragondazd]

I have many happy pages ahead of me.

 

 

The oasis broke in very easily! I may go with that first. But the Rhodia softcover feels so good!

 

[Misfit]

This doesn’t address the size issue.  Home Goods, TJ Maxx and Marshall’s in the US have Leuchtturm for under $10. There are A4 and A5 Jottbooks, A5 metallic notebooks, Whitelines in A5 and A6 running in price from $3.99 to $7.99 USD. Not every store will have them. Some have Moleskine. 

[SashK]

I was going to say Mnemosyne. 

 

B5 isn't so common, but I like it for work notes. Spacious and comfy to read. Try Muji, the paper does not sheen, but it handles most pens and inks just fine. 

[TitoThePencilPimp]

On 5/23/2023 at 3:50 PM, dragondazd said:

I am using a maruman Mnemosyne and while it's good, I don't love the paper feel or the spiral binding. It performs very well though. I used a quo vadis a long time ago and liked it but they seem a bit hard to find. I am considering a leuchtturm but they are so expensive! With only ok paper. Well, opinions are mixed in the paper or quality is mixed I don't know. I haven't bought a leuchtturm in several years. Oasis and apica don't seem to lay flat on their own.

 

I am looking for:

B5 or so

Layflat

Good with big broad/stub nibs

 

Should I go with the leuchtturm? I might even go back to an a5 with more options.

Appelboom offers great discounts when buying Rhodia in bulk. Look at one of the wire bound options. If they do not have the page format you want, ie., grid or dot, then you can email them to place a special order with said format.

 

Leuchtturm then to be a bit flaky. Some take ink decently, others poorly, for the msrp price I would avoid. Unless you are able to get a deep discount. If using a broaden this notebook, then you are asking for extreme feathering. I tend to only use Japanese ef in these notebooks.

 

There are other notebooks such as Life Noble, but they tend to be a tad bit expensive. I only buy them when the a4 is $15 bucks on Amazon, which is extremely rare.

[dragondazd]

Currently using the oasis but have others in reserve. My one complaint about the oasis is it's too floppy. Guess I should find myself a cover. Or hmm at least add some chipboard I have lying around.

[WalterC]

17 hours ago, TitoThePencilPimp said:

Appelboom offers great discounts when buying Rhodia in bulk. Look at one of the wire bound options. If they do not have the page format you want, ie., grid or dot, then you can email them to place a special order with said format.

 

 

Thanks for the tip on Appelboom's special orders.

Appelboom has really excellent prices on some things: Rhodia (A5+ classic wire bound, 1 at$4.06, 10 at $3.45 each)

and cheap limited selection of Clairfontaine. Some inks are quite cheap also, some Diamine and some Rohrer and Klinger inks. They also have not so wonderful prices on some stuff. I haven't been able to get to their Boston store, so I ought to just order online.

[SashK]

Got a B5 notebook with B7 Tranext paper from Danika58 on Etsy. Pretty good and very FP friendly.

 

B7 denotes the favorite guitar string of the papermaster who developed Tranext and Bulky paper, not a size. Also the same papermill that crated Cosmo Air Light and Snow.