I love books of all kinds – notebooks, books for reading, paper calendars, maps books. I love the smell of books, the worlds hidden within them, the feel of the leather.
So once we had been in the Trinity College Long Room and seen the glowing patinated leather of the well-used, well-loved tomes, I really wanted to buy a notebook in the shop. I wanted a notebook related to the same place that has the Long Room and the Book of Kells.
There were some Paperblanks-type notebooks, student notebooks, and plain notebooks for sale in the shop. But what won my heart was these ones by CarveOn Leather, an Irish brand. I have written about CarveOn before – here so it was nice to see a range of their products especially produced for Trinity College.
The notebooks have a really nice matching pen and come in a wooden presentation box. They are firmly nestled in foam padding and are covered by tissue paper.
The leather is really nice – thick and firm but light – and the stitching and details are perfect. You can easily slip papers into the cover flaps using the curved detail. An added plus of this notebook is that it can be used with Moleskine-like notebooks which have the elastic strap closure and back pocket. You don’t often find clasped notebooks that can be used with and without elastic closures.
I absolutely loved the A4 one but chose the A5 as it was more portable.
Feast your eyes!
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The press stud still had the protective plastic on for transport and I thought it was glue so I contacted CarveOn, on Saturday night. To my surprise I received a reply less than 3 minutes later, letting me know that it was protective plastic. Very embarrassing for me, but great customer service from them.
On the CarveOn website the products (including bags and tech accessories) are available in several colours and sizes and they are able to be personalised with your name or other inscription. The exclusive Trinity 1592 collection is available for international sale on the Trinity website here.
As an aside, I was rather disappointed to see how they spelled stationery on the Book of Kells tab of the Trinity College gift shop site.
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