Bindewerk Linen Flex-Cover Notebook Review

(Jeff Abbott is a regular contributor at The Pen Addict. You can find more from Jeff online at Draft Evolution and Twitter.)

If there's one thing I can never have enough of, it's A5 notebooks. Lucky for me, that particular size is easy to find in just about any paper quality, cover style, and binding style I could ever want. The A5 size just feels right in most situations, and I think it's great to always have one nearby.

The Bindewerk Linen Flex-Cover Notebook is the latest A5 notebook I've tried, and I'm really impressed with the quality that this hand-bound notebook packs inside.

Bindewerk is a small German company that produces stationery goods. This particular notebook features a soft linen cover that flexes easily like a poly cover on a spiral notebook. The linen is soft to the touch but still has a really great texture that makes it easy to handle. The notebook has rounded corners and zero branding on the exterior. The only branding is at the bottom of the inside back cover, which features a simple Bindewerk logo and "Handmade in Germany" in gray ink.

The notebook is perfect bound, and the stitching/binding feels tight and well-done. It can take some time to break in the binding so that the notebook lays flat without something to weigh it down, but once you've written a few pages of notes, it feels like an old worn notebook that goes with you everywhere. Unlike a lot of other A5 notebooks, this one does not have an elastic closure band or any bookmark tassels. It's minimal, and I love it.

The notebook I have features the grey linen fabric, but there are over a dozen other color options available. Regardless of the color you choose, you get the same linen fabric that I've really come to appreciate in this notebook.

The interior of the notebook is as simple and sparse as the exterior. There are no extra pages for titles and content lists — just 192 pages (96 sheets) of premium paper for you to work with. The pages aren't numbered, and there isn't any additional legends outside of the lines or grids (as in, there aren't any special date or title fields at the top). In my case, I have lined paper in this notebook, but you can also find this with blank or dot grid pages.

The paper is a light cream color and is 90gsm. I've had a lot of notebooks that claimed to be 90gsm that couldn't compete with 80gsm paper, so I've learned to take that number with a grain of salt. In the case of this Bindewerk notebook, the paper is absolutely fantastic. Bindewerk imports the paper from Italy to make their notebooks, and their paper choice is stellar. This paper is smooth, supple, and has a nice amount of feedback when writing. It handles fountain pen inks with aplomb and has almost zero show through on the back side of the page — even with dark, wet inks! I was really impressed by how well this paper behaved.

I've really enjoyed having this notebook on my desk over the past weeks. You can never judge a notebook by its unassuming A5 cover, but in the case of this Bindewerk Linen Flex notebook, it's something I highly recommend trying. At about $25, it's a good price. It's a few bucks more than some of the other large brands, but the price tag is worth the exceptional quality in my mind.

(Orange Art, the US distributor for Bindewerk, provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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Bindewerk Basic Wood Metal Edge Notebook Review

(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Twitter. And check out her latest book, Out of Water, now available where books are sold!)

I purchased this notebook as a souvenir from Scriptura in New Orleans this past fall. It was irresistible, which was my only excuse for purchasing a large notebook made out of wood and metal while attempting to one-bag minimal travel. It just felt good in my hands. No regrets.

This is a hefty A5 notebook with 144 sheets (288 pages) of dot-grid paper. The cover boards are made of cherry wood with a black cloth spine and aluminum edges that run around the border of each cover board. The binding is sewn in small signatures, so the book lies flat with very little training. It is very well made, despite one stray thread that escaped the binding process on mine. That doesn't appear to have affected the quality of the binding--it's just a long, stray tail that I trimmed.

Inside the back cover is a flat diagonal folder for holding a few sheets of paper, but it has no gusset, so its capacity is limited. The cover is held shut with a black elastic band that has a lot of tension, so it lays flush against the back when not in use instead of flopping around, which makes me very happy.

There is no branding on the outside at all, though the wood cover is begging to be decorated. It's unfinished, so it would be fun to sketch on, or paint, or cover with stickers. If not, I bet the wood will age beautifully.

Inside, the book remains very minimal with only a blank endpaper before the dot-grid pages. The paper is cream colored and quite textured. It's not rough, but it has a lot of feedback , particularly when writing with very fine-point pens. The dots of the dot grid are fairly faint, so they can be ignored if needed, and the paper also has a barely-visible vertical structure to it that is best seen when held up to the light.

The paper does not bleed or feather and shows very little ghosting, even with a Sharpie. I was very impressed. I had expected some of that texture to lead to feathering, but no--this is some fantastic paper.

Bindewerk hand-makes their notebooks in Germany and this model costs around 36.70 Euros. I forget what exactly I paid for mine in New Orleans, but it was in the $30-something range. You can also pick them up from Orange Art Store in the US (the shop is affiliated with the US distributor of the brand.) I think that's a great price for the quality of the build and the generous serving of excellent paper. It was well worth the space it took up in my travel backpack.

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Enjoy reading The Pen Addict? Then consider becoming a member to receive additional weekly content, giveaways, and discounts in The Pen Addict shop. Plus, you support me and the site directly, for which I am very grateful.

Membership starts at just $5/month, with a discounted annual option available. To find out more about membership click here and join us!