Coffee Letter #034: On Notebooks
And my newfound love for fountain pens.
What is it about notebooks? Why can’t I stop buying them? Why am I scared of ruining them? I know I’m not the only one with this problem.
I used to be very scared of being messy in my notebooks, or of not using them in an orderly fashion (whatever that means). But as I’m working on my perfectionism, I’m embracing chaos and making mistakes. Ergo, I finished a notebook that was mostly a planner, but also a diary and notepad on the go.
I prefer the travel notebooks from notebook therapy because they are small enough to fit in any bag, but I admit I own and continue to buy a diverse range of notebooks. Basically, I see it, I like it, I want it, I got it. I just need to also use them. So the fear persists, for any other notebook than my daily one, that the insides must also be neat and pretty, that I need to write at the desk, that I must make time for them and everything must fall into place to actually use them. Which, surprise, surprise, never happens.
The way I got over this fear with my daily planner was by randomly changing my pen one day. And wait, I can tell you exactly the day: January 21st. So, on January 21st this year I started using a fountain pen. Before I had these cute coloured liners (although I was using the black one most often) that you can erase — they are around 10 ron, have cute animals, and are refillable (although it’s harder and harder to find black ink refills). Then on a random day as I was organising my desk, I discovered a fountain pen my husband got from work — it’s blue, it’s from Pelikan — and I decided in a nostalgic moment to use it in my notebook. Plus it was easier to carry around without a pencil case (the cap falls easily on the cute liners). This also meant no more erasing.
Thus many mistakes and ink spills followed (especially frequent after flying). After almost six months of using it, I can’t go back. Ideally I want to get a new fountain pen that doesn’t have my partner’s company inscribed on it, but so far it wasn’t a priority. Plus I fear I might start a fountain pen collection.
I don’t know if this will work for everyone, but switching to a fountain pen greatly helped getting over my fear of messing up my notebook (at least the daily planner). Now it is full of mistakes and strike-throughs and scratches and splotches, but its every page is filled and tomorrow I am starting a new notebook.
~ read
Since last time we spoke, I’ve read a lot of mangas and graphic novels that I received for review (I’ll tell you about my faves), but also some books and some poetry.
It seems like this is the year of poetry for me and this month Lena Chilari was invited to my friend Bogdana’s book club.
I read both volumes O cană de noviciok la bătrânețe and Ludmila răstoarnă munții by Lena Chilari, and honestly I can’t tell you which I loved more. Sometimes it’s Noviciok, sometimes it’s Ludmila. It really depends on the day or the mood.
Lena’s poetry is very confessional — you feel like you are reading snippets from someone’s diary, and while you might not know who she is talking about, it becomes about you and your experiences in a way. Her writing is raw and intense, and I loved it.
The book club meeting was one of my favourite because I definitely did not expect myself to cry when Lena read her poetry (I already cried at home when I read them). Plus, the same night I woke up at 3 am with a sudden need to write poetry. And I did.
Also, Lena is one of the warmest humans I’ve ever met.
Book wise, I finally finished Onyx Storm (The Empyrean #3) by Rebecca Yarros, or else my work colleagues might have spoiled everything. It’s no secret that half of my enjoyment for this series is that I can discuss it with my friends at work. It’s fun to come up with theories and debate over what would happen next.
If I were to objectively talk about it I would have a pretty long list of complaints — like how repetitive it was and kinda fillery and a lot of running around in circles, which is probably why it took me a few months to finish it since I was always having a better book to read. But my buddy readers are relentless and I had to finish it because they kept hinting stuff and I was outside the loop and I bloody wanted to be in the loop.
Am I saying this is good? No. Do I rate it 4 or 5 stars every single time? Absolutely. I will not elaborate on that. These books are fun and that's it.
Bogdana hosted another book club this month (she is amazing) and we read In the Margins: On the Pleasures of Reading and Writing by Elena Ferrante. This is a short book of essays about reading and writing. And I loved it! It came at the right moment in time for me, when I’m finally ready to embrace writing for the sake of writing again (the fictional kind) — plus it’s my third sign this month that I really need to read Dante.
I am probably one of the few people on Earth who have yet to read her big series. But I am familiar with other fiction she's written, so it's not like I don't know how she writes. But getting a book about her telling us how she does it, and why she does it, and most importantly, a book where you can see her love for writing AND READING. Ah! What a joy, what a pleasure.
Beware, there are some spoilers for her novels in this book. Also, you might add books to your TBR.
I got a lot of manga from Kodansha Comics to review and these two were my favourite:
The Ayakashi Hunter's Tainted Bride by Mamenosuke Fujimaru, story created by Midori Yuma. I’ve only got the first volume for review but then I went ahead and read on my own — I’m currently on volume 5. It’s historical romance set in a fantasy world — with noble clans and yokai (spirits/monsters).
When our protagonist Nanao is attacked by a yokai, she loses her purity in the face of her fiancé and his family, until Yako, an ayakashi hunter and leader of another noble family discovers her and decides to make her his. It’s a very fast-paced, very dramatic trope-filled story with a lot of tension and plot-twists galore. And I loved it. It was just what I needed.
In spite of it’s clichés, it focuses a lot on Nanao’s trauma and I liked how that was handled in the second volume. It loses a bit of momentum along the way and it could use a lot more angst, but it’s still a lot of fun.
The Dashing Zaddy and His Icy Protégé by Fumito. Again, I just got the first volume for review but I plan to read the next ones too! This is a very silly, very low-stakes age-gap office romance between two men. It’s absolutely hilarious.
I read four graphic novels in the past couple of weeks or so, but only these two I can recommend:
Love Languages by James Albon. A graphic novel about two foreigners striking an unusual friendship in Paris, while trying to belong. This was an incredibly nice story, maybe a touch too dramatic at times, but I loved it anyway.
I especially liked how it's a story about languages - learning and expressing yourself in other languages and most importantly connecting with others. In the beginning it's harder to grasp the story and our protagonist's thoughts, but as she learns, not only French, but Cantonese too, it gets easier and things click into place. I love-love-love-love-loved that!
It's a book about friendship and love and finding yourself too in a way. It's about all the worries one has in a new country, but also about silly expectations we silly humans put on ourselves, about how disconnected one could feel in a foreign place.
The art style was great and really unique - I love when I find a new style in graphic novels, and it flows with the story, always transforming itself.
Motherlover by Lindsay Ishihiro. Well, it will be hard to talk about this graphic novel because I just finished it, and it made me cry — I rarely cry when it comes to graphic novels.
It's a story about life and female friendship and motherhood, but also about standing on your own and queer awakening even later in life. It was sweet, and I wanted more. It's especially powerful in its portrayal of life and how things don't have to be perfect for you to grow as a person and heal yourself even. Why do you think I was crying by the end of it? (Although I started somewhere in the middle.)
It was sweet and heartwarming, while also featuring harsh themes. Which I why I think I wanted it to be longer - to be serialised maybe?
~ watch
Well… there was TIFF, which I already wrote about but I also managed to watch a new crime thriller series:
Dept. Q (TV series, 2025-). After getting his partner paralysed and another officer killed, a detective is assigned to start a cold case department with no help and no funds in the basement of his precinct. A slow-burn delight, perfect for a weekend — it’s only 9 episodes or so. Available on Netflix.
Oh, and it’s adapted after a Danish crime novel by Jussi Adler-Olsen, The Keeper of Lost Causes.
~ and other things I did last week
Music: Does a musical album count cause I’ve been listening to Six: The Musical and I’ve got some strange Tudor court dreams (that I always have whenever I do something remotely related to that period).
Other things consumed last week:
Power Houses: Inside the living rooms of notable New Yorkers (The New Yorker). A series of photographs of New York apartments of famous people.
‘One day I overheard my boss saying: just put it in ChatGPT’: the workers who lost their jobs to AI (The Guardian). How AI ruins lives (and art). I’m not even going to mention the booktok scandal and how one author had the audacity to compare using AI with using auto-correct or a Roomba.
Pop Culture Takes Up Smoking Again (The New York Times). Smoking is cool again, in America.
How ‘Jaws’ Made a Template for the Modern Blockbuster (The New York Times). A very fun article, breaking down the recipe for the blockbuster.
Travels in Moominland: summer in Tove Jansson’s Finland (The Guardian). I’m visiting Finland this summer, hence my choice of articles…
THE 100 BEST MOVIES OF THE 21st CENTURY: How Actors, Directors and Other Film Lovers Voted (The New York Times). A new list is upon us and here’s how celebs voted. Any list that doesn’t have the 2005 Pride & Prejudice film is not valid in my eyes.
And some video essays I watched in the past couple of weeks: The Bonnie Blue dilemma by Alice Cappelle, about sex work, sexual exploitation and Bonnie Blue, of course; irony, cringe, & fear of being perceived are ruining our lives by tiffanyferg, on how it’s not cool to be sincere anymore; and also by tifannyferg ChatGPT: the death of critical thinking? — because, yeah, things are going downhill from here and it’s scary and worrying.
I had a lot to share today. Also, I recently reread one of my book reviews which made me miss writing book reviews on my blog — so I might publish them on substack, but to avoid spamming your inbox I won’t send them as email too.
After such a busy June, it feels good to have a low-key, almost-no-plans July. Hopefully I’m not tempting fate.
And last but not least, I might finally finish Dimineaţă pierdută by Gabriela Adameșteanu because I’m joining Ramona Boldizsar’s read-along.
Thank you for reading!
Am I the only one here curious about the poem you wrote at 3 o'clock in the morning? 🤔
🤍✍🏼📚