Virginia Woolf, “Hours in a Library” Discovered during earlier conversation on an excellent short article about information overload, which mentioned the commonplace book. I like to carry a small notebook around, and most often use it to work on a Project Euler problem. (My preferred implement is a simple Pilot G2, though I will sometimes refill one with l'encre du roi.)Let us take down one of those old notebooks which we have all, at one time or another, had a passion for beginning. Most of the pages are blank, it is true; but at the beginning we shall find a certain number very beautifully covered with a strikingly legible hand-writing. Here we have written down the names of great writers in their order of merit; here we have copied out fine passages from the classics; here are lists of books to be read; and here, most interesting of all, lists of books that have actually been read, as the reader testifies with some youthful vanity by a dash of red ink.
