I was delighted to see Waterstones stock Moleskine books and I recently purchased a pocket sized (roughly A6 size) hardbacked notebook which has squared paper inside.

Moleskine books are quite pricey- I paid £10 for my notebook, the A5 sized books cost £15-18 each. I find you can buy these for less online but have not yet found any for much less than the RRP- even Ebay has these on Buy It Now for almost the same as the RRP so if you do fancy one of these books- do expect to pay some money for one! A work colleague of mine also has a penchant for Moleskine notebooks and he searches for offers on Amazon for his collection.

My squared notebook has a hardback black cover and a strip of elastic down the right side which keeps the book closed. This prevents the bok coming open and the edges of the pages getting bent. Inside, there is a card front sheet with a space for your name and address and a "reward $______" for you to write in if you lose the book if you will pay a reward for it's safe return! Then the squared sheets of paper begin. The paper is a cream colour and the squares are done in faint grey ink. The paper is lovely and smooth and feels really high quality. The smoothness of the pages and their rounded edges makes this feel like a quality product.

Inside the back of the notebook, there is a little pouch for you to slip bits of paper or receipts or loose notes into. Inside this pouch, you will also find a little leaflet which tells you all about the History of Moleskine notebooks. To give you an insight into why these books have an almost legendary status- Van Gogh and Ernest Hemmingway used to religiously use Moleskine notebooks and carried these around with them for notes and ideas/ sketches etc., The history is fascinating and I think it is a lovely touch to give you this insight on a little bit of paper inside the pouch of the book.

On the back cover at the very bottom, there is the word "Moleskine" printed into the cover. There is also a ribbon built into the book for you to use as a bookmark. Each book is hand made and the notebook I got has 192 pages. The book is bound using threads which gives it a traditional feel and I have had moleskine books before and they are bound together in such a way even if you tear some pages out, the rest of the pages will stay in the book- unlike some notepads where you tear one page out and another page falls out of the back of the book.

This was a costly purchase, but I just love the history of the brand and how these books feel. The paper is smooth and the off white/ cream pages reduce glare on your eyes if you were to write in this in the outdoors on a sunny day. I use my notebook for random notes and ideas and plans of things I want to do.

I would highly recommend these books to anyone who writes a journal or who likes writing or to anyone who needs a good quality notebook or even a gift for someone. They are high quality, but it is so worth it. Moleskine now also have limited edition issues featuring Snoopy/ Peanuts; PacMan; Star Wars and some of these are for sale for over £50 on Amazon so this would lead me to believe these are not only lovely notebooks to use or buy as a gift, but can be considered as collectors items too.