Top pick

Because of its paper’s creamy, slightly toothy texture, this minimalist notebook is especially great for writing, sketching, or doodling with pencils or ballpoint pens, although it holds up to fountain pens too.

Size: A5 (5.8 by 8.3 inches); 176 pages
Ruling options: lined, graph, blank

Get this if: You want a medium-size notebook with paper that’s easy on the eyes and offers tactile feedback — the slightly toothy paper slows your writing down and makes you pay more attention to it, in contrast to slicker paper that your pen would glide across.

Why it’s great: The Midori MD Notebook is simplicity at its best, with a plain cream-color cardstock cover and matte pages with light blue ruling. Three out of five testers ranked this notebook in their top three, saying they loved the pleasant tone of the paper and the notebook’s minimalist aesthetic, which makes writing and journaling as distraction-free as possible.

It takes all sorts of ink, but it handles pencil especially well because of the paper’s slight tooth; the blank or graph versions of the Midori MD Notebook would be fantastic for doodling or sketching. We noticed some ghosting or show-through on the other side of the page, but we didn’t find it intrusive.

The quality of the stitching is terrific and allows the notebook to lie flat. (Compared with other notebooks of this size, including the Apica Premium C.D. Notebook, the Midori MD Notebook is bound in smaller sections, called signatures — 16 signatures versus a more common eight or 12 — which makes it sturdier and helps it lie flat more easily.) Unlike many other soft notebooks, this one has a ribbon bookmark — a silky green one that nicely complements the cream pages.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

Each page is divided in half by a bold horizontal line. Our main complaint against this otherwise lovely notebook is the dark horizontal line that runs across the middle of all the pages. While some people might use this line to divide their notes, we found it distracting and unnecessary.

Although the cardstock feels sturdy, it’s not as rugged or as thick as other notebooks’ covers. It comes with a thin plastic cover, but we found that more intrusive than useful. Clear, paper, and leather covers are available at JetPens.

It might not work for left-handed people. Although most of our testers didn’t experience a lot of smudging with most writing utensils, our left-handed tester found that this notebook’s paper smudged significantly more with a gel pen than that of other notebooks.