Well-Read Life™

The True Writer Turns Twenty

When we launched our first True Writer pen in 1999, it was a strange thing to do. After all, the nation was in the midst of the dot-com boom. The smart companies were betting on virtual things. Levenger, by contrast, sold old-school real things—bookcases, leather notebooks, 3x5 cards and other decidedly low-tech “Tools for Serious Readers.”

The explosive tech boom at the century’s end seemed to bring with it yearnings for these older things.here was a rage for fat cigars and equally fat fountain pens, especially those with the Mont Blanc snowy logo on top. Things that had gone out of style before the Eisenhower administration were back.

So when the the big money was looking forward, we looked back. We appreciated that our customers were buying the fat-cat Mont Blancs, yet we knew from studying the history of writing instruments that most people back in the heyday of fountain pens, before WWII, used less expensive pens made not with nibs of gold, but with nibs of steel.

An old cigar box

In gaining a hands-on feeling for fountain pen history, we got a lucky break. My grandfather, George W. Knock, had been a penmanship and typing instructor, teaching for most of his career at North High School in Syracuse, New York. He passed away in 1957.

When my mother saw we were selling fountain pens, she called me, laughing. “Your grandfather would be so pleased—his grandson selling fountain pens! ” Then, as an afterthought, she said, “ I found an old cigar box of pens in his desk and put them in the mail to you.”

A battered cigar box of my grandfather’s held the beginning of a True (Writer) story.

When they arrived, it was like Christmas.

My grandfather had left us well-used Parkers, Sheaffers, Esterbrooks and other brands now lost to memory, including a beautiful tortoiseshell pen from Moore Pen Company. There was an astonishing variety of colors, including a number of pens in a sort of marbleized green that must have been popular back in the day. The pens hadn’t been used in decades, but when we washed them out and dipped them in new Levenger ink, the old pens wrote just fine. It was a gift.

And that’s when the light bulb came on. Fountain pens didn’t have to be costly status symbols. We envisioned creating a new pen in the spirit of the best of the everyday working pens of old—functional, honest, well made, long-lasting, pretty—maybe even inspiring—and not costing as much as a car payment.

We found the right German company that could make high-quality yet affordable steel nibs, feeds, and converters for filling the pen with ink from a bottle. A little company in Taiwan still made gleaming pen barrels of polished resin, the old-fashioned way.

We needed a name that would convey the sensibility and flair of what we hoped would be an enduring series of pens. Our head merchant, Denise Tedaldi, came up with “True Writer,”which seemed to capture the essence of a tool that would stay true, write after write.

Thus prepared, we launched our first pen in May, 1999—in that marbleized green we had found in my grandfather’s cardboard treasure chest.

101 Dalmations...and True Writers

It sold.

And thank goodness it did, because we had bet big on tooling and inventory commitments.

And it still sells.

I was surprised when our product team told me how many True Writers have come out in the last 20 years: 101

That’s not counting all the different modes —ballpoint, roller ball—and different point sizes of fountain pen nibs.

The Levenger Kyoto True Writer (2006) , on the left, next to its inspiration: The Moore tortoiseshell pen that George W. Knock, my grandfather, owned.

 

It sure feels good to be celebrating the True Writer’s twentieth birthday. We have updated the True Writer Timeline to include the history of all the pens that have come out under the True Writer banner since 1999, so you can find out just when yours was introduced.

My thanks to our dear Levenger customers who purchased more than a quarter-million True Writers over the last two decades. Collectors of Levengeralia can enjoy a limited edition Anniversary pen.

I’d also like to thank George W. Knock and my mother for the gift of his cigar box full of pens. As the penmanship teacher at his high school, every springtime he would write each graduate’s formal name on his or her diploma. I think he would have been pleased to know that his legacy also includes the thousands of Americans who have used their True Writers in the 21st century to pen their own words, worthy and wise.

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The only example of my grandfather writing my name is this inscription in my copy of Now We Are Six. I was two when he wrote this. He passed away later that year.


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Reclaim Your Peace and Tranquility in a Noisy World: Introducing Peacephones™ by Koss and Levenger

Many of us work in noisy, distracting environments—at airports, coffee shops, even our own offices with colleagues all around. It’s often a struggle to get enough peace and quiet just to think.

Fortunately, we can thank the Beats company, now owned by Apple, for making the wearing of over-the-ear headphones fashionable, or at least acceptable, even while walking in airports or sitting at desks. And fortunately for me, a few years ago Michael Koss asked me to join his board.

Hearing is believing

The Koss company, founded in 1958, invented the headphone industry. While the field  is now populated with giants, Koss still makes some of the finest professional-grade equipment available. During a break at one board meeting, I asked Michael what he would recommend as the best headphone to create peace and quiet while traveling. He thought for a moment and said, “Try our model for professional sound engineers.”

“But it’s not the sound quality I care so much about,” I said. “It’s the quiet.”

“I know, but first you’ll want the best sound isolation you can get, which is what these give you, with their D-shaped ear cups, and you want something comfortable, lightweight and foldable for travel.” 

‘But aren’t sound-canceling headphones better?’

That’s what I asked Michael, and was surprised by his answer.

“Sound-canceling ’phones, which we also make, are good for blocking out constant, droning types of noises, especially in the lower frequencies.” (That’s what makes them so good on long airplane trips.) “But they can’t counteract the variable, unpredictable sounds of human speech. For that, you want over-the-ear, passive sound isolation.”

And the special D-shape ear cups, he explained, are not only comfortable, they also minimize the volume of air inside the ear cup. That, along with the supersoft, conforming foam, produces something approaching recording-booth-like quiet, and also the comfort demanded by sound engineers who wear these babies all day.”

I was still looking doubtful. “Try ’em,” he said. “These are like a raincoat for sound.”

Peace and tranquility to go

So I did...and was blown away. Rather, I was whispered away—to a new land of peaceful productivity. The conversation in the row behind me, the PA announcing the airline’s latest credit card offer, the fussy baby somewhere, faded as if a block away. Before my plane touched down, I was hooked. Now I don’t leave home without them; it’s just so nice to be able to bring peace and tranquility with me wherever I go.

I told Michael he was right and that I was sold. Moreover, I felt pretty sure that Levenger customers—many of whom read and write on the go—would love these, too. So the teams at Koss and Levenger set about outfitting the ’phones and their pack case so that they’re optimized for peace-loving road warriors venturing forth in our cacophonous world. Their newest armour is now the Peacephones.

Add a pair to your Every Day Carry

 For peace and quiet, you don’t need a cord, so with Peacephones you don’t have to have one. Plug in only when you want to listen to music, a podcast or an audiobook. What’s more, Peacephones have two cord jacks, one on each ear cup, so the cord stays clear of your keyboarding or writing by hand.

And by the way, when you do listen to music, buckle up for a sound quality that will rock your Mozart; you’ll be listening the way audio professionals do. (That’s why the four of us who put the America the Bilingual podcast together, all use these, too.)

For the case, the Levenger team chose luxurious but durable full-grain black leather that matches the studio black of the Peacephones. And at only 6 x 9 x 2 inches, it tucks in most bags quite contentedly. Inside the case you’ll find a zip pocket that’s perfect for the extra cord (read on). And for heaven’s sake, slip a business card in there, too, so some Good Samaritan can return these to you. We designed this cuddly little leather calzone to earn a cherished position in your EDC.

An incentive to spread peace in the world

The Koss + Levenger product teams understand that in the real world, people have to take calls while in the middle of their peaceful productivity, so in addition to the studio coil cord, we include a cord with an onboard mic for making calls in new-found quiet.

Of all the tools Levenger sells for peaceful productivity, Peacephones have become one of the most valuable for me, and I think they just might become that for you once you slip on this raincoat for sound.

Four Rules for Flying with a Fountain Pen

In case you didn’t get that memo that came out in 1954, fountain pens are obsolete. I know, I love them too. They are just so pleasing—the way they write with real, liquid ink, and give you that distinctive broad downstroke and thin horizontal stroke. That’s what writing by hand is all about.

But remember that fountain pens were designed decades before people were fool enough to go up in airplanes. If you carry one aloft, you’re messing with a technological Jurassic Park. But since I know some of my fellow travelers do just that, I offer four simple rules for flying with your fountain pen:

Rule No. 1: Don’t.

Rule No. 2: Since I suspect you’ll ignore Rule 1, then at least fill it up all the way—or better yet, drain it completely. Half measures are asking for inky fingers and a dry cleaning bill.

Rule No. 3: If you’re still ignoring Rule 1 and have elected the “fill it up all the way” route in Rule 2, for your safety and the safety of those around you, don’t use your pen on the plane. It won’t kill you to use a ballpoint for a few hours. Then once you’ve landed, head to the nearest restroom.

Rule No. 4: Once safely inside the restroom, open your treasured fountain pen over a sink. Don’t be fooled by seeing no ink on the pen—it’s just hiding. Rinse out the cap (and thank me when you see inky water come out). Rinse the nib and the rest of the pen, too. Dry with paper towels, making sure not to get paper fragments stuck in the nib.

The potato chip factor

When you go up in an airplane, the cabin is pressurized, but not all the way to sea level. When you reach your cruising altitude of, typically, 35,000 feet, the air inside the cabin will be at the equivalent of about 7,000 to 8,000 feet.* This is like driving over a moderately high pass in the mountains. Did you ever notice potato chip bags puffing up as you do? That’s because they were sealed at sea level; once surrounded by the thinner air in the mountains, the relatively compressed air inside the bag of chips wants out.

Which is just what the air inside your fountain pen wants. And if there’s ink in the way, that ink is coming out first—ready or not. Filling your pen as full as you can will minimize the air that can expand, but even a little air can cause your pen to become a squirt gun.

Keeping ink in the pen—then and now

In their defense, fountain pens used to be high tech themselves. Back when Thomas Edison was etching sound into wax and Gustave Eiffel was erecting an iron tower over Paris, other inventors were reinventing the way humans put words on paper. After many an inky failure, they accomplished the age-old dream of literate humans worldwide—to have a pen with its own onboard ink supply. Finally, humans would be liberated from that pesky ink pot we previously had to carry with us like an unwelcome little brother. Instead of dipping our plumes or steel nibs every line or two, ink flowed—as if from a fountain—right out the tip of our pen. Amazing.

Even if you lived in the Alps, a fountain pen would work because the air up high was thin all the time. It was the rapid change in air pressure that airplanes visited upon us that revealed the Achilles heel of the fountain pen.

Not to be left on the tarmac, the pen industry came out with the ballpoint. The ballpoint and the modern jet airliner both graduated from college shortly after World War II and started working together. The paste ink of the ballpoint, with some grease behind it, slides down its tube as you write, impervious to altitude changes. It was now safe to move about the cabin and write postcards to Mom. Newer rollerballs and gel ink ball pens behave basically the same, just using different ink formulations.

Touchdown

Now you know the facts. When you ignore Rule 1, Rules 2-4 will let you travel with your land-loving, gloriously antiquated fountain pen and avoid fuel spills. Then you can enjoy miles of real writing pleasure...when you have arrived.

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*My thanks to Captain Wayne J. Welch, Retired, of American Airlines, who explained pressure change inside airplanes. To pressurize cabins all the way to sea level would require having heavier fuselages, reducing payloads, and adding cost. Most passengers can put up with the equivalent of 7,000 to 8,000 feet for most flight times.

 

Why I’m Glad Staples Knocked Us Off

The day I walked into Staples and saw their knockoffs, a cold shiver went down my spine. There, on a long section of aisle, were what looked just like Levenger Circa notebooks. Sitting propped up at a nice angle were our leather covers, our dividers, extra discs for enlarging notebooks, even our wide-column paper formats with our miniature illustrations of the various paper options. “Slavish” was the word that came into my head. They had slavishly copied Levenger, not even bothering to pretend that they had come up with anything original. They did what big-box stores tend to do: find innovation in the marketplace, make it cheaper, make lots of it, and blow it out the door.

Of course I thought about suing Staples. I mean, come on! Even our page formats? Plenty of customers who had also seen the products reached out to us. They asked, “Are you selling in Staples now?”

But we didn’t sue Staples. I knew too much. First off, they had more lawyers. And second, the original design for what can generically be called disc-bound notebooks was patented in Belgium in 1946.

When I saw my first disc-bound notebook, it was a little item with the brand Atoma. I saw it at a pen show, some 25 years ago. It was all plastic and kind of cheap. But the revolutionary idea was there.

Consider conventional three-ring notebooks: You pry the thing open, exposing ragged metal prongs, remove a sheet, close the rings with a finger-pinching thwack, pry it open again to put the sheet somewhere else, and snap the contraption closed again. Forcing inherently strong metal to open up and then chomp back down again is a bad idea that, like a bad gene, keeps replicating down through the generations.

The fundamentally different idea in disc-bound notebooks is to take advantage of the inherent flexibility of paper to bend easily when in a single sheet, yet be strong when united together. It’s a kind of Zen approach to notebooks.

After seeing my first disc-bound notebook back at the pen show, I went hunting the world for more examples. At the international stationery show in Frankfurt, my merchandising group and I found versions from Israel, Brazil, India, Europe, and the UK. Each had slightly different spacing of the discs and different page sizes, but it was clear the idea had traveled around the world. Yet while it had gone a long way geographically, in another way, the idea had stalled out.

In all the renditions we saw, the notebooks were trying to compete with existing, inexpensive wire notebooks sold around the world. The disc-bound notebooks were better, yes, but their parts and assembly made them inherently more expensive to make. Since the largest market worldwide is for low-cost notebooks, the innovation foundered on the rocks of conventional thinking.

But Levenger was, and still is, an oddball company in the stationery world. We sell to lawyers, engineers, teachers, scientists, doctors, professors, writers—professional people of all types whom we sometimes refer to as the hyperliterate. Our customers read and write for their livings—and typically for pleasure, too. They look to Levenger for high-quality tools of their trade. So we had a different mission than companies that had tried to sell disc-bound notebooks in the past. Ours was not to make them as inexpensive as possible in a vain effort to compete with conventional low-cost notebooks. Our mission was to see how good we could make them. How beautiful could these kinds of notebooks be, both in their function and their looks? First we would build it, and then see if they would come.

Build a Better Notebook

The first thing we did was reunite paper with its longtime friend and fellow naturalist, leather. Then we upgraded the discs. We realized they didn’t have to be plastic. We made them out of aluminum, instead—lightweight, strong, and handsome in the variety of colors we introduced. We found that the pages also turned more easily over polished aluminum, “high-speed” discs.

Finally, we improved the paper: not just the feel and performance of the paper, but the graphic layouts of pages as well.

Facing the increasing competition from digital devices, we felt an obligation to see how good paper notebooks could become. How fast and how far could paper notebooks evolve?

Thanks to thinkers like Paul Saffo and Kevin Kelly, we were aware of a pattern of technological change: that not all old technologies go away when they are obsolete. Candles are obsolete as a lighting source, yet they continue to evolve. What home or romantic dinner is complete without them?

Bicycles are another of my favorite examples of this pattern. Made obsolete a century ago by cars and motorcycles, human-powered bikes continue to evolve into ever more specialized and delightful forms.

Yet who was doing this with the paper notebook? Paper is obsolete for big data, but who doesn’t still want notebook pages to fill with inspired thought? Around our conference table, we would ask ourselves, “What company will do this if not us?”

A latte grande you can write on

Periodically, journalists would pen articles about the paperless office, often predicted, yet always just off on the horizon. Sometimes they would call me for interviews and I’d quote Steve Jobs: “The easiest way to predict the future is to invent it.” So while Silicon Valley was reinventing telephones and countless other digital devices, we were laboring over new paper notebooks.

The good news: Our expensive Circa notebooks took off. Bless our customers who would pay for better function and looks. Who says notebooks could cost only $1.99? Starbucks didn’t think coffee had to be 99 cents. And just as customers drank up the affordable luxury of a Starbucks latte, they turned with pleasure the pages of Circa notebooks from Levenger.

Staples noticed.

When they launched, they also did hip videos and social media. Clearly, they were serious about making this a significant part of their business. We felt the impact right away. Our sales went down. Then Office Depot and other notebook makers got on the disc-bound notebook parade. Martha Stewart, who had praised the Levenger notebooks on one of her platforms, liked them so much she made her own.

Our CFO was alarmed. “Shouldn’t we go after them?”

But then something else happened. Our sales started to grow again. It seemed that some people who were introduced to disc-bound notebooks at their local big-box store somehow found out about Levenger and upgraded.

Instead of suing Staples and the other followers, we wrote the words of Walt Disney on the whiteboard: “We can invent faster than they can copy.”

When innovative companies come up with better products and big players copy them at lower prices, customers win. It’s what’s supposed to happen when capitalism works well. And in the spirit of Conscious Capitalism, I salute Staples, Office Depot, Martha Stewart, and the rest of the players who copied Levenger. For they all have helped spread this advancement in heritage technology to millions of new people who would not have found it otherwise.

Editor’s note: Steve writes more about candles, bicycles, and Circa in his quasi-memoir, Holding Dear: The Value of the Real.

Ten COOL staff picks for holiday presents

Who wants to know what the CEO thinks are Levenger’s top 10 presents for Christmas? Not me, particularly. But I do want to know what our knowledgeable staff thinks are the tops because they actually know. So I asked them, and then added my own two cents, to bring you this inside information in time for the holidays:

 Best of Both Technologies

1.      Our iPad Mini Travel Case stores iPad Mini, smartphone, earbuds and power cord in a slender leather pouch that’s no bigger than a Kindle (which it can also hold). Coolness: It comes with a lining made of microfiber that cleans your screen while you do nothing.

2.      With our Work & Play iPad Folio, digital technology gets even more useful because you mix it with heritage technology. 

It puts notepad (a Levenger one, included, so you’ll get spoiled) and iPad side by side. Coolness:  the Bomber Jacket leather, which will also spoil you.  

3. Tap your screen with one end of our L-Tech Plus Fountain Pen with Stylus and ink a note with the other. The L-Tech is one of the few hybrids to pair a stylus with a fine writing instrument. Coolness: Are you kidding? A fountain pen and a stylus?? Yes, hold two centuries of writing technology in your hand. Both forms are really good.

  Heritage Technology

4.      Our Facets Pen has been a hit this year, proving that plenty of people still covet a beautiful new old pen, like this with its unending helix. Coolness: You can put Pilot G2 refills in this, which really expands how it can write—gels, colors, whatever. (This is a little known fact about all Levenger rollerball pens.)  

5.      Our Bomber Jacket Desk Set  takes aim at the virtual with rich and textured leather Coolness: Give your fingertips a break from the glass screen and let them linger on this storied leather.

  Smart Stuff

6.      Our Stealth Laptop Messenger is streamlined and roomy at the same time. It’s just the kind of all-in-one that guys love. Stow a laptop, an iPad and a Kindle all in the same smooth leather bag. Coolness: Solves typical messenger bag hangup by putting two zipper pockets in the foldover flap.

7.      Levenger elves have stocked our Bloomsbury Bookbag with a cache of reading tools. A perennial favorite, just a bit different this year. Coolness: This stocking is pre-stuffed.

8.      Our 2014 Circa smartPlanner  surprised even us with its brisk sales, which go to show that plenty of people still want a paper calendar. Comes with a bunch of paper apps that readily customize your agenda. I dig the bright thick paper. Coolness: a tiny perforated corner you can tear off and announce “Done!” Can’t do that on Outlook.

Bookending

9.      To commemorate this anniversary year of the Gettysburg Address, we created a Civil War train engine to bookend your books. Coolness: We made it authentic with the help of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum.

10.  In 1610 Galileo published The Starry Messenger and forever changed the course of scientific thinking. We thought it was about time to bring it back. Our eminently giftable facsimile edition contains the rare copy of the original that the Library of Congress owns. This Levenger Press edition is scholarship made accessible and beautiful, and it’s not in the bookstores. Coolness: When I visited the Library of Congress to see some of the rare books we might develop into facsimiles, the curator said, “Would you like to see your books?” They are your books, too—it’s America’s library, after all. But it’s more convenient to buy this lovingly produced facsimile to keep in your home.

Want more? Click on our helpful Gift Guide. And let our Customer Service team know if we can help. Cheers!

Tell me what you hold dear

Special message to all who commented on this blog through May 19 (thank you!). We have selected six winners of our Holding Dear contest (see the announcement on our Facebook page). But we were so moved by these many entries, we wanted to find a way to thank each one of you. So I would like to extend to all who sent in their story this special offer. If you would like to purchase a copy of Holding Dear, take $10 off the purchase price, May 21 through May 27. (This applies to new purchases only.) Just enter code HDBLOG at checkout. Click here to go to the Holding Dear page. With my thanks, best wishes, and admiration. —Steve

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When I show friends our L-Tech fountain pen and stylus, I like to tell them that they’re holding three centuries of technology in their hand—the 19^th century fountain pen nib, the 20^th century machine-age brass barrel, and the 21^st century silicone stylus tip. Then I like to watch the smile that comes over their faces, as they think about what an old—and new—object they’re holding.

One object, three centuries

This three-century object manifests for me just how lucky we are to be able to tap into such a broad spectrum of technology. I love the feel of the fountain pen as it glides on my paper with the lubrication of liquid ink. In a quiet room, you can hear it, as well as feel it. (Charles Frazier, in his book Cold Mountain, described that sound as the scritch of the pen.) The ink glistens for a few seconds before it permeates the paper with its deep, dark blue.

Then I’ll cap the pen, flip it upside down, and use the stylus to draw on my favorite writing program, 51 Paper. I have a notebook therein where I practice writing, in Spanish, the expressions I read in English. It’s a modern and quite pleasing chalk slate. Bliss!

Now that we can enjoy fountains pens, ballpoints, and digital styli, why would we want to give any of them up?

In the era of virtual, still physical

It’s not just a matter of sentimentality; it speaks to our productivity. For connectivity, breaking news, and immediate communication, you can’t beat digital. But for communication with yourself, nothing beats the quiet pleasures of pen on paper—especially a pen perfectly suited to your hand and writing style, and paper, like an untouched field of fresh snow.

The digital—the virtual—will take us ever farther and higher into the cloud. It’s exciting to speculate on how we will work and create in ways we can’t yet imagine. Yet we are physical beings still, living in a physical world.

Consider the solidity of a strong wooden desk under your arms. It holds your computer ever so steady. Or the touch of a leather case that warmly and securely embraces your smartphone. It is carrying on the long tradition of using leather to give our fragile human bodies purchase on life—shoes, saddles, reins, quivers to hold our arrows.

Now that the heritage technologies we used to construct our civilization—like printed books, notebooks, and ink pens—are technically obsolete, we are free to truly understand their benefits and choose to use them when we desire.

A $100 gift card for the best stories of what you still hold dear

For my new book, Holding Dear: The Value of the Real, I was able to ask some of our customers about the physical object that inspires their thinking and creating. We’ve reproduced some wonderful—and surprising—stories by David McCullough, David Allen, Patti Smith, Ann Patchett and others. I especially liked our technologist friends Paul Saffo and Kevin Kelly weighing in on the analog objects of their affection.

But a book, in its paper iteration, has a finite number of pages, and we need to continue the conversation.

So I’m asking you to share a story with me. Tell me, dear reader, about a favorite box, or a certain painting, or a prized volume of poetry inscribed by a loved one that just wouldn’t be the same as a digital book, no more than a photo of people hugging substitutes for a real hug. Or whatever your object may be.

What thing, when you touch it, touches you back?

For the best stories (in our terribly subjective judgment) that we receive between now and May 19, a $100 Levenger gift card awaits. It’s good for acquiring other objects you hold dear.

Post your story as a Comment to this blog

Just click on the Comments link below with your story. (If you’re reading this as an email, click here and you'll connect to Comments).

We’ll notify the winners by email and announce them on our Facebook page. (Fyi—we may want to share your story in our social media or other Levenger communications channels.)

Gift card or not, each of you will be rewarded as you think back about what physical object you’re grateful for in our increasingly virtual world.

With thanks and gratitude to you, I am

Ever yours,

Steve

 

Best 12 tech gifts from Levenger, and why they’re doubly good

It’s the holidays, so forgive me as I swing into full Merchant Mode. But I just have to tell you why I’m excited about technology gifts from Levenger that give you more. We call them BOB-Tech, which is our shorthand for Best-of-Both Technologies: thoughtful marriages of high and heritage technology, where electronics come together with the venerable technologies of paper, pen or textile, to work smarter for you.

On the high tech side: the power to search, explore, share. On the heritage tech side: the invitation to reflect, immerse, contemplate. As important as it is to connect and be social, it’s also vital to disconnect and be personal. We use our brains best when we do both. This is the digital life that Levenger is committed to bringing you.

So here are my favorite BOB-Tech gifts that I think will help bring out the best in you and your loved ones:

A stylus fit for pen connoisseurs. The result of a year of serious R&D gave birth to our hefty L-Tech stylus pen. It plays both ends of the digital domain beautifully. One end is a replaceable stylus for your tablet or iPhone. The other is a fine writing instrument of your choice—fountain pen, rollerball or the smaller, sleeker, yet still weighty ballpoint.

Passport and iPhone 5 at the ready. Customers have pinned 5 stars on our Pocket Briefcases with their 3x5 note cards since the last century. Our new International Phone-Pocket version holds an iPhone 5 (and earlier models), a passport, plus those ever-handy cards for instant hard copy.

Lab book meets iPad, in leather. In this luscious folio, the familiar composition/laboratory notebook gets a high-Q facelift with archival-quality paper that’s sewn in for greater durability. In the accordion pouch goes your iPad, Nook or Kindle.

Bomber Jacket mission: shield your iPad. Rugged Bomber Jacket leather means plenty of pleasing padding for your iPad, plus room for a small notepad.

See, scroll, write: eyeglasses, smartphone, pen. Our Blink & Ink Phone Holder holds all three of these important, often interdependent, tools. (And yes, the iPhone 5 fits.)

The case for a larger phone case (to fit some notes, of course). The iPhone 5 fits here as well, with room to spare for some 3x5 note cards and pen. The Bomber Jacket leather is a customer favorite.

iPad in a pocket. This pocket being our popular Pocquettes protective case. Santa’s elf has tucked an earbud holder inside.

Free to write on paper and work on iPad. Do them side by side in our Freeleaf folio, which works for right hand or left.

Circa and iPad: two icons of BOB-Tech, together at last. Circa, our award-winning note-taking system, is the physical embodiment of the virtual: eminently flexible and movable, amazingly changeable and rearrangeable. It has the brain of pixels and the soul of paper. Pair it with your iPad and productivity wins.

Where to park your minis. Whether it’s the iPad Mini, Kindle, Kobo or Nook, park it on our teeny-tiny Thai Pad. The design harks back centuries, and it’s made by hand by Thai village women. For their big brothers, get the full-size Thai Pad.

How to hug an iPad. Snuggle it in one of our soft bookrest pillows, the Bouclé iPad Pillow or the India Cloud Kantha Pillow.

The 16th-century GPS.  How do you map the world even though you can’t see it from above? Witness the extraordinary technology that resulted in the first map to name America as well as the first nautical map of the world. Both maps were created by hand, using woodblocks, but it’s thanks to high-resolution digitizing and hyperspectral images that we can experience it. Not available as an e-book, and when you hold this beautiful book, you’ll see why. It’s the heritage view of Seeing the World Anew.

Tell me, dear reader: are you a devotee of Best-of-Both Technology? How does BOB-Tech work for you? I’d love to hear. Just click on the Comments link below with your submission. (If you’re reading this as an email, click here and you'll connect to Comments).

Kate DiCamillo’s mouse that soared

When author Kate DiCamillo addressed the American Booksellers Association’s award luncheon a couple years ago, I was smitten. Few authors speak as powerfully in person as on the page, and Kate is one of them. She told of how, as a young girl, she discovered books in her town’s small local bookstore, and how it changed her life forever.

Years later, Kate DiCamillo would change the lives of countless young readers herself. She did it with the help of a very small mouse.

The Tale of Despereaux is the book that not only won the most prestigious award given to children’s books—the Newbery Medal—but also gave to children and adults a story that will likely endure alongside those from Hans Christian Andersen, A. A. Milne  and E. B. White. Despereaux, you see, is a little mouse with the big ears and bigger heart who is desperate to save a princess.

Despereaux went Hollywood several years ago, with a full-length feature film from Universal Studios. In 2012, Kate and Levenger conspired to bring him into 3D as a bookend. And this bookend itself tells a story.

Levenger Press editor Mim Harrison spoke with Kate about Despereaux’s morphing from an idea in her head to an object on her shelf. Here’s their conversation: 

Levenger Press: What has it been like to have a two-dimensional mouse made into a three-dimensional bookend?

Kate DiCamillo: It is an odd and humbling thing to sit alone in a dark room in the early hours of morning and try to imagine your way into the heart and soul of a (smaller-than-average) mouse, and then to watch him come to life in so many different ways. It truly seems like a dream to me.

LP: How is it different from seeing him being made into an animated film?

Kate: There is something wonderful about being able to reach out and actually touch the top of Despereaux's head. It was grand to see him up on the screen. And it is comforting to think about having him on my bookshelf.

LP: When you’re first creating the characters for your books in your head, do you see them in 3-D?

Kate: I do!  They are whole, complete, multi-dimensional, complicated and confounding in my mind.

LP: Despereaux is a children’s book—the recipient of the Newbery Medal for children’s literature, in fact—and yet you use grown-up words like coda in it. How do you write to appeal equally to children and adults?

Kate: I just work on trying to tell the story in the best way I am able. That is, I try to get out of my own way and let the story tell me what to do.

LP: For readers who haven’t read Despereaux (cripes, as Despereaux’s brother might say), what would you want to tell them about why there’s a spool of red thread on the bookend?

Kate: Something like this: that red thread is there to remind us all that there is a way through our troubles.

LP: Your message on the bottom of the bookend says, “Reader, I hope you found some light here.” What did you mean by that?

Kate: Stories are light to me. To read a story comforts me. To tell a story comforts me. The reading and the telling both illuminate. And that is a grand, grand thing.

And now to you, dear reader: what was the book where, as a youngster, you found light and comfort? I’d love to hear. Just click on the Comments link below with your submission. (If you’re reading this as an email, click here and you'll connect to Comments).

Have yourself a Google-less Christmas

Have you ever wanted to Google something and not done it just to see if you could remember? Recently I couldn’t remember the name of a famous actor. I’d even read his memoir, which I could visualize: on the white dust jacket was his black silhouette ambling away with a cane. The title of the book (ironically) was My Name Escapes Me, and he starred in that famous movie The Bridge on the River Kwai. I was frustrated with myself, feeling my brain going to mush, so I refused to pick up my phone or ask anyone. I believed I would remember with enough attempts and decided to let my brain struggle. Three or four times I thought on it.

Then, on the morning of the third day, after my first cup of coffee, it suddenly snapped in—Alec Guinness! Reflexively I seized the dome of my head with my right hand and beamed my biggest smile. It felt so good!

Will the neuroscientists in the room please explain this?

Don’t we all delight in the ease we now have to find facts? Yet does this also give us a renewed appreciation for how good it can feel when you make your mind do its own internal search?

Likewise, mobile, virtual gaming is exploding in popularity. An estimated xxxx million people (I would tell you how many, but I’d have to Google it) the world over now play mobile games, mainly by tapping the tips of their fingers on small glass screens. There’s no arguing how captivating these games can be, yet should they also give us a renewed appreciation for how good it can feel to play with our full hands as we manipulate real, three-dimensional objects?

We believe so.

That’s why here at Levenger we’ve been elfishly busy all year developing this season’s harvest of heritage gaming technology to delight your senses.

They are designed to connect mind and hand, and to activate connections between generations. Go ahead and Google, but not all the time. Play, also, with your full human, physical powers to connect with your loved ones, and yourself.

I love our Shut the Box,  Game Room in a Box, Domino-a-Go-Go  and Solitaire Times Two for the warm wood they put in your hand. The same is true of the Mancala game, which I also like because of its ancient origins that still connect us after all these years.

Even our puzzles—one of a Churchill painting, the other of a 14^th-century illuminated manuscript—are all wood, with the images created on archival paper.

I’d like to be like the Ghost of Christmas Present, invisibly watching generations old and young as they banter and tease and guess the answers in our Dickens Christmas Carol board game. (If you want a not-so-unfair advantage, read this edition of the book first. Some of the multiple-choice answers are found in the introduction…and would be hard to find even on Google.)

After hearing David McCullough say that he doesn’t write histories or biographies but rather, he tells a story, I want to better appreciate the storyteller’s craft. So I’m going to try out my storytelling skills using our Scheherazade Storytelling Game.

Tell me, dear reader, have you recently decided not to Google? Can you share a story of renewed appreciation for your full human capabilities? I’d love to hear. Just click on the Comments link below with your submission. (If you’re reading this as an email, click here and you'll connect to Comments).

Feliz Noël

Do you want to learn another language?

As some of you faithful readers know, for nearly five years now I’ve been studying Spanish. I’ve progressed from setting my iPhone and ATM to Spanish to actually conversing with my tutor.

And just recently, I’ve found myself having to grope for a word in English—a reach that sometimes, startlingly, eludes my grasp. Fortunately, my brain’s synapses are not misfiring (at least, not over this). Some scientists now report that for bilingual speakers, both languages keep up a lively buzz in the brain. Where once there was one, now there are dos.

It turns out that all that buzzing is good for you: it gives your cognitive muscles a workout. And though it seems counterintuitive, given that bilingual speakers are more acutely aware of what’s going on around them, bilingualism helps your brain stay focused and better resist distractions.

Muy bueno.

Multilingual learning, anyone?

I doubt that I will ever seriously venture beyond Spanish…and yet. Languages exert a force-field attraction. Language begets other languages—at the very least, an interest in them.

This holiday, then, if you shop around Levenger for brain boosters of a bilingual nature, you’ll find quite a number of languages ready to tease you and teach you and, we hope, please you.

Our popular Crossword Picante Spanish-English crosswords game, which sold out last year, is back, and this year we’ve added a French-English version, Crossword Santé. Since the games are set up so that you can spell a word in either language, proficiency is not a requisite. We also encourage players to use dictionaries. ¿Por que no?

We learned a lot while developing our Multilingual Learning Blocks. Each block spells the same word in six languages: Mandarin, French, German, Spanish, Latin and English.

We gave each language its own color and design. And how did we choose which six languages? We put on our research hats and selected those languages most commonly taught in American schools today. (Latin? A pleasant surprise.)

Next, how to choose the words? We turned to our friends at the Long Now Foundation, who spearhead The Rosetta Project, a critically important effort to preserve the world’s endangered languages.

Laura Welcher of The Rosetta Project turned us on to the Swadesh List, named after the linguist who compiled the most commonly used words across different languages. We then winnowed the list to 28 words whose meaning in English was limited to one definition.

I find it fascinating to turn these blocks in your fingers to see not just how different the words can be from one language to the next, but how similar some of them are. It made me rethink the idea that Latin is a dead language when I saw cor (heart) beating strongly in the Spanish corazón and the French coeur (and in the English coronary).

The price for these multi-language blocks is higher than the single-language blocks we offer (Chinese,  Hebrew,  Greek), but there’s good reason: they’re a custom-made set, made just for Levenger customers.

A written language with no alphabet

One of the many languages UNESCO has marked as endangered is Cherokee. We were intrigued by these Cherokee language blocks because the written Cherokee language has no equivalent of our A, B, Cs. Instead of an alphabet, Cherokee has a syllabary.

These are characters that represent syllables, and a Cherokee named Sequoyah created them in the early 1800s. Until then Cherokee, like most world languages, was not written but oral. Sequoyah recognized that having a written syllabary would give the Cherokee a chance to communicate through writing. They called their syllabary “talking leaves.”

How to learn 10 languages as easily as uno, due, très

For a fast and fun survey course of ten languages—Arabic, Danish, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish—pocket a pouch of our ten-sided dice, each one with 1 to 10 in one of ten languages. It comes with a cheat sheet of simple phonetics (compiled with the help of native speakers), while listing the spelling of each number in the language. Seeing these spellings side by side helps to show the similarities among several of the languages.

The number six in English is the Danish seks, German sechs, Swedish sex, French six, Portuguese and Spanish seis, Italian sei. The same ribbon of familiarity runs through the word for nine: ni, neun, nio, neuf, nove, nueve, nove.

H’mmm. Maybe multilingualism isn’t as daunting as I thought.

How admiring I am of people who are fluent in three, four, and more languages—people like Steve Kaufmann, who helps so many others learn. How lucky they are—just imagine how toned their cognitive muscles are.

Are you one of them, dear reader? Or is there another language you’d like to learn? I’d love to hear. Just click on the Comments link below with your submission. (If you’re reading this as an email, click here and you'll connect to Comments).

Meantime, if you’d like to read a couple interesting pieces on benefits of bilingualism, try these:

http://www.npr.org/2011/04/04/135043787/being-bilingual-may-boost-your-brain-power

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-benefits-of-bilingualism.html