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The Field Notes limited edition from the Fall of 2016 was ‘Lunacy,’ and it is significantly different. In March of 2020 I had the chance to dive into one, and what a great experience it was.

I’d had a 4-pack of these tucked away for quite some time and was dying to use them. And I should note here that the books came in a standard 3-pack for sale on the website, but subscribers got a 4-pack with a New Moon variant. The books, as you can see from the picture, had die-cut covers, and a full color glossy flyleaf (read: and extra page) behind the cover with the image of the moon on it. The effect was that you had a Full Moon (with a complete circle cut in the cover), a Half Moon (with a half circle cut out), and a Crescent Moon (with a crescent cut out). The subscriber New Moon simply had a solid back cover with no cut out. Clever. And of course, the Field Notes logo is on the cover in a varnish black, and the whole thing is banged together with black staples. The effect is lovely. So, if you’re on the hunt for Lunacy now, note that there are 3-packs and 4-packs. If you get a 3-pack but wanted the 4th ‘New Moon’ book, some people will sometimes sell that subscriber book separately—but often at a premium.

I chose the Crescent book. It looks really cool, and I was keen to get it out of my collection, since the die-cut cover would often snag any other book I tried to slide into the box in front of it. Also, this edition did not come with a belly band—in either 3-pack or 4-pack variations, but they did come shrink-wrapped with an insert at the back, like the recent National Park packs.

The design of this set is a class act all the way, with 100# thick covers. A lovely silver for the fields on the inside cover—but the ‘Pertinent Coordinates’ section is missing because of the die-cutting process. So, the ‘For Internal Records’ section was moved up above the cut. You’ll need some kind of a special pen to write in these silver fields. I went with the Sakura Gelly Roll in white, with a .5mm tip, and it worked beautifully.

The back cover deserves a word here, as well. It features an embossed image of the moon—and that means the inside back cover has a debossed image of the moon over the ‘Practical Applications’ and ‘Specifications’ sections. But they are still legible in silver font. Those ‘Practical Applications’ are themes and include such doozies as “That’s No Moon”, “Additional Landings To Fake”, and “Suspected Werewolves”. The Flyleaf is full color, and in addition to the front’s illuminated moon photo, the back flyleaf shows a picture of the dark side of the moon. The inside of the flyleaf is packed with great moon lore from facts and etymology, to how to calculate your weight on the moon, a phases of the moon chart, a list of humans who have visited the moon, names from cultural folklore for phases of the moon and seasonal moon names, to a collection of the solar system’s moons image, and even information on how to kill a werewolf—no, really.

The books innards are not even just the same old 60#, but rather they are washed with a ‘Domtar Earth Choice’ gray, with ‘Moondust’ gray reticle grid. They are subtle enough, but against the gray paper, even more so. I used a Baron Fig Squire and a Pilot Precise V5 on this book, and an interesting thing happened. The gray wash over the 60# pages meant virtually zero ghosting. My first pocket memo book with no ghosting whatsoever. And of course, also no bleedthrough. In short. I loved these pages. Thinner than a 70#, but with the gray wash, nothing showed through these pages. And despite the die-cut cover, the book held up well to three weeks of use on my desk or in a DDC Stuff Sheath when it needed to travel with me.

Overall, I highly recommend this book, if you can tolerate a reticle grid. If you’ve never used one before, I’d say to give this great book a try. It looks great, wears well, and the pages were perfect. Plus, who doesn’t want all those great werewolf factoids. Never know when those will come in handy.