Living right next to the ocean, as I do whenever I’m in Westport, MA, has plenty of advantages. But it’s awfully hard on paper—not to mention wood, clothing, and anything else that degrades in the humidity.

Over the course of a two-week stay this August, however, I was surprised to notice that the Rhodia pad I’d brought didn’t seem to mottle and curl like the paperbacks I had with me. As you can see from the photo above, it got a little wavy, but each page still yielded a writing surface that was more or less flat.

By comparison, check out my copy of And Then There’s This:

It’s a little unfair, since the cover curl was advanced by my hands when I held the book, and not just the humidity, but still… this is seriously sturdy paper.