I have been getting these daily diaries for over 10 years. At first only the black and tan hard cover was available, then when the blue and blue hard cover variety was offered, tried that too. Now there's many color options with 2 versions, the soft and the hard. While I prefer the hard, the soft have more color varieties, so I have tried both the red and violet soft covers. I really love the violet color and hope that it'll come in a hard cover in the future. The hard cover diary pages tend to stay down better than the soft. I usually have to place a paperweight on the pages to keep them from flipping over while it is open and I'm not writing in it at that moment. All the dairies I have purchased had a calendar on each page and I really like that feature. The best part is the entire page is for one day. This allows me to write in everything without needing to write really small or adding extra pages. Plus, there's enough pages for an entire year and then some. I use the diary as a journal keeping track of things accomplished or ideas for the future. Normal journals are just blank pages & if I get behind, it's more difficult to just jot in something quick for the current day without writing in all the previous days, that's the advantage of the calendar aspect. I prefer to receive it before October so I can begin writing in items for the next year & it hasn't always been that way. I'm glad the ordering process has improved from the earlier years. I also like the elegant leather cover and the gold edged pages.