Book Mail!!!!!

    

I love a good book subscription box!  There is something about getting books in the mail that I find very exciting. It is fun to have some selections by people I trust that I may not have considered on my own. It did take me awhile to find some subscription boxes that accommodate to my personal reading tastes. I had a Book of the Month subscription for a few years. While I found that the prices for hot titles were affordable I also found that sometimes that I would find myself making a selection that did not really suit my tastes as I would choose a book out of curiosity. Over the years I have gotten monthly subscriptions to Harlequin Romance series for brief periods of time. While I do need to confess that I do have a weakness for picking up series romance titles from time to time and for a long time my aspiration was to be a series romance writer…I even have unpublished novels to show for it!) that I never felt that those were the type of books that I needed to keep around when I was done reading them. I truly did appreciate the philosophy of the Go Love Yourself Box as I enjoyed having tools to really dive into the materials in the self help books that was featured but as I started getting into designing my own journals and finding things to make with essential oils on my own the strength of that particular box started to lose its purpose for me. Also while I think there is a time and place for self help books they can be problematic…..the only self help book I really feel that I need to recommend to people has to be How to Be Fine by the hosts of the By the Book podcast.

But then I really enjoy Once Upon A Book Club where I when I read I open items that correspond to the story I am reading that brings the story to life. In my June selection I just read the book Where The Lost Wander and opened a rainbow colored blanket when a character used a blanket and a nice pair of sewing scissors when a character was cutting their hair. I reviewed by experiences with The Lost Queen and A Royal Christmas Wish on my blog. This is a unique service. Quite honestly I would say that one of the things I appreciate about this is that I read some books that I wouldn’t be inclined to read on my own. However, that is also my criticism of it for the cost as well. I am quite sure I was tipsy and just received a bonus check when I decided to subscribe to this particular service. I would say that I enjoy this service immensely but it is probably the one I would be most likely to eliminate if I had to cut back my book spending significantly.

One of my favorite subscriptions has to be Feminist Book Club! It is a local to me business that is based in Minneapolis. What I love about this particular service is the combination of titles to look at from a feminist lens and the online community through the Facebook group and the monthly video discussions of the book.  Also I can’t seem to hold onto the books that I have read for them very long giving them away to women that I think would appreciate them---for example I gave my sister Know My Name and my sister in law Good Talk. Whenever I listen to the podcast I really have to stay away from the internet because this community combines my passion for progressive politics and books very well. When I recently read White Fragility for my own anti-racism education I initially discovered that title when I was scrolling through previous selections that this book club had.

And the subscription that I just can’t ever get in the mail fast enough is Nightworms. It is a curated box with horror novels—and Mother Horror (who is THE most definitive book reviewer in the horror community) is one of the people who runs the subscription. But these books stay on my bookshelf because I can’t get enough horror novels in my life. If I had to choose only one book subscription box (which one of these days I might need to just to focus on books that I already have for a little bit) this box would be it. While I was thrilled to receive an advanced readers copy of A Southern Bookclub's Guide to Slaying Vampires in exchange for a review I did not complain about obtaining a hardcover copy of a Grady Hendrix book in the mail at all. I quickly read my June selections of Ghoul and October Boys as they brought me into the minds of adolescent boys getting caught in spooky situations. I am always eager to see what else might be featured by this subscription box and I have been known to dance around my apartment when I receive them in the mail! I also enjoy seeing what people say about these selections on Twitter as it does provide a digital sense of community around my favorite genre.

Don’t get me wrong—used books are my lifeline. I am quick to preach that there are ways to still enjoy obtaining books if someone is on a tight budget if it is a priority that they want to have.  A good subscription box is not necessarily cheap. However I do appreciate that all of the subscriptions that I get are women run businesses and feel more unique and/or community based than what I encounter on amazon.  And who doesn’t love receiving something fun in the mail??????