Gift Guide 2024: Subscription Boxes – Especially Book Boxes!

We’re back with your, and our, weekly Gift Guides!

Every Wednesday until the week before Christmas (AND Hanukkah?!) we’ll be sharing links, suggestions, and ideas for holiday gifts. We want to hear yours, too!

For our first Gift Guide, we wanted to share some book subscription boxes that are making us VERY happy, especially those that are from small independent booksellers.

NB: some links in this and future gift guides include affiliate links which send a portion of your purchase back to us at no extra cost to you. You’re not required to use our links, and thank you in advance if you do.

Subscription boxes sometimes fill up quickly, so I’ve done my best to note who has a waitlist (WL) and who has new opportunities – but bookmarking the link or adding yourself to the waitlist is never a bad thing!

Shana: I bought a subscription to the Satisfaction Box (WL) for my mom, and it worked out so well that I’m thinking of doing something similar for other family members.

Maybe a mystery book version for my grandma?

A closed door diverse romance box for my sister?

A tragic books about dead girls for my emo little sister?

Every other month they send you a special printing of a sci fi or fantasy novel written by a BIPOC author, paired with spa and self care items to pamper yourself. But you can save money and get a book only box which is what I did (don’t tell my mom).

Claudia: We did a romance box for my daughter through a Delaware indie bookstore and it was good, and there’s the Delaware connection for you, Shana! They had other genres too. They sent it all nicely packaged and with a few goodies.

Shana: Aw, that makes my Delewarean heart happy!!! Which bookstore?

Claudia: The Book Drop in Bethany Beach! 

The selection is terrific:

• Adult Fiction
  • Choose up to two: Historical Fiction, Thriller, Romance, Fantasy
• Large Print
• Young Adult
• Graphic Novel
• Middle Grade
• Early Readers
• Picture Books
• Board Books
• Jigsaw Puzzle

Shana: Oooh, thriller might be perfect for my grandma!

Sarah: My local, Loyalty Books, has the Leap of Faith Subscription Box:

Leap of Faith is a quarterly box that features one book by a BIPOC, Queer, Disabled, or otherwise marginalized writer that is emerging in the publishing world and is filled out with awesome goodies to help celebrate the chosen book.

You can subscribe for one, or for all four for a year.

There’s also the mainstay Book of The Month club, which one of my neighbors loves.

The Bookshelf in Thomasville, Georgia, has Shelf Subscriptions, where you take a quiz to see which curator’s taste matches yours. They also have kids subscriptions!

RJ Julia Booksellers  in Madison, Connecticut, offers Just the Right Book! It’s a personalized book subscription. Customers fill out a Reading Profile to be matched with their next read.

Page 1 Books is an online store that also does literary matchmaking: readers choose the length of subscription, fill out a questionnaire, and they send books.

If someone on your list is a mystery person, The Mysterious Bookshop in New York has a BUNCH of clubs, from “Traditional & Historical” to “Thriller & Espionage.” So many choices!

Books are Magic has three book clubs: Adult Hardcover with a choice of genres, Adult Paperback with different genres, and a Kids & Teens option.

And then Aardvark Book Club offers subscription options to the US and Canada, and subscribers choose their own books each month of their subscription. They’ve got All The Things — romance, horror, lit fic, thriller, sci-fi, magical realism, and everything is in a hardcover edition exclusive to Aardvark. 

But of course, books aren’t the only things you can subscribe to.

Amanda: If we broaden to other boxes, I got a cheese box to recommend.

Elyse: There’s a yarn subscription I like.

Sarah: Look, I’ll take all recs! It’s a gift in a box!

Amanda:  This was the cheese shop I did my year of cheese classes from. The Curdbox contains 3 cheeses, 3 food pairings to go with the cheeses, plus a Spotify playlist.

Elyse:  I love this yarn club from Round Mountain Fibers because every month you help the designer with the color. You suggest photos (nature themed) in a group and then vote for which one you want her to dye the yarn based on.

Shana:  Oh – one more! I’m currently on the waitlist to get this box for myself: Cover Snob is a romance subscription box that does BIPOC romances with fancy sprayed edges.

Sarah: Ok, those are gorgeous.

What about you? Do you have a book subscription you love? Or are you subscribed to other neat things like cheese, yarn, or fabric? What are you subscription recs?