Book Riot Quarterly Subscription Box Review #BKR06

Book Riot by Quarterly is a seasonal subscription box made for book lovers. In each box they include a mix of bookish things, plus at least one or two books. (Sometimes three).

This box was sent to us for review purposes. (Check out the review process post to learn more about how we review boxes).

The Subscription Box: Book Riot by Quarterly

The Cost: $50 a box (ships every quarter) plus $8 shipping to the U.S.

The Products: Books and book-related items selected by Book Riot

Ships to: US and Worldwide (Additional shipping costs for International shipping)

Check out all of my Book Riot Quarterly Box reviews!

Each Quarterly Box comes with a letter from the curator detailing the items included and why each was selected. A quote from Book Riot on this theme:

We’ve chosen a chilling theme to go with the oh-so-chilly weather. Hunker down, huddle up, and wrap your mind around some matters of life and death and the in-between.

Being Mortal by Atul Gawande – Retail Value $26 (On Amazon for $15.60)

Since this book has been on the New York Times Best Seller Nonfiction list for 23 weeks, I ended up buying it a few months ago.

Here is the synopsis from Amazon:

In Being Mortal, bestselling author Atul Gawande tackles the hardest challenge of his profession: how medicine can not only improve life but also the process of its ending

Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming birth, injury, and infectious disease from harrowing to manageable. But in the inevitable condition of aging and death, the goals of medicine seem too frequently to run counter to the interest of the human spirit. Nursing homes, preoccupied with safety, pin patients into railed beds and wheelchairs. Hospitals isolate the dying, checking for vital signs long after the goals of cure have become moot. Doctors, committed to extending life, continue to carry out devastating procedures that in the end extend suffering.

Gawande, a practicing surgeon, addresses his profession’s ultimate limitation, arguing that quality of life is the desired goal for patients and families. Gawande offers examples of freer, more socially fulfilling models for assisting the infirm and dependent elderly, and he explores the varieties of hospice care to demonstrate that a person’s last weeks or months may be rich and dignified.

Full of eye-opening research and riveting storytelling, Being Mortal asserts that medicine can comfort and enhance our experience even to the end, providing not only a good life but also a good end.

I’m currently about half-way through the book, and it isn’t fun to read, but it is very important. It’s also a book I’m happy to have a second copy of to share.

Half Resurrection Blues by Daniel José Older – Value $7.99

(The bookmark was drawn by the author exclusively for Book Riot subscribers).

The synopsis from Amazon:

“Because I’m an inbetweener—and the only one anyone knows of at that—the dead turn to me when something is askew between them and the living. Usually, it’s something mundane like a suicide gone wrong or someone revived that shouldn’ta been.”

Carlos Delacruz is one of the New York Council of the Dead’s most unusual agents—an inbetweener, partially resurrected from a death he barely recalls suffering, after a life that’s missing from his memory. He thinks he is one of a kind—until he encounters other entities walking the fine line between life and death.

One inbetweener is a sorcerer. He’s summoned a horde of implike ngks capable of eliminating spirits, and they’re spreading through the city like a plague. They’ve already taken out some of NYCOD’s finest, leaving Carlos desperate to stop their master before he opens up the entrada to the Underworld—which would destroy the balance between the living and the dead.

But in uncovering this man’s identity, Carlos confronts the truth of his own life—and death.…

At least I’m 1 for 2 in books I don’t already own. This one sounds interesting and it gets good reviews so I’m excited to put it on my reading list.

Out of Print Library Card Notebook – Value $6

I’ve received a few other Out of Print items over the past year thanks to Book Riot, and this notebook is very fitting for the box.

#BooksandBooze Flask – Value $20

This particular flask from Liquid Courage Flasks is custom designed just for Book Riot subscribers, so I just used their standard flask price to get the value. (On the flipside of the flask is the Book Riot logo).

Verdict: Counting Amazon prices, this box has a value of about $50. ($60 if you count the retail prices). That’s pretty good for a book subscription to break even, and I think past Book Riot box values have even been a little higher. As always with book subscriptions, I personally find a value in the curation aspect, and I’m excited to read Half-Resurrection Blues. (Of course this box would have been more exciting for me if I didn’t already own one of the books, but that’s the risk of subscription boxes!)

What do you think of #BKR06?