PageHabit is a company offering reading subscription boxes for book lovers of all ages and interests. Fans of book subscription boxes might recognize this subscription as Quarterly's Literary Fiction box—Quarterly acquired Bookly Box and formed PageHabit to help them go deeper with their book subscription offerings. As of this review, you can still subscribe to this box via Quarterly's site AND PageHabit's site.
Each box is curated by a featured author and features a newly released book, plus other books and bookish gifts and goodies to inspire you. There are also annotations from the curator to help you engage with the reading experience in a whole new way.
My Subscription Addiction paid for this box. (Check out our review process post to learn more about how we review boxes.)
About PageHabit Quarterly
The Subscription Box: PageHabit's Literary Fiction Quarterly Box
The Cost: $49.99 per quarter + $5.00 shipping
The Products: 3 books, annotations, and several bookish gifts curated by a different author, delivered quarterly.
Ships to: the U.S.
PageHabit Quarterly Spring 2018 Review
This month's box is curated by accomplished author Rumaan Alam, whose most recent novel That Kind of Mother is the hardback featured in the box. His note examines the difference between "the truth" and "what is true," and suggests that while the plot of his novel might not contain "the truth," it shines light on a lot of truths about family—specifically adoption, and even more particularly when the child and parents are a different race.
In absorbing Bookly Box, Quarterly/PageHabit took over Bookly Box's community-minded initiatives. This time around, PageHabit partnered with Books for Africa in an effort to bring books to Burundi. They share some facts and stats about the country they're helping, and it always has a way of offering me perspective as I sit on my comfy couch and dive into a box full of beautiful literary works and other goodies. On the reverse side of this card, they give info about their referral program and share this month's book picks per genre.
They also included a bookmark in the box. This one has a quote from Victor Hugo, who lived and wrote in the 1800s.
Book Notes Notepad - Estimated Value $8.00
The first bookish item I pulled from my box was this retro-looking notepad for book notes. Each page provides space for you to jot down the title, author, genre, and date started for the book in your hands. Then, there is a lined section for observations and a blank part at the bottom for illustrations or anything else you'd like to add. When I read a book, I often dog-ear or even underline parts that I'd like to revisit, but I rarely jot down notes. As much as I love the concept, I can't see myself really getting started with this now, so I'll probably gift this notepad to my librarian friend!
Book Nerd Button - Estimated Value $1.00
Here's another vintage-inspired goodie! The font is awesome. You could pin this to your backpack, a denim jacket or vest, or a tote.
PageHabit Farmer Market Net Bag — Similar bag found here for $6.95
My eyes grew wide when I found this netted bag in my box. I think of it as the type of bag you'd use for produce, which is consistent with the "farmer market" name PageHabit gives it on their website, but I figured since it came in my book box that maybe I was being closed-minded about its potential uses. I tossed this quarter's 3 books in it and they hung kind of awkwardly so I'm back to thinking it really isn't meant to be a book bag after all. I plan to make my first farmer's market trip of the season tomorrow and you better believe I'll have this bag in tow!
That Kind of Mother by Rumaan Alam - Retail Value $26.99 (found here for $16.19)
Rumaan Alam made a bold move by choosing to have the main character of his book be a woman; a mother—two roles which he obviously does not hold. But, from the note he wrote to PageHabit subscribers, I trusted that he approached this delicate task with care. The subject matter alone—adoption, specifically in cases where the child and parents are of differing races, and an exploration of privilege—is one he does have experience with, and it's a topic I deeply want to know more about, so I went in prepared to give Alam's words my full attention. By the time I was about 30 pages in, I realized I don't love Alam's writing style—it felt a bit choppy to me. At first, I thought it was a tool he was using as he wrote about childbirth in the opening scene, but it never quite smoothed out. I also didn't love his frequent use of exclamation points. I'm going to stick it out for a few more chapters and see how things continue to unfold.
Book Summary on Amazon:
NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2018 BY Buzzfeed • The Boston Globe • The Millions • InStyle • Southern Living • Vogue • Popsugar
“With his unerring eye for nuance and unsparing sense of irony, Rumaan Alam’s second novel is both heartfelt and thought-provoking.”
— Celeste Ng, author of Little Fires EverywhereFrom the celebrated author of Rich and Pretty, a novel about the families we fight to build and those we fight to keep
Like many first-time mothers, Rebecca Stone finds herself both deeply in love with her newborn son and deeply overwhelmed. Struggling to juggle the demands of motherhood with her own aspirations and feeling utterly alone in the process, she reaches out to the only person at the hospital who offers her any real help—Priscilla Johnson—and begs her to come home with them as her son’s nanny.
Priscilla’s presence quickly does as much to shake up Rebecca’s perception of the world as it does to stabilize her life. Rebecca is white, and Priscilla is black, and through their relationship, Rebecca finds herself confronting, for the first time, the blind spots of her own privilege. She feels profoundly connected to the woman who essentially taught her what it means to be a mother. When Priscilla dies unexpectedly in childbirth, Rebecca steps forward to adopt the baby. But she is unprepared for what it means to be a white mother with a black son. As she soon learns, navigating motherhood for her is a matter of learning how to raise two children whom she loves with equal ferocity, but whom the world is determined to treat differently.
Written with the warmth and psychological acuity that defined his debut, Rumaan Alam has crafted a remarkable novel about the lives we choose, and the lives that are chosen for us.
Atlantis Poems by Mark Doty - Retail Value $12.99
Alam curated this box to include two books of poetry. This first one was published in the '90s but its pieces have a timeless feel to them. I really enjoyed the nature themes throughout Doty's poems and can see myself revisiting this book in quiet moments spent in my hammock or on a hike.
Book Summary on Amazon:
The poignant, accomplished new collection of poetry from the author of My Alexandria--1993 winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, Los Angeles Times Book Award, 1993 National Book Award Finalist.
The Angel of History by Carolyn Forché - Retail Value $12.20
Unexpectedly—because of conclusions I had drawn from the cover and title (I judged a book by its cover, agh!)—this was my favorite selection of the box. Forché's long-form poems read like water; like memories that wave through one's mind. There is a real sense of place in her works and a strong sense of womanhood with which I identified strongly.
Book Summary on Amazon:
Placed in the context of twentieth-century moral disaster--war, genocide, the Holocaust, the atomic bomb--Forche's ambitions and compelling third collection of poems is a meditation of memory, specifically how memory survives the unimaginable. The poems reflect the effects of such experience: the lines, and often the images within them, are fragmented discordant. But read together, these lines, become a haunting mosaic of grief, evoking the necessary accommodations human beings make to survive what is unsurvivable. As poets have always done, Forche attempts to gibe voice to the unutterable, using language to keep memory alive, relive history, and link the past with the future.
Verdict: I really enjoyed this quarter's PageHabit box, and the supporting selections even more so than the featured hardback. Perhaps it's because I'm a poet myself on the side, or maybe it's the writing style and approach of each that made my persuasions what they are. With shipping, the box is $54.99 per quarter, and the items all added up to about $68.13, using estimated values for the bookish goods. I felt I got my money's worth this quarter.
To Wrap Up:
Can you still get this box if you sign up today? Yes, as of publication, this box was still available!
Value Breakdown: At $54.99 for this box, you are paying approximately $10.99 for each of the 5 items in this box (not including the button).
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