Boxwalla Book Subscription Box Review – June 2016

Subscription: Boxwalla Book Box

Cost: $49.99 billed bi-monthly

What to Expect: “We have four interests to choose from. And two ways to explore them. You can either subscribe to multiple interests. OR you can subscribe to one interest and hop between interests.”


 

“Housed in a beautiful, cream colored handmade box made from tree-free handmade paper.”

Boxwalla June 2016 Book Box

Let me just say that Mailbox Junkie is not lying when she talks about the amazingness of this box! I called my boyfriend over to feel it, and I could tell he wanted it…

Boxwalla June 2016 Book Box

June Box: Hungary, Netherlands, Egypt

Some boxes are still available for purchase here!

The first series of book boxes this year, will focus on great, living writers from all over the world. All of them are must-read but not as widely read as they deserve to be. All of them are also prospective Nobel Laureates. But we don’t want to wait till they win. We want to (and want you to) read them now!

On that note, I wanted to mentioned that Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel passed away today.

Information Card

The card is eloquently written.

book washi tape

I liked the book-themed washi tape!

 

Hungary: Peter Nadas' Book of Memories

Hungary: Peter Nadas’ Book of Memories [1986]: $20?? [semi hard to find new, older book, various printings; description from Goodreads]

First published in Hungary in 1986 after a five-year battle with censors, A Book of Memories is both a confessional autobiographical novel and psychological inquest into the repressed nightmares of Europe’s recent past.

The novel revolves around several multilayered, elaborately linked narratives. The first, set against the backdrop of 1970s East Berlin, is that of an emotionally tormented young Hungarian writer who is enmeshed in an amorous triad with a German poet and an aging temperamental actress. The second narrative is a novel the narrator is composing about a turn-of-the-century German aesthete, whose anti-bourgeois transgressions and hypersensitivity mirror those of his creator. A final voice is that of a childhood friend who, after the narrator’s death, offers his own perspective on their friendship and on the events that shaped their lives.

With a hypnotic attention to sensuous detail conveyed in a prose as lush as it is elegantly precise, Peter Nadas’s work is certain to endure both as a brilliant inquiry into the varieties of sexual, artistic, and political passion, and as an important moral expression of the public and private soul of twentieth-century Europe.

I was going to say that having this book with the description including “German aesthete, whose anti-bourgeois transgressions and hypersensitivity” on my shelf would make people think I’m super smart. But, I’m going to tell you a secret: wearing glasses, reading books, and having a college degree have led many people to think I’m super smart.

Now I just have to figure out how to understand and discuss philosophical, political, and multilayered literary content… SO very bourgeois of me to think that, right??

This book sounds quite interesting, but I’ve never read a book this huge [700p], so it may take me a long time. Also, it will be turning 30 this year with me!

Netherlands: Cees Nooteboom's Lost Paradise

Netherlands: Cees Nooteboom’s Lost Paradise [2004]$14 on Amazon [description from Goodreads]

Cees Nooteboom, hailed by A. S. Byatt as “one of the greatest modern novelists,” is one of Holland’s most important authors.

In Lost Paradise, Nooteboom’s most ambitious book yet, he sets out to uncover the connections between two seemingly unrelated travelers: a beautiful stranger aboard a Berlin-bound flight and a haggard-looking man on a Holland train platform. With his fleeting impressions of these encounters, Nooteboom builds a complex, haunting story of longing, regret, and rebirth in the dawn of the new millennium. Alma, a young woman of German descent, leaves her parents’ Sao Paolo home on a hot summer night. Her car engine dies in one of the city’s most dangerous favelas, a mob surrounds her, and she is pulled from the automobile. Not long after, Dutch novelist Erik Zontag is in Perth, Australia, for a literary conference and finds a winged woman curled up in a closet in an empty house. The intersection of their paths illuminates the ways in which the divine touches our lives.

Lost Paradise is an affirmation of our underlying humanity in an increasingly fragmented age, a deeply resonant tale of cosmically thwarted love.

Lost Paradise introduction

I think I will enjoy this book. I’m hoping this page indicates some snark within.

Egypt: Nawal El Saadawi's Woman at Point Zero

Egypt: Nawal El Saadawi’s Woman at Point Zero 1975: $10 on Amazon [description also from Amazon]

Nawal El Saadawi’s highly acclaimed feminist novel, Woman at Point Zero, follows the life of Firdaus, an Egyptian peasant girl, from her childhood of incomprehensible cruelty and neglect to her end in a grimy Cairo prison cell. From her earliest memories, Firdaus suffered at the hands of men—first her abusive father, then her violent, much older husband, to finally her deceitful boyfriend-turned-pimp. After a lifetime of abuse, she at last takes drastic action against the males ruling her life. Still as beautiful and cutting as it was when it was first published, this new edition will continue to resonate powerfully with readers for years to come.

This sounds interesting. It is not something I would have chosen myself, but it is fairly short and I am curious to see what I think.

 

Bloom Bookmark Set and ‘Cobblestones’ card from Obvious State

Picture coming soon. The items were accidentally left out from my box, and Boxwalla kindly agreed to send them!

 


Verdict: If I can be honest, I was a little worried about getting this box because I was afraid I wouldn’t want to read any of the books. When I’m not reading YA or middle readers [it’s my job now!], I read romantic comedy or dark suspense / murder / mystery books. But fortunately, these all sound interesting! I think I may read one of them after I [finally] finish The Dream Thieves [procrastinating for two months because I don’t want to rush through the series…].

I was surprised how old some of the books were, but I think the fact that they’re not super common is the reason why it works. I personally have heard of none of these, and have already tucked them into my TBR bookshelf and logged them on my Goodreads.

Which book would you snuggle up on the beach or in your bed with?

 

Click here to see other Boxwalla reviews!

Disclosure: This box was sent to me for review purposes. Opinions are all my own.

  8 comments for “Boxwalla Book Subscription Box Review – June 2016

  1. CeciliaA
    July 3, 2016 at 10:59 am

    I am insanely tempted by this box. I get several book boxes but none that are like this. I haven’t read any of these books and hadn’t heard of them. I tend to read YA, fantasy books, mystery, or horror but do like to be pushed outside of my comfort zone. Right now Cozy Reader Club and Indiespensable are pushing me pretty hard outside my comfort zone.

    • July 3, 2016 at 12:53 pm

      I feel you on comfort zone reading. I have this OCD thing where I have to read every book by authors who I enjoy one book of. So like Stephen King? Yeah I have read (save for the new one I just got) every single book he has ever written including those under the other names and comics. I was on a Russian writer thing for a long time and it took forever to get through all the writers. I feel like fans of Ayn Rand get a super bad wrap but I have read every single book she has written and enjoyed them. I like those tough women who fall apart when the strong man is in the picture. It makes me laugh and laugh.

      I read mostly fiction but really need to read more! I fear a book subscription will go the way of my craft subscription… just a collection on things I have to get to at some point lol

      • July 9, 2016 at 12:29 am

        CeciliaA I am the same! I look at those two subs from time to time, but really what I want is a YA sub that also sends items for adults instead of teen items, ahaha. I’d probably have to make that box myself. Ah well.

        Subista, wow I didn’t realize you were such a dedicated reader! I read a lot of King in high school, but I tend to have reading ADD where I skip around from book to book and author to author. I’m always listening to an audiobook and reading a physical book though. I’ll let you know about Woman at Point Zero too!

  2. July 3, 2016 at 12:49 pm

    I TOTALLY would read Woman at Point Zero! Sounds like a good read and I love feminist books and to think about it. Also anything about other cultures and times is always super interesting! Great review!

  3. July 3, 2016 at 1:47 pm

    I really really want to read the one set in East Berlin. I did a college trip there and to me Berlin is one of the most fascinating cities in the world!! Love the pics!

    • July 9, 2016 at 12:31 am

      Oh wow, that is awesome! I would like to go there as well to use some of my horrible German skills on unsuspecting German citizens. “ACH SO!!! Wo bist du heute abend?? Möchtest du ein stück apfel? Total toll!”

  4. July 4, 2016 at 12:51 am

    You can go to The Freckled Fawn website. They have subscription boxes, but I just buy right from their store. They have the book washi tape. I bought some of that and a couple rolls of wiener dog washi tape! They’re not expensive either!

    • July 9, 2016 at 12:35 am

      Thanks, Susie! I actually have a craft drawer tower in my office and one drawer is full of washi tape. There’s an Asian market in downtown Seattle called Uwajimaya, and inside of that there is an amazing bookstore that sells washi tape and I stocked up one time! I used to do a lot of mail art swaps, but unfortunately most of it sits unused. However, looking at Freckled Fawn’s site gave me a good idea to use it in my planner, so thank you!!

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