As I lay here in bed, cozy with my family all tucked into their warm beds, my mind can't help but drift to the trans kids who aren’t as lucky. Whether they’re stuck under the roof of unsafe people, trapped in a family that won't accept them, living on the streets, in a country hell-bent on demonizing them—these kids aren’t safe. They’re not warm, they’re not happy, and that just devastates me.

Earlier today, I posted a video with one book for the Trans Rights Readathon because, frankly, I don’t have the spoons to get into it with all the trolls and bigots on these apps. Instagram’s a dumpster fire, TikTok’s gone through more transformations than a changeling, and let’s be real—the thing that was supposed to be a safe space for millions is now quietly shifting gears to help the billionaires. But tonight, as I lie awake thinking about my trans neighbors, I know I have to dig deeper. I must find the spoons, even if they’re buried under the weight of it all. Because here’s the thing: this is how it always starts. Nazis didn’t just go after Jews—they came for trans, gay, and disabled people first.

I’m terrified. Not just for trans people, but for all of us. The thing that terrifies me most isn’t just the rise of hate, but the silence from people who won’t stand up until it directly affects them. By the time it does, it’s already too late. That’s the road to ruin, and I refuse to walk it.

So, I’m vowing right now to find the spoons. To dig deeper. To fight tooth and nail, because, quite frankly, this is the only thing that matters now. Not my survival—but everyone’s survival.

Fighting the Good Fight: The Trans Rights Readathon

And in that spirit, I’m throwing my full weight behind the Trans Rights Readathon. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s an annual call to action for readers to uplift books written by or about trans, nonbinary, 2Spirit, and gender-nonconforming authors and characters, in honor of Trans Day of Visibility on March 31st. From March 21 onward, the goal is to read, amplify, and, of course, raise funds for causes that support the trans community. This year, I’m aiming to raise $400–$500 for Point of Pride, an amazing organization that provides financial support for trans folks in need of health and wellness care.

If you want to join me in this mission, subscribe to any of my paid tiers this month, and all of my proceeds will go directly to Point of Pride. After this month, you can drop back down to the free tier—I get it, times are tough right now.

Privilege, Self-Care, and the Fight for Marginalized Voices

I want to take a moment to acknowledge my privilege. I’ve got a job that feeds my family comfortably, and trust me, I don’t take it for granted. (And let’s be real, this job is thanks to DEI initiatives—yep, white women benefit from affirmative action the MOST.) This platform, though, this is my side gig. My hobby. My self-care. It’s where I can channel all the rage and frustration and do something to push back against the hate machine. Everything I make from this goes right back into promoting marginalized authors. Sometimes that’s buying books by marginalized authors to read and review, and sometimes it’s donations to other Bindery creators like @michael.laborn and @fromthemixedupdesk. One day, I hope to fund a marginalized sci-fi author’s audiobook or help with marketing costs. This month? It’s going to Point of Pride.

The Fight for Independent Bookstores and More

So you've seen the photos and unboxings on social media, and you want to know what the hype is with all of these book boxes! Let me just tell you that there is an entire can of worms to open when you ask someone this question. As a self-proclaimed "book influencer" (aka the only kind of influencer whom it's considered bad to pay for their time and effort, but that's a whole other blog,) I've tried almost every book box out there in the past, and I'm ready to spill the tea!

First, let's start with the three types of book boxes.

1. The monthly subscription book and merch box: usually includes a signed or bookplate included hardcover with maybe an author letter, perhaps some sprayed edges, some cover embossing, or a reversible dust jacket with fanart. Includes several "merch" items usually from various fandoms.

2. The Special Edition Box. Sounds the same but it's not. This box will either include a special edition book from a very popular author that people are happy to preorder, like Babel by RF Kuang, the next in a popular series, or a set of books that's already complete. Most of the time these come with a couple of merch items exclusive to that book/series.

3. The Book Only box. Some companies, like Illumicrate, offer the option to get the monthly Special Edition book without the merch. And other companies like Book of the Month offer just the book, no merch at all.

Now a list of popular book boxes (not all inclusive!!! There are tons more!)

Friends of AK Press - indie nonfic social justice

Beacon Book Box - monthly subscription book and merch box

Bookish Box - Special Edition Box only, used to have Adult and YA monthly subscription boxes.*

Book of the Month - monthly book only, hardcover editions that are not signed, choose one of several monthly choices

The Broken Binding - Special Edition Signed Numbered Book Only - they do mostly series.

Fairyloot - YA monthly subscription book and merch box, Adult book only, Special Edition boxes

Faecrate - monthly subscription book and merch box

Fox & Wit - monthly subscription book and merch box

Goldsboro - Special Edition Signed Numbered Book Only - Premier (various genres) or GSFF (sci-fi/fantasy)

Haymarket Book Club - indie nonfic social justice

lllumicrate - YA monthly subscription book and merch box (or book only), Afterlight Quarterly (romance book only) and Special Edition Boxes.

Lavender Books - Mystery book box with 3-5 merch items featuring LGBTQIA+ characters

The Librarian Box - monthly subscription book and merch box

Litjoy Crate - YA monthly subscription book and merch box, Special Edition boxes

Owlcrate - YA monthly subscription book and merch box, Special Edition boxes

Rainbow Crate - LGBTQIA+ monthly subscription book and merch box

Satisfiction - Highlights sci-fi & fantasy novels written by BIPOC authors

This can be very overwhelming. Which should you choose?! Well, that depends on where you are and what you want. These boxes are based around the world, so depending on where you are, shipping can be expensive!

And as for what you want? Well first I'd suggest checking the backlog for the books these companies have already produces, and make sure that they align with your taste! Someone at each of these companies is receiving and reading ARCs to decide upon which books to carry, and their decision maker's taste may not align with yours.

If you're a collector, if you've heard of Subterranean Press or GrimDark Press, you're probably going to want to choose Goldsboro or Broken Binding, whose books almost always increase in value the minute they become unavailable.

If you just admire pretty books or have a sprayed edge obsession, Fairyloot and Illumicrate are your best bets. I haven't seen either put out a book without sprayed edges in a couple years.

If you want the merch, well frankly most of these companies put out the same items over and over, and there's only so many candles and pins one person can need, and there are tons of resale groups dedicated exclusively to book boxes because of the sheer amount of offloading people do with all that merch. For very useable items you won't resell, Fox & Wit in my opinion is the best. Her book taste also leans slightly more contemporary. For resale value on items Illumicrate and Fairyloot items tend to do the best.

Some of these companies have fucked around and found out, and I have the details! Let me spill the tea...

The Owlcrate Cup Saga

Owlcrate collaborated with artist Cara Kozik to create Harry Potter mugs (unlicensed merch), which they released one at a time in boxes every few months. They were going to do one for each book, but then JKR just kept opening her mouth. Half the fandom was done but the other half was die hard. Owlcrate posted on social media that due to the demand they decided to keep producing the cups. The outcry was furious, and many people cancelled their subscriptions. Owlcrate was so devastated that they quickly changed their minds, posting that they would not produce the cups. But people had already ordered them and were very upset they weren't going to get them (Owlcrate did refund them.) And the side that was upset they had decided to go ahead with producing them was not mollified at all, citing that it was pure greed that had caused Owlcrate to change their minds, not a change of heart. From what I've seen, Owlcrate has still not recovered from the loss of those subscribers. (I feel it important to mention here that Litjoy does Magical Crates and has been unapologetically producing HP merch for years, and nobody is really complaining about it. I think the difference is that they advertise that's who they are as a company - you know what you're getting going in.)

LitJoy and their commitment to JKR (making money)

LitJoy Crate's ENTIRE bag originally was these quarterly magical crates filled with nothing but licensed Harry Potter merch. They did a monthly subscription too with YA Fantasy picks and associated YA merch. They tried collectible cards like Fairyloot, except they went with a 52 card playing card deck instead of the Tarot cards. But when JKR lost her ever loving mind and decided to take out her righteous vengeance for being abused by men on trans people, LitJoy stayed committed to her, using the whole "support the art not the artist" excuse. And for the uneducated masses that worked for a while. But eventually, as JKR's financial backing of policies actually have become deadly to our trans besties, LitJoy finally let go of the fandom. They very much had to be dragged kicking and screaming away from it by their customer base, and they've never really recovered from the vast majority of us who saw who they really were and never went back. They're not a people over profits company, and much like Target, they've proved it, and we won't forget any time soon.

Fairyloot Crashes

Fairyloot's website is notorious for going absolutely nuts during special edition sales. To be fair, Illumicrate's isn't much better. They've added things like queuing systems over the years, but it's still an absolute cluster every time they have a sale for high demand items. And for people in different time zones who have to wake up early or in the middle of the night for a sale, it can be devastating to spend an hour trying to load the page only to have the item sell out before you can make it through checkout.

The Book Boyfriend Box Soapgate

None of this stuff used to be licensed, and nobody really cared, until Soapgate. The Book Boyfriend Box released an A Court of Thorns and Roses inspired box with several items including a fanfic entitled "A Court of Smut and Wingspans" and a bar of soap, shaped like a penis. No, I'm not describing that right. It was not a phallic shaped soap, it was literally a purple veiny circumcised penis soap. Now first, this box's primary audience was YA, and at the time ACOTAR was considered (unwisely IMO) a YA book - it's since been moved to fantasy, but again, that's a whole other story. When I say people lost their minds, I mean that that company is no longer in business and SJM allows no merch to be produced that isn't licensed anymore.

Faecrate and Bookish Box Shipgate

Ok, creative license on this one because nobody is really calling it this, but I think they will. I have never subscribed to Faecrate because they have a terrible reputation for taking your money and then sending you, instead of your items, endless excuses about why you haven't gotten them. Cancellations never seem to go through, and the customer service apparently could not give two shits if you ever receive your things. This has gone on for years, but because of the rarity of the items, the resell value stays high, and the company has stayed in business. Are they reselling their own items? I just don't understand how anyone still subscribes, but maybe that's just me?

The Bookish Box

The Bookish Box pulled the same stunt. I've even heard it referred to as a Ponzi scheme, selling new things in order to cover the cost of the things they already owe people. Having seen many businesses fail due to this exact thing, I personally don't believe it's a scheme, but more of just poor accounting and not knowing how to run a business.

And when the shit really hit the fan, instead of taking accountability the owners threw an employee under the bus and tried to gaslight their entire customer base. It was so ugly they heavily filtered and deleted anything negative from their comment sections, including valid and even polite requests for information on WHERE PEOPLE'S STUFF WAS. They survived it, but I really don't understand how.

We've seen many book boxes go out of business, including Baecrate, Fabled Merch, and Shelflove, and while some handled it well and made sure people got their money back, most of them did not.

So what do I recommend? I've learned from my mistakes over the years, and I've learned that the only merch I'm ever going to use is a bookmark, a mug, and the occasional candle. And I've resold hundreds of items with a cabinet at my house still absolutely full of crap that's been listed on Mercari forever. That narrows me down to book only. I spend less money purchasing the merch items I fall in love with from the resale market.

I've been a fan of some of Goldsboro's GSFF's choices, which veer more High Fantasy and Hard Sci-fi, but lately they seem to show preference to certain authors that I just don't love, and their commitment to diversity is shaky at best.

Illumicrate has a new sci-fi subscription called Starlight (they are YA but leaning NA and lots more sci-fi choices and lots of inclusiveness), and I occasionally purchase a special edition box from them or Fairyloot. So I may try that.

The Penguin Clothbound series is a collector's dream. Full of classics that everyone should read, hardcovers designed by the famous Coralie Bickford Smith, and a large number of titles. They release a few of these a year, so once you start it's easy to keep up. Tracking down some of the older releases can be a bit more challenging, especially the Indian Special Editions, and that first edition of Crime and Punishment. May the odds be ever in your favor!

This collector needs to warn you that these editions are extremely fragile. The covers are cloth with a vinyl embossing that tends to rub off easily, especially if stored in any kind of humidity or if your shelves are too tightly packed. Keep this in mind when deciding which collectors set is for you! I like this set because of the diversity of titles, and I'm just a big Coralie Bickford Smith fan.

2008

Note that the fist editions of the titles published this year are numbered, 1-9 I'm sure of but don't know about Dorian Gray!

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert: 9780141394671

If you, like me, have been avidly fascinated by Chels (chels_ebooks) who talks about romance novel covers and their history, you might find the topic of science fiction book covers a whole other beast. But equally fascinating I think. While your run-of-the-mill contemporary paperback might showcase a happy couple in front of a sunset (yawn), sci-fi covers have the audacity to feature sandworms the size of skyscrapers, robots with more feelings than you, and dystopian landscapes that look like someone spilled neon paint all over a decaying city. Seriously, it’s like the genre’s motto is “Go big or go home,” with the big being some weird alien overlord and the home being a planet on the brink of destruction.

But here’s the kicker: While these covers were once crafted by actual artists (remember those?), now the shiny future of science fiction covers involves... AI. Yes, you heard that right. Instead of talented, living, breathing humans, AI tools are being handed the reigns to create cover art. And if you’ve ever wondered what happens when you give an algorithm access to the entirety of the internet, the answer is terrifying. But before I dive too deep into my existential rage about the dehumanization of creativity, let’s take a nostalgic stroll through the actual science fiction covers that made this genre legendary—because, let’s face it, those robots didn’t create themselves.

The Early Days: Frankenstein and the "What Even Is a Cover?" Era

Let’s kick things off with Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. First, Mary is the mother of sci-fi. Mansplainers begone. Now, we know the 1931 Boris Karloff film version of the monster had some serious visual impact, but the first edition of Frankenstein in 1818? Nah, no fancy illustrations for you. That first cover was about as exciting as a bag of stale chips—literally what does this cover even have to do with the story?! But as time went on, the covers slowly became as dramatic as the story itself—complete with ghastly depictions of a stitched-together monster. If you ever feel like your life is falling apart, just remember—at least you're not a misunderstood monster who can't catch a break, right?

Here's a sideline shot of my favorite Frankenstein cover btw, it's not even technically collectible, you can find it anywhere, but it's so bold and pulpy and can't you just feel his ANGST?! We've really come a loooong way since 1818!

The 1900s: The Golden Age of Sci-Fi Covers (Sort of)

Fast forward to the early 20th century, and suddenly, we’re really getting somewhere with sci-fi covers. H.G. Wells and other legends were cranking out some wild, futuristic adventures, and the artists were truly flexing their creative muscles. A lot of early science fiction was initially published in pulp magazines like Amazing Stories (launched in 1926), which featured colorful, eye-catching covers to capture the imagination of readers. Artists like Frank R. Paul were pioneers in illustrating futuristic cities, rocket ships, and alien creatures. These covers were often dramatic and otherworldly, capitalizing on fantastical elements.

The 1950s-1960s: Where Things Got REALLY Weird

Enter the pulp era, where covers started going all-out. No more “meh” art; now we had space ships the size of planets, aliens with tentacles, and robots with far too much personality. The covers didn’t just sell you a book—they entranced you into entering a completely new reality. Gone were the days of minimalism. Now it was all about that wow factor.

"The Stars My Destination" (1962) by Alfred Bester
Here, the cover was a glorious mess of sci-fi goodness, with space pirates, bold colors, and the sense that everything was about to explode—because it was. This cover set the tone for the space opera genre: gritty, dangerous, and so over-the-top, you couldn’t help but love it.

"Dune" (1965) by Frank Herbert
Oh, Dune—that verbose behemoth of science fiction. The first edition cover featured a terrifying sandworm emerging from the desert, giving readers the immediate “yep, I’m about to be blown away” vibe. The novel has since earned some of the most iconic covers in sci-fi history. If you don’t see a sandworm and think "I need this book"—are you even human? The content of the book is another story - but that's a post for another day!

The Present Day: AI Ruins Everything (Sort Of)

Now, here comes the 21st century, where things start to get... interesting. As if movie feature book covers weren't bad enough already, enter: AI. Yep, that’s right—artificial intelligence is now churning out science fiction covers, and honestly, it’s as terrifying as it sounds. AI doesn’t know how to capture the soul of a story or the uniqueness of an author’s voice. Instead, it grabs some random data from across the web, spits out something that looks vaguely like a scene from a fever dream, and calls it a day.

But because authors are desperate for some cool art without breaking the bank, and publishers are greedy and don't want to pay real artists, AI covers are becoming a thing. And let’s be real: when you see an AI-generated book cover, do you really think, “Ah yes, this is a masterpiece created with love and care,” or more like, “Hmm, this looks like it was designed by a malfunctioning vending machine.”

AI-generated covers often lean heavily on abstract landscapes, neon glows, and creepy visuals that are supposed to evoke the “alien” or “futuristic” elements of the genre, but they often miss the soul of what makes sci-fi so good. I mean, I get it—AI can spit out an image faster than you can say "cyberpunk dystopia," but come on, this is the genre that gave us *epic covers of giant space monsters and mind-blowing worlds—are we really going to settle for robot art that looks like it was created after too many cups of coffee?