Hi, everyone! We were supposed to meet tonight for our first Chain Gang All Stars bookclub conversation, but over half of the people who previously said they could come have told me they can no longer make it! So I’m moving it to this Friday, one of the other popular times! Same time: 7pm cst!

Here is the updated link: https://us05web.zoom.us/j/83792331566?pwd=gbtzzDkWJ5jMymkwAlAnZdWn4P0wWf.1

Reminder, this one is the book club discussion so everyone is invited. We will discuss the entire book.

Our other two meetings will be discussing abolition itself. Those will take place on November 13th and December 4th! Links to come!

See you Friday!

Hello to all of you founding Apothecary members! I just wanted to take a minute to thank you all so much for joining up on this new membership tier. I know some of you are former Dark Travelers who upgraded, some of you are free members who upgraded, and some of you are new to the platform. You have no idea how much I appreciate you all supporting me and joining our community, and I am excited to make something really fun for everyone! I was honestly overwhelmed (in a good way) to see how many people jumped on this, so thank you again!

If you are new, you will find we are a laid back, kind, supportive community of readers who love talking about books, Legos, and whatever else comes to mind over on Discord. As Apothecary members who sign up before November 15, 2026, you will all be getting the inaugural January 2027 Fantasy Box. However, your Dark Traveler benefits start now! You will all be seeing posts for your exclusive weekly reading update vlog, early YouTube video access, the Dark Traveler Discord channel (should you choose to join Discord), and are all eligible to participate in our monthly pick a book for me.

You all have an exclusive channel on Discord as well, separate from the Dark Traveler channels, where I will post some teasers and keep some chatter about the book box going, but I will also post everything here through Bindery if you're not a Discord person. If you do want to give the Discord a try, here's a link!

In the meantime, especially if you are new, I am very open to feedback and requests. If you have any ideas to make the membership better for you, or have anything you may want to request for the boxes, do let me know - I'm always open to ideas!

Again, welcome, thank you, and I'm so excited to start working on this! Happy reading!

I got a new favorite history book plus I started a series by one of my favorite authors... here's everything I've been reading plus some other news. Feel free to hit me up in the comments with your plans for the week!

READING

REVIEW

A PEOPLE'S TRAGEDY: THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 1891-1924 by ORLANDO FIGES (narrative popular history)

Progress: 421/824

Holy hell balls y'all this, so far, is up there with some of my favorite THICC BOI history books. For those of you that read The Coming of the Third Reich by Richard J. Evans when it was a book club pick, the format and style will feel very similar. The main difference is Figes is more opinionated than Evans, but that's also a product of the topic and all of the competing interpretations of events (Nazi history doesn't need to be as spicy, they damn themselves quite clearly in every way).

Figes has such command as a writer and flows from top-down to bottom-up history smooth as hell, plus he has a great eye for the interesting bits and engaging stories. Only halfway through but I can't see my opinion of it changing much. It bangs.

THREE ASSASSINS by KOTARO ISAKA (dark thriller)

Progress: Finished

This was trying to be both a dark comedy and a psychological thriller and I'm not sure it was very good at either but ultimately it was a fine time, even if I will never think about it again.

20TH CENTURY BOYS by NAOKI URASAWA [The Perfect Edition Vol. 4] (manga/seinen thriller)

Progress: Chapter 11 of 22

This continues to be killer stuff from top to bottom. Every plotline, new character, and big set pieces hit. It's like if Stephen King's Stand by Me (aka The Body) was also a global conspiracy thriller spanning multiple decades. I'm currently in the middle of The Big F'n Event and I'm completely hooked.

DRAGON KEEPER by ROBIN HOBB [Rain Wild Chronicles #1, The Realm of the Elderlings #10]

Progress: Page 80/473

This is considered by many to be the weakest of RotE but I don't give a damn about all that I'm just vibing with Hobb like I always do. No clue what to think yet other than I quite like the stuff with the dragons (super high brow commentary there).

PREVIEW

The Wolves of War by John Gwynne is locked in for the Fiction Sickos Book Club in November, with the History Sickos Book Club vote looking like Yakuza by Andrew Rankin is running away with it.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• Publication News: Hoping that very soon I will be able to reveal who the cover artist for our second book will be! We were very spoiled for choice so I'm sure y'all will love 'em.

• Game of the Week: Hmmmmm...

• Show of the Week: Starting S4 of Slow Horses and am almost done watching the new limited series of East of Eden (love all the Cathy, she's the best).

• Movie of the Week: I watched The Invite over the weekend on a whim and Olivia Wilde really directed the shit out of that thing. Very anxiety inducing, not at all what I expected, and pretty damn awesome.

I have had such a great time over here on Bindery. I love what the publishing side of the company does, and I have really enjoyed the platform. Being able to provide longer form content, and build a great community of book lovers has been so much fun! Over the last few months, I have seen some great growth with my current membership tier, The Dark Travelers. I knew I wanted to offer a new membership tier, and I wanted it to be something that would offer something cool, while hopefully helping out less known authors or books, as well as some local businesses.

So after some thought, I figured out a great way to do these things that I am really excited about. Allow me to introduce the Apothecary Tier, a quarterly book box that gives you all the great benefits of the Dark Travelers, while also getting you a quarterly themed book box!

As you can see above, each quarter will be a different theme and genre. Each box will come with a book that is a lesser known book or author (or both!) within the genre noted that month, as well as some extra goodies to enjoy while reading! If possible, I will buy the books direct from the author, and when not possible through my local independent bookstore. Items included will also be from local businesses as much as possible! And in addition to the book box, you get all the benefits of the Dark travelers: a weekly reading update vlog, early access to the weekly YouTube video, private Discord channels, and the ability to pick a book for me to read each month!

Now, of course, there will be some rules, so here is the fine print!

• Obviously, you need to be comfortable sharing a shipping address with me!

• You need to be a member for 2 months before the first book ships. For the January Fantasy box, memberships need to be in by November 15! All members get immediate Dark Traveler status on signing up.

• No skips are available - I am a one man show here, and this is already a lot of logistics! If you already have the book, or are not interested, you will be getting a new book that you can resell, donate, or give away!

• I am initially offering this internationally, with the initial shipping from the US being covered by me. However, any extra duties, tariffs or taxes that are charged in your country will be up to you. If shipping becomes prohibitively expensive I will address that later, but I did want to at least offer this to start.

• Cancellation follows the same policies as any Bindery membership tier.

The schedule will be as follows starting in January 2027, with books shipping mid month:

• January: Fantasy Book

• April: Sci Fi Book

• July: Surprise book and genre!

• October: Horror Book (nothing too extreme!)

This is super exciting, and I am really pumped to offer this and have more members join our community while supporting authors, artists, and indie bookstores! If you have any questions please let me know, and I hope to see some of you sign up! Happy reading!

Today is the last day to upgrade your membership and get an arc of Cracks, the next book from our publishing imprint.

Why do paid subscribers get arcs?

The community membership fees go into the production of our books and community support is what helps us compete with Big 5 publishers. It only makes sense that you, our biggest supporters, get to read the book early! We know you won’t stop shouting about it!

You are the champions of diverse stories. We are constantly reminded that publishing needs to be more diverse. Our work here helps get these necessary stories into the world! Your early reviews are so important.

In addition to arcs, paid subscribers also get the book tea early (secrets incoming!) , access to exclusive posts and snail mail club is going monthly for $12 and up subscribers starting in Jan!

Today and is a great day to support indie publishing!

I want to share some more early reviews of Cracks!

Okay, let me know if you’ve already preordered below!