The Sunday Prescription

One reading topic, one week of plans, and plenty of books administered weekly for chronic readers.

Symptoms: Are Special Editions Falling Out of Favor?

Happy Sunday everyone, and welcome back to another Sunday Prescription! Hope you are all having a great week and enjoying the last few weeks of summer as we head into fall. I don't know about you, but I for one am ready for cool weather and spooky season!

Speaking of spooky season, you all know I greatly enjoy reading horror books, and I have been a subscriber to the Illumicrate Evernight Sub box for awhile now, and I'm thinking about dropping it. This is along with some interesting discussion on our Discord server recently, and I thought it would be interesting to talk about!

I first signed up for Evernight because I was hoping to explore some new and different horror. For the quality of books you get the price seemed reasonable, and I figured it would be fun to try out. Now, the books have been wonderful in terms of physical quality for sure, and I have no complaints there. However, the books themselves have been very hit or miss in terms of my enjoyment of them. A few folks on our Discord server have also been talking about other subscriptions, especially subscriptions where the special editions are newer books, and the sentiment seems to be that more and more people are thinking of dropping subs where they get new release special editions.

I think this is interesting, because I'm seeing more and more creators leaning into indie books, paperbacks, used books, and discount stores for cheaper or more affordable books. For a long time, book socials were heavily leaning toward the sprayed edges and special covers of special edition books, but I'm starting to see that change. I know for me personally, I have always preferred the reading experience of a paperback - especially a trade paperback with my eyes these days. I buy a lot from my local indie store and bookshop.org, but I also buy a lot from Pango used and will even head to our local nd and Charles. But I do enjoy some special editions as well, especially for books that I know I love. I found my way onto the Broken Binding's SF&F sub recently, and those three books have been great choices that I know I was interested in, but they are pricey. Fortunately there is a decent skip allowance for that one, which is nice.

I also had a less than pleasant experience with another special order special edition this last year. It took forever, the communication from the company was poor, and I enjoyed the book, but in retrospect it wasn't so good I would have wanted to have a special edition of it.

So I know for me, I'll likely be dropping Evernight here, especially given I find most of my horror through word of mouth these days, but will be keeping SF&F for now. And I will still buy some special editions for books I love, but I don't see myself buying any special editions of books I haven't read outside of that sub in the near future. But I'm interested to know from you - what's your relationship with special edition books, and where do you see it heading?

The Rx: What I'm Reading and Doing

Lots going on this week, and life is going to be getting back to the regular routine now that kids are heading back to school. A few things to look out for:

• I'll have another book review to post here on bindery this week - The Butcher of Nazareth by David Scott Hay. This was tremendous, and I think for me is going to be a book of the year contender.

• Also be on the lookout for our Q4 Book Club poll that I will be posting tomorrow!

• For September's Bindery book club, we have Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman coming up.

• For September's Fable book club, we're going to be reading Dust Child by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai. This sounds stunning!

We have also had some new members join in the Dark Traveler crew, so thank you all who have joined! I'm working on our Dark Traveler monthly pick a book, which is King Sorrow by Joe Hill. And Tracie got to pick the Dark Traveler book for September, which is Road of Bones: The Ashen Series, Book 1 by Demi Winter. That's right - I'll be dipping my toes into the romantasy waters for the first time, and I'm pretty excited! I also have some Bindery ARCs I'll be working on in the next few weeks, including A Compliment of Scoundrels, which has me pretty pumped.

In terms of hobbies, with Minas Tirith done it's time to go back to puzzles for a little bit. There are a series of Lord of the Rings puzzles I'm working on, so those will be fun. I'm also going to be diving back into woodworking here - I have some built ins to do, as well as a desk that I want to get done.

If you are not on our Discord server, you should consider hanging out! I do exclusive giveaways there, and I have some really exciting ones planned for the next few months! I don't really do giveaways on IG/TT because I like to reward you all in our community, so be on the look out for those. And speaking of Discord, Bindery, and content ideas, I am working on a new membership tier for 2027 that is going to include a quarterly book box! More to come, but if you have any thoughts or ideas, let me know.

Hope you all have a great week of reading and life, and I'll see you next week!

Want More In-Depth Access?

If you enjoy getting into the details with me about reading, then consider upgrading to The Dark Travelers tier! My Dark Travelers get an exclusive Discord role and channels, a weekly deep dive reading update video, early access to YouTube videos, and each month they get to pick a book for me to read. This can be a book they want to read with me, or something they want me to try for them. It's super fun and a great tight knit group that I really enjoy talking books with, and I'd love to have you part of it!