BoxWalla has four different genres of boxes: beauty, food, film, and book. This is a review of the book box! Subscribers can choose to stick with one genre during their subscription, or get different genres each time!
This box was sent to us at no cost for review. (Check out the review process post to learn more about how we review boxes.)
The Subscription Box: BoxWalla Book
The Cost: $49.95 every other month with free shipping to the US
The Products: Novels from Nobel Laureates: "Every year, when somebody wins the Nobel Prize, most people go ‘Whooo?’ Every time we read these writers, after they win the Nobel, we wonder where they have been all ours lives. The answer to that isn’t that complicated. They’ve been right here! Our mission is to scour the vast expanses of Literature and bring to you the best."
Ships to: US for free, Canada for $11.95, Internationally for $18.95
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Obvious State Bloom Bookmark Set - $5.00
These bookmarks are beautifully designed - they have blooms covering the bookmark, graced with words from famous British Poets. There are 6 bookmarks, but I will probably even use the packaging label as a bookmark as well!
Obvious State Cobblestones Card -$4.50
This greeting card has a quote from Charles Dickens on it, "One always begins to forgive a place as soon as it's left behind" with an illustration of cobblestones, a shadow, and the feet of the shadow. That statement packs a huge punch for sure - I'm not entirely sure what I will use this card for, but I love it!
Lost Paradise by Cees Nooteboom - $14.00
Cees Nooteboom is a Dutch writer and his novel Lost Paradise has achieved international bestseller status! Here is the short introduction that Amazon gives for the book:
A beautiful woman aboard a Berlin-bound flight becomes Alma, a young lady who leaves her parents' Sao Paolo home on a hot summer night in a fit of depression. Her car engine dies in one of the city's most dangerous favelas, a mob surrounds her, and she is pulled from the automobile. To escape her memory of the assault, she flees across the world, to Australia, where she becomes involved in the beautiful but bizarre Angel Project. Not long after, Dutch literary critic Erik Zontag is in Perth, Australia, for a conference. He has found a winged woman curled up in a closet in an empty house. He reaches out, and for a second allows his fingertips to brush her feathers—and then she speaks. The intersection of their paths illuminates the extraordinary coincidences that propel our lives.
This sounds really interesting and has decent reviews (3.4) on GoodReads. I'll stash this one away to read after I've finished some of the other books in my current line up!
Woman at Point Zero by Nawal el Saadawi - $12.97 on Amazon (retail price: $14.95)
Nawal el Saadawi is an Egyption writer and a stalwart feminist. The Drunken Boxwallas say that el Saadawi "has been the voice for Arab women, the world over, for many years."
Here is the Amazon introduction to the book:
"All the men I did get to know, every single man of them, has filled me with but one desire: to lift my hand and bring it smashing down on his face. But because I am a woman I have never had the courage to lift my hand. And because I am a prostitute, I hid my fear under layers of make-up". So begins Firdaus' story, leading to her grimy Cairo prison cell, where she welcomes her death sentence as a relief from her pain and suffering. Born to a peasant family in the Egyptian countryside, Firdaus suffers a childhood of cruelty and neglect. Her passion for education is ignored by her family, and on leaving school she is forced to marry a much older man. Following her escapes from violent relationships, she finally meets Sharifa who tells her that 'A man does not know a woman's value… the higher you price yourself the more he will realize what you are really worth' and leads her into a life of prostitution. Desperate and alone, she takes drastic action. Saadawi's searing indictment of society's brutal treatment of women continues to resonate today. This classic novel has been an inspiration to countless people across the world.
Book of Memories by Peter Nadas - $18.72 on Amazon (retail price: $25.00)
Peter Nadas is Hungarian and he writes novels, plays, and essays. This novel was released in 1986 and took him 12 years to write.
Here's what Amazon has to say about the book:
First published in Hungary in 1986 after a five-year battle with censors, Péter Nádas's A Book of Memories is a modern classic, a multi-layered narrative that tells three parallel stories of love and betrayal. The first takes place in East Berlin in the 1970s and features an unnamed Hungarian writer ensnared in a love triangle with a young German and a famous aging actress. The second, composed by the writer, is the story of a late nineteenth century German aesthete whose experiences mirror his own. And the third voice is that of a friend from the writer's childhood, who brings his own unexpected bearing to the story. Compared by critics to Proust, Mann, and Joyce, this sensuous tour de force is "unquestionably a masterpiece" (The New Republic).
This one sounds interesting as well, so this is going in my pile to read!
Verdict: This BoxWalla Book Subscription Box comes to about $55.19, which is above the cost of the box. All three of these books seem like they would be great summer reads by the pool or on the beach! The extras that were thrown in this month, the card and bookmarks, are also fun and I will enjoy using both.
Have you given any of the BoxWalla boxes a try yet?
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