In case you needed even more books in your life, we’ve got a list of some of the best ways to get them into your inbox.
For Books’ Sake champions writing by women, and their Weekend Read delivers just that – a short story they love, always by women, sometimes unpublished, sometimes familiar. I like this one because they email me an excerpt of the story I can have a quick glance at in my inbox when I get it on Fridays, and then bookmark the link to the full version if I want to read it over the weekend. This newsletter also keeps you informed of their excellent events schedule, including regular readings series That’s What She Said and nationwide writing courses Write Like a Grrrl. For writers, there are notices of upcoming literary prize submissions.
A Small, Good Thing by Thomas Morris
Dublin publishing head & writer of short story collection with excellent cover Thomas Morris puts out another biweekly short story newsletter. Since signing up I’ve got David Foster Wallace (yesss), Frank O’Connor and Bailey’s Prize winner A. M. Homes – I can’t define a theme here other than good writing that Morris likes. A practitioner of this art form himself, he sends you a Dropbox link for the story as well as a couple paragraphs of synopsis and review that makes this feel much more like a personal recommendation than a “newsletter” per se.
The New York Times Book Review
An obvious choice but one that I hold dear, the weekly email of this literary-press demigod is worth signing up to for its editorial intro, “Dear reader”. It puts their week’s content into a wider cultural context and gives you even more reason to take the time to read one of their features than a lone headline would.
You can also choose to get this weekly. Either way it’s the best round-up of literary links out there, selected from an excellent range of both alternative and mainstream sources.
As well as familiar blog content updates and events listings, Foyles email you when something’s happening in the book world, thereby giving you an excuse to buy books.
Again, obvious, but I like Emerald Street’s book listicles that go out on Wednesdays. I’ll never have enough disposable income or care at all about fashion trends to fit their target demographic, yet they still manage to find at least one book I’d like to read out of their usual four recommendations. Also a fan of their “Today’s Talk” link round-up of curious news stories and essays that’ll leave you feeling better off after clicking. I’m not really a fan of their very strict gender stereotyping, but whatever, their man’s newsletter Mr. Hyde also (predictably) has good film recommendations and burger joint listings.
This has no books in it but I had to include the best thing in my inbox. A photo of a dog, and two new Buzzfeed dog-themed articles. Perfect.
If you like these publishers of A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing and Francis Plug, get on their mailing list. It’s like having Sam and Elly sit down and have a chat with you about all the good things they’re doing and publishing, with little-to-no flashy promotion going on.
A whole bunch of you adore Melville House, so it’s only right you subscribe to this. They do pretty perfect book announcements that are especially handy for anybody selling their books – complete with crass photoshops, excerpts, links to reviews and brief interviews with the author.
Penguin UK are pretty okay I guess. We don’t actually distribute them, so I’m being really noble including them here – they just do damn fine book marketing. No two newsletters are the same, and they’re at the top of their game when sending out wide ranges of content on a single theme – check out their Pride edition. You’ll feel spoiled for choice reading this.
Again, not one of ours, but Verso throw so many free ebooks and deals in their emails, this is probably the best value you’ll ever get out of a signup.
Book Riot, producers of unthinkable amounts of book listicles, put out a whole host of newsletters, but I like their daily Riot Rundown. They also include content from their sister comics site, Panels, and altogether it feeds me bite-sized news and views about both industries.
Much less regular than Riot Rundown, Graphic Policy acts like a follow-up to that email for me, offering more in-depth analysis and opinions on what’s currently going on in the comics industry. Their writers are smart and always politically woke.
Every Tuesday, Gosh tell you what new comics they’ll have in stock the next day, and they include a little bit of their weekly blog of recommendations and event listings at the shop. Simple and useful.
Turnaround’s Comics Spotlight Newsletter
Surprise, it’s us! If you buy or review our comics, you’ll find this weekly report of what’s come into stock handy, and you’ll also get Leo’s weekly one-book recommendation of something great he’s read that’s coming out from us this week. We also put a weekly round-up of all the great press our titles have received, and a monthly newsletter that keeps you updated on our entire range.
Post by Heather
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