Sign up to Emily Books and receive a carefully chosen ebook every 30 days, while Stack Magazines regularly posts you an unusual publication to keep your print reading diverse
Stack Magazines is a brilliant service if you want to read something new every month. Since 2008 their subscription service has offered a monthly mystery hand-picked magazine: just sign up and wait to see what pops through the door.
All are independent publications, and most you won't find in your local newsagent: from enthusiast foodie zines such as The Gourmand and Fire & Knives to film journals, music reviews and left-field fashion spreads.
Stack is a welcome intrusion in the internet age when, despite everything being available through a direct link, stumbling on new reading material is, strangely, harder than ever. As independent book shops decline at an ever faster rate, so does the idea of a hand-selected reading list, replaced instead by heavily promoted blockbusters and insensitive recommendation engines.
That's also why Emily Gould and Ruth Curry set up Emily Books, an independent ebook shop. They wanted to use the ease of internet distribution to create an old-fashioned community book shop: it won't be for everyone, but if you like – in their words – "transgressive, funny, gripping memoir and fiction", with a strong emphasis on female writers, Emily Books might agree with you. For less than £9 a month (Emily Books is US-based, and charges in dollars, but anyone can pay and download the books), readers receive one monthly ebook, just one, carefully selected and passionately recommended.
All of the books are, as a point of principle, free of digital rights management, the controversial technology that controls how purchased media can be used. They're available in formats for all devices, including Kindle. Recent titles have included Imogen Binnie's Nevada, a contemporary transsexual roadtrip across America, and Dorothy Baker's Cassandra at the Wedding , a haunting animation of the internal life of two privileged twins, first published in 1962. Always surprising, Emily Books just might spur you on to read more widely than our everyday ereaders usually do.
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