A Box for 'Bad Readers'? Bookish Gifts in Subscription Book Boxes

摘要

Subscription book box services are currently booming. The curators of theOnce Upon a Book Clubbox promise their readers to "bring books to life" by compiling a monthly book subscription box with story-related gifts. Referring to concepts by Merve Emre (the paraliterary), Marie-Laure Ryan (immersion) and Arthur M. Jacobs/Raoul Schrott (NCPM), this article will first develop an idea of the (allegedly) 'bad reader' and then explore why this type of reader is the ideal customer forOnce Upon a Book Club. The focus of the analysis lies on the role of the gifts as paraliterary objects and the question of how they can facilitate immersive processes and therefore foster the practices of paraliterary reading.