Ann Kjellberg, a longtime former contributing editor at the New York Review of Books, has launched Book Post, a subscription-based book review.
Kjellberg bills Book Post as a "bite-sized newsletter-based book review delivery service, sending paying subscribers high-quality book reviews, by distinguished and engaging writers, direct to their inboxes." Each subscriber will receive two 700-word book reviews a week via email, as well as "occasional writerly reflections and digests of the current book scene, the latter available for free to non-paying subscribers and visitors on the web," Kjellberg said in a statement.
Contributors to date include authors Padgett Powell, Michael Robbins, Ingrid Rowland, Geoffrey O’Brien, and Jamaica Kincaid, with pieces on the way from Hilton Als, Natalie Angier, Edward Mendelson, Joy Williams, and April Bernard.
The service will partner with different local independent bookshops on a monthly basis in an effort to promote independent bookselling and to "bring to readers news of the reading life from communities across the nation," Kjellberg said in the statement. "Here too we are advocating for robust alternatives to media monopolies and healthy, supportive relationships among writers, publishers, and readers."
The subscription rate for the service is $45 per year, with a discounted $30 pre-publication subscription available until September 10. The paid newsletter format, according to Kjellberg's statement, was chosen so Book Post can pay its authors without "data-mining" or "clickseeking." Book Post is hosted and sent using the Substack newsletter platform.
