You can’t beat a book subscription box for value for money. Books last for years, indeed generations, and once you’ve read them, you can pass them on for others to enjoy.
The biggest challenge is finding a book subscription which gives you a choice that fits your taste in reading material. So to make it easy for you, we’ve categorized the 11 best book subscription boxes featured here by genre to help you quickly narrow down the one that’s best for you.
Best Book Subscription Boxes in the UK
- The Box of Books – Thrillers and Crime
- Books Plus Beer
- Wildwoman Book Club
- My Chronicle Book Box
- Shelterbox Book Club
- Book Box Club
- Abominable Book Club
- Prudence and the Crow
- Rare Bird Book Club
- Date Night With A Book
- The Willoughby Book Club
- Teatime Bookshop
The Box of Books – Thrillers and Crime
Best thrillers & crime novels
You can sit around all day and do your bit to help save the environment by reading thriller and crime novels saved from being thrown away in landfills by the charity organisation Happily Ever After Book Box. Your purchase also helps save animals with 50 pence from each purchase donated to an animal welfare charity.
For a recurring subscription of just £15 a month, your monthly box of books includes three highly-rated thrillers and crime fiction titles. For the same monthly price, you can set up your subscription for three, six or 12 months with a promise of hand-picked titles and the assurance of no repeats. Postage in the UK is free too!
Books Plus Beer
Best book subscription for blokes
Beer Plus Books is a cracking concept for blokes that are into reading about real life and practical things with a craft beer in hand. What a way to appreciate two fine arts at the same time! You get a paperback book from your category of choice plus two cans or bottles of beer from innovative and emerging breweries in each monthly subscription box.
Subscribing is simple, which is probably a good thing for beer-loving blokes. Start by choosing from just two categories: Non-fiction and Crime. The non-fiction books are in subject areas right up the thinking man’s street, such as popular science, current affairs, business and self-development.
The books are new editions so there’s a low risk you’ll get a book that you’ve already read.
Wildwoman Book Club
Best book subscription club for women
Girls, give yourself a good old pampering with subscription boxes from the Wildwoman Book Club. The themed monthly and bi-monthly boxes contain a book with a female theme along with a collection of curated self-care products put together to make your reading time a luxuriously relaxing indulgence.
In the boxes you’ll get gifts to reconnect you mind, body and spirit while you read, including products for the bath, beauty, aromatherapy and wellness. You’ll also receive a copy of the 16-page Wildwoman magazine and you might find some healthy snacks in the boxes too.
Sign up for three, six or 12 months at a time and save money on each box when you pay upfront for several months at a time.
My Chronicle Book Box
Best personalized crime book subscription box
We love the personal touch you get with a Crime Fiction subscription from My Chronicle Book Box. In each monthly book box you’ll get a first-edition hardcopy signed by the author and a letter or interview with him or her, giving exclusive insight into the books.
The books are lovingly wrapped in paper and tied with string, and you’ll get a few bookish gifts from UK designers too. Get monthly subscriptions or sign up for three, six and 12 months at a time to save on your boxes.
Shelterbox Book Club
Best charitable book subscription
Shelterbox has been providing emergency shelter to families around the world that have lost their homes from disasters such as hurricanes, earthquakes and wars for the past 20 years in 97 different countries.
By joining their book club for just £10 a month you contribute towards helping those disaster-hit families and in return for your charity you’ll receive a book every six weeks. The book titles are inspired by people and places in the real world who have been helped by ShelterBox.
Book Box Club
Best teen read book club
The Book Box Club is an excellent avenue for teens to get their noses into books instead of gawking at phone screens but they make the transition easy for social media addicts with short attention spans by having a dynamic online presence that keeps their young subscribers engaged and looking forward to the next book box.
The themed boxes are sent out each month containing a book aimed at young adult readers along with a selection of unique themed goodies. Subscribers are also invited to join the Book Box Club’s exclusive online membership so they can chat with the month’s featured author and other like-minded members.
Abominable Book Club
Best horror fiction book subscription
Not for the faint hearted, the Abominable Book Club wants to scare the crap out of you with heaps of horror and thriller fiction. In the monthly box you get a brand new release and a second-hand book plus one of the club’s featured magazines (Black Static, The Ghastling and Hellebore) or an independent novella.
Another novelty included in the Abominable Book Club is an exclusive bookmark featuring micro-fiction written by Owen Morgan. You also get a luxury snack made in the UK and a handful of hot drink sachets.
If you only want the books and none of the extras, sign up for the ‘Bare Bones’ subscription.
Prudence and the Crow
Best vintage & second hand book subscription
We really like the personal touch that you get with the Prudence and the Crow book subscription. The aim of book curators, Abigail and Peggy is to share their love of the content and aesthetic of previously loved paperback books, which they’ve been doing for more than 20 years.
They select books just for you based on your preference in genres including Classic Fiction, Science Fiction, Classic Thriller and Classic Children’s. Subscribe for a month at a time or pay for three, six or 12 months in advance.
Rare Bird Book Club
Best no-frills random book subscription
The book you receive each month from the Rare Bird Book Club is a complete surprise. You don’t have to choose a genre or tick any preference boxes. They’ll simply send you a random but carefully selected book that could be in any genre. The only thing in common with all the books in this subscription is that they each have a female protagonist, which actually opens up a whole new world of engaging reading.
Date Night With A Book
Best movie and book subscription
Get a movie book and the DVD movie along with snacks and drinks in the Date Night With a Book monthly subscription box. Seeing a movie and reading the book are totally different experiences. This way you get to really know the story and characters more deeply than just watching it unfold on the screen, making for a much more fulfilling experience, filling in gaps in the story told in the movie.
You don’t choose the book and DVD. They do that for you, so each month’s box is a total surprise. They also throw in traditional movie night treats like popcorn, hot chocolate drink coasters and a bookmark.
What makes this the best movie and book subscription in our eyes is that you can choose to have one, two or three DVD and book titles delivered each month. Subscribe for three months, six months or a year at a time.
The Willoughby Book Club
Best books for children
You can choose book subscriptions in a wide variety of genres from the Willoughby Book Club, including the usual choices such as fiction, non-fiction and crime but they also offer subscriptions for more niche readerships, including: natural history, gardening and food and drink.
We are really impressed with the choice of subscriptions for children, which includes subcategories for babies, toddlers, children and young adults. The Children’s subscription is aimed at 4 to 12 year olds, who will get a book a month for three, six or 12 months at a time.
Teatime Bookshop
Best variety of genres
Find every genre imaginable with a Teatime Bookshop subscription. As the name of the online bookshop suggests, you can also order ethically sourced tea with your book subscription. Coffee, hot chocolate and luxury biscuits are also on the menu.
First you choose your book subscription then you choose which drink you want to go with it. You can choose to receive one, two or four books each month from the wide variety of genres, which include best sellers, vintage, historical fiction, current affairs and children’s books.
Book subscription boxes: The verdict
We don’t want to tell you which subscription is best for you. Only you can decide that. Hopefully the ones listed above give you a good starting point. If you area real bibliophile then you’ll love the extras you get with subscriptions like author interviews and goodies in the My Chronicle Book Box of crime fiction. If you’re a no-frills bookworm and enjoy books in any genre then we recommend the Rare Bird Book Club, Prudence and the Crow, or the Bare Bones subscription with the Abominable Book Club.