The December 2023 Book Box, with a Truly Special Gift Inside!

The contents of the FINAL Book Box of 2023 is very dear to us.

The December Book Box contains:

Austrian writer Robert Musil’s The Man without Qualities I, a cornerstone of Western modernist literature
In My Father’s Court, a poignant childhood memoir by Polish-American novelist and short-writer Isaac Bashevis Singer
This box also features Nablus Premium Olive Oil soap by Al’Ard, distributed by the Palestinian Soap Cooperative

Retail price of the box: $57
Cost to subscribe: $29.95

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December Book Box Spoilers

Book cover of The Man without Qualities Vol 1 Set in Vienna on the eve of World War I, The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil is a great novel of ideas that tells the story of Ulrich, ex-soldier and scientist, seducer and skeptic, who finds himself drafted into the grandiose plans for the seventieth jubilee of the Emperor Franz Josef.

The quintessential novel of ideas, this is the ‘least read’ of the trinity of great 20th century modernist novels of the Western Canon, with Joyce’s Ulysses & Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past. It rewards patience, compelling you to read and reread passages, savoring each word.

The December box features Vol I of this modernist tome.

Cover image of In My father's Court

In 1966, Isaac Bashevis Singer published In My Father’s Court, based on the Yiddish Mayn tatns besdn shtub (1956), an autobiographical account of his childhood in Warsaw.

Like Singer’s fiction, this poignant memoir of his childhood in the household and rabbinical court of his father is full of spirits and demons, washerwomen and rabbis, beggars and rich men. This remembrance of his pious father, his rational yet adoring mother, and the never-ending parade of humanity that marched through their home is a portrait of a magnificent writer’s childhood self and of the world, now gone, that formed him.

December Book Box Gift

Al’ard’s Premium Nabulsi Soap, made by the Women’s Cooperative of Beita, south of Nablus in the West Bank. We sourced this beautiful soap from Palestinian Soap Cooperative, a Palestinian American direct distributor of the historic Nablus soaps. The owner is the wonderful Dina Omar with whom Lavanya had a lovely, long chat which started with a discussion about the traditional hot processed olive oil soaps made in and around Nablus, and ended (but not ended) with a list of Palestinian poets and books she recommended. Dina has a PhD in Anthropology from Yale and is a poet herself.

This wonderful premium soap bar, made in small batches from high quality local olive oil, is an extension of ancient Nabulsi traditions: a reflection of its authentic and ancient culture. They are fully handmade by Palestinian women in the same way it was made back in the tenth century by the people of Levant.

If you would like to purchase this Book Box, click here.