Are you sitting down? link 5e 3fd 967 381a 44a 2 b 6ed 2e 8448… heading level 4 FOR ONLINE plus OFFLINE LIVING table with 1 rows and 3 columns row 1 If you have 5 minutes column 1 If you have 5 minutes column 2 right arrow COLLECTION 007 EPHEMERA right arrow LOOKING AT THE BRILLIANCE OF ZINE CULTURE right arrow MAYBE THE COOLEST READS BOX EVER column 3 right arrow COLLECTION 007 EPHEMERA right arrow LOOKING AT THE BRILLIANCE OF ZINE CULTURE right arrow MAYBE THE COOLEST READS BOX EVER out of table table with 1 rows and 3 columns row 1 column 1 column 2 THIS IS OUR LAST READS BOX. :( YOU MIGHT WANT TO SCROLL DOWN SO WE CAN EXPLAIN... column 3 THIS IS OUR LAST READS BOX. :( YOU MIGHT WANT TO SCROLL DOWN SO WE CAN EXPLAIN... out of table We have some sad news We are cancelling our subscriptions beginning August 1st, 2019 heading level 4 Are you sitting down? People are always telling you that change is a good thing. But all they're really saying is that something you didn't want to happen at all... has happened. My store is closing this week. I own a store, did I ever tell you that? It's a lovely store, and in a week it will be something really depressing, like a Baby Gap. Soon, it'll just be a memory... The truth is... I'm heartbroken. I feel as if a part of me has died, and no one can ever make it right. Meg Ryan from You've Got Mail Earlier last week we emailed all of our subscribers letting them know we would no longer be offering our subscription service. We’re taking some time to step back and think about the future of reads and what it can become. We've been reflecting on our massive reads journey from Donald Judd's home library in Marfa in 2016 to now shipping and fulfilling subscriptions in 2019. So how did we get here? Some of you are old, you've been with us since day 1, and some of you are new. You're probably like wait What is reads again? We thought we could take a trip down memory lane. Unlabeled graphic To get missing image descriptions, open the context menu. Our literary breakfast at Rachel Comey with Glynnis Macnicol 2018 reads brought us back to life. It was born at a time where the internet was invasive and everywhere and we were personally craving analogue experiences hiking outdoors, baking, camping with friends and reading books. We built reads to fill the gap in our own lives and in turn, it resonated with an incredible community of fellow readers. Us hiking Vronan's Nose in 2018 on our trip with Vogue to Hobart Book Village Upstate NY The moment we realized we we love each other and books a little idea called reads was born Marfa TX 2016 We’ve spent the last 3 years researching what it means to be a forever learner , taking coffees with mentors, flying to Colorado for research, hosting literary dinners in Berlin plus NYC, Skyting fireside author chats plus meditation, a retreat to Mexico City, monthly events, rooftop bookswaps, breakfasts, book clubs, and sending out curated books to our subscribers every single month. We started out small in 2017 trying to find our people. We thought about Donald Judd's library and how inspiring it is to be surrounded by books, how they inform our decision making, define who we are and educate us on others perspectives and stories. We thought maybe we should open a bookstore, but after some initial research we realized that to reach people we had to live online. The hero image for our first ever splash page 2016 Our friends (Hi Jarod, Hi Marki) helped us make a link video, we launched reads on Kickstarter and threw a party. We had no idea where reads would go, or what it would be but we knew books were important and they weren't going anywhere. We didn't want to be Amazon and we didn't come from the publishing world all we knew was that we loved books and perhaps we could bring a new perspective to them. We launched our subscription model January 2018 and invited people we admire to curate 2 books they think were essential for everyone's library each month! Our goal was to explore new perspectives and learn new things. We invited illustrators, architects, authors, designers, writers, artists and a magazine as our curators for 2018. People like Jean Jullien, Molly Young, Joana Avillez, Robin Cameron, Michael Yarinsky, Daniel Salmieri, Olivia Erlanger, Luis Gavela Ortega and The Skirt Chronicles. Our First reads boxes 2018 (and yes we hand wrote a thank you card to every single person) with Werner Herzog, Robert Adams and Anni Albers plus special Jean Jullien plus reads tote We launched in 2018 with 14 subscribers and over the last 2 years we have hand wrapped and shipped out well over 1,000 boxes to people all over America, from Iowa to Rhode Island, Wisconsin to Oregan, San Francisco to Texas, LA to Ohio and of course, New York. We even shipped a couple of boxes to Canada, Germany and Japan in our early days while we were still figuring it out (lol). We launched an update of our website beginning of 2019 and it was a huge team effort from our design and dev teams. Thank you Michael, Rinaldy, Sasha and JOB :) We’ve received handwritten notes, emails and words of encouragement the whole way and trust us when we say it makes our day. We’ve built a reads community of new friends who love reading and talking about books. We’ve worked with smart publishers and talented small indie presses who know the best of the best. Last months box on Mythology Even though we are not offering our subscription service we will still be here, you can email us always, chat with us, DM us, grab coffee with us! reads lives in us, we ARE reads and will always be reading books and recommending good stuff to anyone who wants it! We will send out fun newsletters occasionally with good books and good offline things to do too, our Instagram will still continue to be a visual mood board for good books! Us reading books in the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens in 2017 on one of our first shoots we ever did. From the bottom of our hearts as sad as it is that we won’t be physically shipping you books every month we just wanted to say THANK YOU for being on this journey with us, for making it worth it and for being THE best group of people on this planet! Our reads Kickstarter launch party 2017 heading level 4 reads collection 007 Ephemera Now that we got that out of the way we can talk about one of our favorite boxes we've ever put together. Before i Phones and Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook there were zines, mix tapes and posters, analogue things we now refer to as Ephemera. Small moments captured in time. Zines remind us of the unique feeling of being one among a tiny group of special people in possession of a carefully made publication? In a world so bombarded by images reflected through the iphone, somehow seeing images and words on paper feels so refreshing. We've felt it ourselves, that the lifecycle of ideas and things are so fleeting. For us here in New York it feels like that lifecycle is even shorter people make things knowing they won’t be relevant in the morning, we avoid attaching ourselves to anything for too long. These 5 zines mimic that same cyclical structure and give us reason to pause and preserve something. It seems like a metaphorical sentiment for this to be our last reads box for now. But we hope these zines hold true to this moment, August 2019 and we hope they will inspire you to slow down, observe differently. Zines in the Ephemera collection 1. link Civilizations Issue 3 2. link Relatives by Bronze Age Press 3. link Crying in the Sun by TXT Books 4. link Whoooaaa fuckkkk man by TXT Books 5. link Domains 1 by Platform Editions it's a sick box :) All about zines For the rabbit hole sleuths link all about zine culture link Repro Rights Zine a wonderful free downloadable zine on sex plus reproduction geared towards teens. link 8 Ball Zines one of our fav walk down nostalgia lane collection of zines. Best zines of NYC according to link DAZED link Radical Pages: A Selection of American Zines exhibit at the Tokyo Art Book Fair Because Japan always does everything right link Zine's Mate shop in Ginza star rec from our reads community friend Kate Celmer We know that was a lot of information to digest, so take some time! We love you thank you thank you for being what gets us out of bed everyday for the last 3 years! See you for coffee or hit us up on email or insta :) Emma and Rachael xoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxo P dot s remember when we also shipped kids boxes every single month for all of 2018 link MEDIUM slash link INSTAGRAM slash link TWITTER slash link FACEBOOK Copyright 2017 READS . ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. UPDATE PREFERENCES OR link UNSUBSCRIBE dot