It’s that time of year when the heat and humidity make me despair fall will ever arrive … but it sure helps to have autumnal events to look forward to. They remind me cooler temperatures and fall leaves are on their way, along with other means of seasonal delight.
And we have so many delightful things in store for you these next few months! I hope you’ll mark your calendars, prep your To Be Read lists, and join us for any or all of the following festivities.
Fall Book Preview: coming September 18!
Join us for our sixth annual Fall Book Preview, where I’ll share a curated selection of both the season’s hottest new titles and amazing niche titles with much smaller marketing budgets, plus the info you need to decide which belong on your TBR.
This year’s Fall Book Preview is set for September 18 at 8:30 pm EDT. In this 90+ minute live event, I’ll share 35 titles including books I’ve read and loved, the much-anticipated titles I’m most looking forward to reading, and noteworthy fall titles the industry is buzzing about, all publishing between September 3 and year’s end. (This event is very much in the style of our Summer Reading Guide Unboxing party.)
Publication timing for these titles is weird this year: because it’s a presidential election year, book release are distributed throughout the fall calendar in an atypical way. Also atypical: the sheer number of excellent titles publishing this fall. Fall is usually a BIG season in the world of book publishing, but this fall’s crop of new releases is exceptionally good. At Fall Book Preview I’ll walk you through the options and help you get clear on how you want to approach your reading life this fall.
Fall Book Preview includes event access and an accompanying 12-page digital PDF booklet that lays out every title in our preview, 6 spotlight titles, and more features to help you make the most of your fall reading life.
Our Fall Book Preview event is an included perk for members of our Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club community and What Should I Read Next Patreon “Book Lover” supporters. It’s a steal of a deal! For those who don’t have the time or inclination to join a community, we’ve got you covered with our ever-popular a la carte access.
CLICK HERE TO GET IN ON FALL BOOK PREVIEW
We hope you’ll join us to get more out of your reading life this fall.
More about that Fall Book Preview booklet
Our members and a la carte purchasers receive a digital PDF of our beautiful Fall Book Preview booklet to thoughtfully peruse and hang onto for reference throughout the season (and in the seasons to come). We love hearing how you like to keep your digital booklet handy, referring to it again and again.
Our Fall Book Preview booklet is beautiful, it’s useful, it’s the best email day ever when it arrives—or, perhaps, best mail day as well? Because for the first time, we’re trying a little experiment and also offering a printed version of our Fall Book Preview booklet! If you would like to add a printed booklet to your Fall Book Preview experience, preorder your printed booklet and we’ll ship it out on September 18th.
The details: MMD Book Clubbers and WSIRN patrons: if you would like a printed booklet, hurray! Because your Fall Book Preview access is an included perk of your membership, we shared a different purchase link for the printed booklet add-on in your communities. Please use that link. Thank you!
New merch!
We have new merch for this fall! Our Book Club sweatshirts and t-shirts are back, as are our What Should I Read Next and I’d Rather Be Reading tees, bookplates, our ever-popular and completely awesome To Be Read totes.
Plus we wanted to bring you some super fun, extremely bookish goodies for fall so we designed new stickers and—for the first time in seven or so years we have pinback buttons! The designs are so great: I can’t wait for you to check them out! (Some, but not all of them, are pictured above. Check out all our designs in the shop.)
The details: FBP booklets will ship on September 18 (because we do not want to spill the titles before FBP Day!). If you purchase merch AND a booklet, we will ship your entire order on September 18.
This fall in Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club
We’re reading books that will provide ample fodder for discussion, insight, and readerly growth. We’ll also talk with authors Chris Bachelder and Jennifer Habel, Stacey Swann, and Deesha Philyaw about their books, their research and writing experiences, and what they love to read.
September
Dayswork by Chris Bachelder and Jennifer Habel
Flight pick: A Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ní Ghríofa (Click here for an explanation of our flight pick terminology.)
October
Olympus, Texas by Stacey Swann
No flight pick. Join us for a class on Greek mythology!
November
The Modern Mrs Darcy Short Story Collection, curated by Anne and Ginger
What’s the difference between Book Club and Patreon?
Great question! If you’d like to listen to MMD community manager Ginger Horton and I talk about the difference, we made this patreon bonus episode publicly available to all: By popular request: Anne and Ginger talk Patreon vs Book Club. It’s a fun and information conversation.
Our communities have different scope and emphases: we think of our Patreon offerings as being bite-sized, while MMD Book Club is more like a buffet. We encourage you to choose the one that best works for you and your reading life. (20% of our readers are members of both communities.)
Our WSIRN Patreon community is an extension of the What Should I Read Next podcast, and offers Friday bonus episodes (e.g., One Great Book, Mini Matchmaking, Industry Insights), peeks behind the scenes, and additional curated book recommendations to our readers in that space. Patreon is audio-first, which means you can mostly participate when it’s convenient for you. Our patrons also influence the show by offering input on future episode themes and guests and voting on our episode titles.
Our slate of MMD Book Club offerings is more robust, which is why we call it a buffet: we seek to offer lots of great literary content in this space, and don’t expect you to put everything on your plate! We host many live events in this space, including monthly book and author discussions, regular classes on literature and the reading life, and community events like our Readers’ Weekend, Best Book of Summer, Reading Life Rehab, Readalongs, Join Us for Journaling, and more. Our live events are video-driven, but you don’t need to attend live to participate: we record our events so you can watch on your schedule. Our custom-built member site also sets Book Club apart: our 24/7 forums makes it easy to enjoy all the book talk your heart desires, and connect with other readers who love books as much as you do.
Prefer a la carte access? Get your ticket right here.
I can’t wait to read with you this season. Happy reading, friends!
Anne