Libreria bookshop launches subscription service

East London bookshop Libreria has launched a subscription scheme which will provide customers with a monthly choice of "low-profile, high-quality" fiction.

The titles will be chosen by the bookshop's multi-disciplinary team of staff, and will include "special" picks from guest “shelf curators” such as the gallery owner Hannah Barry and author Philippe Sands QC.

For the first strand of the scheme – the Hot Picks – Libreria’s booksellers will choose one title of fiction per month – with a focus on "small, independent publishers, yet-to-be-discovered authors, and high-quality fiction that still resides outside the mainstream".

The second strand – the Curator Picks – will see dedicated guest “shelf curators” choose titles that have a special meaning for them – as sources of inspiration, as guidance, or simply as favourite reads. Libreria frequently commissions writers and thinkers to curate shelves in the shop, including Wired editor David Rowan, the sculptor Richard Wentworth, the former director of Liberty Shami Chakrabarti, the economist Ian Goldin, and writers Max Porter and Jonathan Safran Foer.

Paddy Butler, Libreria’s manager, said: “What does the top curator and Hans Ulrich Obrist collaborator Hannah Barry read for inspiration? Where does the top law expert Philippe Sands go for guidance? What are the yet-to-be-discovered fiction titles the booksellers of Libreria are dying to share with a wider audience? With our new subscription scheme, we are offering our customers something they are not likely to get anywhere but at Libreria. By steering away from the predictability of the mainstream, our Hot Picks and Curator Picks are designed to surprise readers, exposing them to new ideas, fresh thinking and the hottest new fiction.”

A six-month subscription will be priced at £64.80 and a 12-month subscription will cost £129.60.