Meet Your Literary Matchmakers
Owner
Hi, I'm Michele. Page 1 Books was founded in 2017, by book lover, Brandy O'Briant, who formed the idea and started boxing subscription orders in her spare bedroom. The company flourished, survived Covid, and then I bought it because it's my fantasy business.
I'm that person who watches the Time Enough At Last episode of The Twilight Zone and identifies with Henry Bemis. There's absolutely nothing wrong with Henry, except that he lacked the foresight to stock up on reading glasses. I, too, would like to read David Copperfield at work, to the exclusion of all else. And now I can.
I was browsing descriptions of the first subscription book service started in 1926. The press predicted it would be "a bonanza to busy ladies and clubs that want 'to keep up.' A selecting committee comprised of big names in the world literary, selects each month the book of the month which is mailed to all club members. If the book received is not really desirable it can be returned for another, selected from a list of several month's best books prepared by the committee."
We've come a long way, baby! Today, we don't want to send you the books we think best. We want to know what you like and, then, hand-select something tailor made to suit you. We're not selling you what we have. We're searching for what you want. Welcome aboard. We're glad you turned to Page 1.
Hello, readers! My name is Oona. I am a native of NYC, growing up in Tribeca and now living in Brooklyn. Despite limited space in this city, my apartment is crammed with books.
I graduated from The University of Edinburgh with a Bachelor and Master of Arts in English and Scottish Literature. After graduation, I interned at the New Yorker and Penguin Random House, before working as a freelance writer and editor.
I am a passionate “birder”, volunteering at the New York-based, Wild Bird Fund, where I helps the rehabilitation of fowl who have fallen afoul, (pun intended,) of traffic, glass skyscrapers, and other city hazards. I love reading books about animals in both fiction and non-fiction. Currently, I am reading An Immense World by Ed Yong which is about how “animal senses reveal the hidden realms around us.” When I read My Side of the Mountain (by Jean Craighead George) as a child, I became obsessed with falcons and other birds of prey.
I am also attracted to novels that have a progressive political mission, and that are in some way addressing colonialism, capitalism, urban restructuring, and the climate crisis.
