There’s nothing more groovy than seeing your favourite celebrities give out book recommendations. Whether it’s supermodel Kaia Gerber, often seen on Instagram Live with renowned writers, or Reese Witherspoon, engaging her 2.8 million book lovers, these celebrity-led book clubs have enormous social influence. They not only help you navigate your literary journeys but also garner interest in a particular title. Plus, it’s refreshing to see stars follow the attractively old-fashioned habit of reading books. So, if you’re on the lookout for your next read, here are five celebrity book clubs to check out.
Belletrist—Emma Roberts
Emma Roberts picked South and West: From a Notebook by Joan Didion as her inaugural book for the book club back in 2017; she started reading the book with her best friend Karah Priess with a desire to recommend books that people wouldn’t otherwise find like the Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins, The Guest by Emma Cline or the books that Gen Z wouldn’t know about like Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (Pick this up if you haven’t already!) Belletrist is surely for the younger reading community who loves checking out debut authors but is also unwilling to let go of their beloved classics.
Library Science—Kaia Gerber
Kaia Gerber once said, “If you are not reading, what are you doing?”( we need this printed on t-shirts!). Before launching Library Science, Gerber would often recommend books, conduct interviews from the comfort of her living room, and would often post other bookish content. The actor has hosted celebrities like Emily Ratajkwoski, Jane Fonda, Lena Dunham, and Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar Jones (Normal People) on her (Library Science’s) Instagram live. Gerber talks about everything, be it plays, novels, older classics, short stories, or poetry, she jumps from one literary genre to the other seamlessly. She is one of the few youngsters today doing book clubs on a large scale.
Reese’s Book Club—Reese Witherspoon
Okay, if I was an author and Reese Witherspoon picked up my book, I’d be rich and famous overnight! The actor generates a huge amount of interest and really drives sales of particular titles. In fact, she is known as a tastemaker and the club has reportedly changed the careers of a lot of female authors like Megan Miranda and Celeste Ng. Most of the books Witherspoon has picked have made their way to the big screen (her recently produced is Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens) with her own production company Hello Sunshine. The book club mainly focuses on crime and thrillers, women-centric narratives—especially the underrepresented and diverse voices, literary memoirs, and domestic fiction.
Service95—Dua Lipa
Dua Lipa is definitely living and thriving in her book-girl era. Lipa’s book club seems more like a project and is always taken seriously with the team providing its members with full reading and discussion guides (for the works of Khaled Hosseini) to the careful curation of recommendations across all genres be it fiction, poetry, or plays like Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor and M Train by Pattie Smith. Lipa is always acknowledging the best literary minds and loves connecting with an audience who shares similar profound joys in the world, like the simple pleasure of reading a book.
Oprah’s Book Club—Oprah Winfrey
Ending with the OG, the pioneering force behind celebrity book clubs, Oprah Winfrey who started her book club nearly 27 years ago with The Deep End of the Ocean by Jacquelyn Mitchard. Clearly, with time, the publishing industry saw “the Oprah effect” as the club’s widespread popularity assured an increase in the sales of many lost books. If you’re someone who is not afraid to advocate books on contemporary socio-political issues like Caste by Isabel Wilkerson or you want to dust off your classics like Toni Morrison’s Beloved, then Oprah Winfrey will always be your best book buddy.
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