It’s the season of resolutions, and who better to help you keep them than your favorite celeb? If “reading more” tops your list of to-do’s this year, then Reese, Oprah, and many others are stepping up to lend a hand with a recommendation courtesy of their book club.

From a spellbinding debut to a 90s throwback, this month’s books are the remedy to any reading rut. Like getting a personal book recommendation from a trusted friend, these celeb picks will have you flying through a new favorite, then scouring their social to chat about it with like-minded readers. And while you're there, don't forget to follow @Libby.App on Instagram for more bookish content and a community of fellow book lovers.

Check out the selections for January 2025! Borrow them in the Libby app, free from your library.

Read with Jenna

The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus by Emma Knight
🎧 Audiobook

Arriving at the University of Edinburgh for her first term, Pen knows her divorced parents back in Canada are hiding something from her. She believes she’ll find the answer here in Scotland, where an old friend of her father’s—now a famous writer known as Lord Lennox—lives. When she is invited to spend the weekend at Lord Lennox’s centuries-old estate with his enveloping, fascinating family, Pen begins to unravel her parents’ secret, just as she’s falling in love for the first time.

As Pen experiences the sharp shock of adulthood, she comes to rely on herself for the first time in her life. A rich and rewarding novel of campus life, of sexual awakening, and ultimately, of the many ways women can become mothers in this world, The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus asks to what extent we need to look back in order to move forward.

Oprah’s Book Club

A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
🎧 Audiobook

With his bestselling spiritual guide The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle inspired millions of readers to discover the freedom and joy of a life lived “in the now.”

In this book, Tolle expands on these powerful ideas to show how transcending our ego-based state of consciousness is not only essential to personal happiness, but also the key to ending conflict and suffering throughout the world. Tolle describes how our attachment to the ego creates the dysfunction that leads to anger, jealousy, and unhappiness, and shows readers how to awaken to a new state of consciousness and follow the path to a truly fulfilling existence.

Reese’s Book Club

The Three Lives of Cate Kay by Kate Fagan
🎧 Audiobook

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo meets First Lie Wins in this electric, voice-driven debut novel about an elusive bestselling author who decides to finally confess her true identity after years of hiding from her past.

Cate Kay knows how to craft a story. As the creator of a bestselling book trilogy that struck box office gold as a film series, she's one of the most successful authors of her generation. The thing is, Cate Kay doesn't really exist. She's never attended author events or granted any interviews. Her real identity had been a closely guarded secret, until now.

As a young adult, she and her best friend Amanda dreamed of escaping their difficult homes and moving to California to become movie stars. But the day before their grand adventure, a tragedy shattered their dreams and Cate has been on the run ever since, taking on different names and charting a new future. But after a shocking revelation, Cate understands that returning home is the only way she'll be a whole person again.

Reese’s Book Club Winter YA Pick

Throwback by Maurene Goo
🎧 Audiobook
Author of I Believe in a Thing Called Love, a Publishers Weekly's Best YA Book of 2017

Being a first-generation Asian American immigrant is hard. You know what's harder? Being the daughter of one. Priscilla is first-generation Korean American, a former high school cheerleader who expects Sam to want the same all-American nightmare. Meanwhile, Sam is a girl of the times who has no energy for clichéd high school aspirations. After a huge blowup, Sam is desperate to get away from Priscilla, but instead, finds herself thrown back. Way back.

To her shock, Sam lands in the '90s... alongside a 17-year-old Priscilla.

Now, Sam has to deal with outdated tech, regressive '90s attitudes, and her growing feelings for sweet, mysterious football player Jamie, who just might be the right guy in the wrong era.

With the clock ticking, Sam must figure out how to fix things with Priscilla or risk being trapped in an analog world forever. Sam's blast to the past has her questioning everything she thought she knew about her mom... and herself. One thing's for sure: Time is a mother.

Good Morning America Book Club

Homeseeking by Karissa Chen
🎧 Audiobook

Haiwen is buying bananas at a 99 Ranch Market in Los Angeles when he looks up and sees Suchi, his Suchi, for the first time in 60 years.

To recently widowed Haiwen it feels like a second chance, but Suchi has only survived by refusing to look back. Suchi was seven when she first met Haiwen in their Shanghai neighborhood, drawn by the sound of his violin. Their childhood friendship blossomed into soul-deep love, but when Haiwen secretly enlisted in the Nationalist army in 1947 to save his brother from the draft, she was left with just his violin and a note: Forgive me.

Homeseeking follows the separated lovers through six decades of tumultuous Chinese history as war, famine, and opportunity take them separately to the song halls of Hong Kong, the military encampments of Taiwan, the bustling streets of New York, and sunny California, telling Haiwen’s story from the present to the past while tracing Suchi’s from her childhood to the present, meeting in the crucible of their lives. Throughout, Haiwen holds his memories close while Suchi forces herself to look only forward, neither losing sight of the home they hold in their hearts.

Good Morning America Book Club YA Pick

After Life by Gayle Forman
🎧 Audiobook
Release date: Jan. 7, 2025
Author of the If I Stay series

One spring afternoon after school, Amber arrives home on her bike. It's just another perfectly normal day. When Amber's mom sees her, she screams—Amber died seven years ago when she was hit by a car while on the very same bicycle she's inexplicably riding now.

This return doesn't only impact Amber. Her sister, Melissa, now seven years older, must be a new kind of sibling to Amber. Amber's estranged parents are battling over her. And the changes ripple farther and farther out: Amber's friends, boyfriend, and even people she met only once have been deeply affected by her life and death. In the midst of everyone's turmoil, Amber is struggling with herself. What kind of person was she? How and why was she given this second chance?

Belletrist (Emma Roberts & Karah Priess)

The Motherload: Episodes from the Brink of Motherhood by Sarah Hoover

Like most of us, Sarah Hoover grew up imagining a certain life for herself, and when she moved from Indiana to New York City to study art history, the life she'd imagined began falling into place. She got her degree in art history, landed a job in a gallery, made friends, and met interesting artists, one of whom became her husband. But when Hoover got pregnant, everything in her life began to unravel. She felt like an imposter in her own body. She grew distant from her friends and husband. Anxiety, fear, guilt, and shame threatened to swallow her. She also experienced trauma at the hands of one of her doctors—a stark trigger. And when her son was born, there was no... joy.

Her despair was persistent, even with help, therapy, and pills. Grieving a lost identity and angry at the world around her, she found herself despising her baby, her husband, and herself. She was afraid it might not end. With the help of a doctor's diagnosis, Hoover began to understand the cluster of symptoms that informed her experience—she was drowning in postpartum depression—and that she wasn't a bad mother or a failed woman. At its core, The Motherload is about learning to forgive yourself. It's a rejection of the cultural idea of the mother as a perfect being. And it's an honest, propulsive, and often funny take on the vicissitudes of marriage, life, and parenting—a motherhood memoir unlike any other.

Service95 Book Club (Dua Lipa)

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk
🎧 Audiobook
Nobel Prize-winning author of The Books of Jacob

In a remote Polish village, Janina devotes the dark winter days to studying astrology, translating the poetry of William Blake, and taking care of the summer homes of wealthy Warsaw residents. Her reputation as a crank and a recluse is amplified by her not-so-secret preference for the company of animals over humans.

Then a neighbor, Big Foot, turns up dead. Soon other bodies are discovered, in increasingly strange circumstances. As suspicions mount, Janina inserts herself into the investigation, certain that she knows whodunit. If only anyone would pay her mind...

If you’re looking for a club, be part of ours! Big Library Read is a worldwide digital version of a local book club and it’s free through your library. Just download the Libby app and enter your library card to get started. Subscribe to Libby Life for updates on the next selection!

*Title availability may vary by library & region.

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