Book covers with the logos displayed prominently of popular celebrity book clubs

Trends, Book Clubs

5 celebrity book clubs to follow for your next great read

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Jun 08, 2023

Oprah. Reese. Jenna. Kaia. Shonda. All celebrities with their own book clubs, putting their stamp of approval on new books and catapulting authors into instant success. If you’re stuck in a reading rut or would love to a join a community of like-minded book lovers, jumping on the celebrity book club bandwagon is a great way to find a recommendation you’ll probably love. Your local book club can even follow along as these vetted selections are sure to keep your meetings lively and fun.

While there’s many more celebrities with book clubs out there, here are 5 popular clubs and some of their recent picks that are available in ebook and audiobook formats. Borrow from your local library and read or listen on the Libby app.

Read through all the picks or jump right to your favorite!

Oprah’s Book Club

Oprah has been recommended books to readers for 2 decades, and she recently celebrated her 100th pick. All chosen by the famous talk show host, these books spark conversation, help emerging authors, and also resonate with Oprah herself.

The Many Lives of Mama LoveThe Many Lives of Mama Love by Lara Love Hardin
BIOGRAPHY

No one expects the police to knock on the door of the million-dollar two-story home of the perfect cul-de-sac housewife. But soccer mom Lara Love Hardin has been hiding a shady secret: she is funding her heroin addiction by stealing her neighbors' credit cards.

Lara is convicted of 32 felonies. She finds that jail is a class system with a power structure that is somewhere between an adolescent sleepover party and Lord of the Flies. But Lara quickly learns the rules and brings love and healing to her fellow inmates as she climbs the social ladder and acquires the nickname "Mama Love." When she's released, she reinvents herself as a ghostwriter. Now, she's legally co-opting other people's identities and getting to meet Oprah, meditate with the Dalai Lama, and have dinner with Archbishop Desmond Tutu. But the shadow of her past follows her. Shame is a poison worse than heroin — there is no way to detox. Lara must learn how to forgive herself and others, navigate life as a felon on probation, and prove to herself that she is more good than bad.


Let Us DescendLet Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward
HISTORICAL FICTION

Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, is the reader's guide. As she struggles through the miles-long march, Annis turns inward, seeking comfort from memories of her mother and stories of her African warrior grandmother. Throughout, she opens herself to a world beyond this world, one teeming with spirits: of earth and water, of myth and history; spirits who nurture and give, and those who manipulate and take. While Annis leads readers through the descent, hers is ultimately a story of rebirth and reclamation.


WellnessWellness by Nathan Hill
HUMOROUS FICTION

When Jack and Elizabeth meet as college students in the gritty '90s Chicago art scene, the two quickly join forces and hold on tight, each eager to claim a place in the thriving underground scene with an appreciative kindred spirit. Fast-forward 20 years to suburban married life, and alongside the challenges of parenting, they encounter the often-baffling pursuits of health and happiness from polyamorous would-be suitors to home-renovation hysteria. For the first time, Jack and Elizabeth struggle to recognize each other, and the no-longer-youthful dreamers are forced to face their demons, from unfulfilled career ambitions to childhood memories of their own dysfunctional families. In the process, Jack and Elizabeth must undertake separate, personal excavations, or risk losing the best thing in their lives: each other.


Reese’s Book Club

Reese Witherspoon offers up her picks every month, always choosing a book with a woman at the center of the story.

The Most Fun We Ever HadThe Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo
DOMESTIC FICTION

Wendy, widowed young, soothes herself with booze and younger men; Violet, a litigator turned stay-at-home-mom, battles anxiety and self-doubt; Liza, a neurotic and newly tenured professor, finds herself pregnant with a baby she's not sure she wants by a man she's not sure she loves; and Grace, the dawdling youngest daughter, begins living a lie that no one in her family even suspects. With the unexpected arrival of young Jonah Bendt — a child placed for adoption by one of the daughters 15 years before — the Sorensons will be forced to reckon with the rich and varied tapestry of their past. As they grapple with years marred by adolescent angst, infidelity, and resentment, they also find the transcendent moments of joy that make everything else worthwhile.


Anita de Monte Laughs LastAnita de Monte Laughs Last by Xochitl Gonzale
LITERARY FICTION

Anita de Monte, a rising star in the art world, is found dead in New York City; her tragic death is the talk of the town. Until it isn't. By 1998 Anita's name has been all but forgotten — certainly by the time Raquel, a third-year art history student is preparing her final thesis. On College Hill, surrounded by privileged students whose futures are already paved out for them, Raquel feels like an outsider. Students of color, like her, are the minority there, and the pressure to work twice as hard for the same opportunities is no secret. But when Raquel becomes romantically involved with a well-connected older art student, she finds herself unexpectedly rising up the social ranks. As she attempts to straddle both worlds, she stumbles upon Anita's story, raising questions about the dynamics of her own relationship, which eerily mirrors that of the forgotten artist.


Redwood CourtRedwood Court by DéLana R. A. Dameron
AFRICAN AMERICAN FICTION

The baby of the family, Mika Tabor spends much of her time in the care of loved ones, listening to their stories and witnessing their struggles. On Redwood Court, the cul-de-sac in the all-Black working-class suburb of Columbia, South Carolina, where her grandparents live, Mika learns important lessons from the people who raise her: her exhausted parents, who work long hours at multiple jobs while still making sure their kids experience the adventure of family vacations; her older sister, who in a house filled with Motown would rather listen to Alanis Morrisette; her retired grandparents, children of Jim Crow, who realized their own vision of success when they bought their house on the Court in the 1960s, imagining it filled with future generations; and the many neighbors who hold tight to the community they’ve built, committed to fostering joy and love in an America so insistent on seeing Black people stumble and fall.


#ReadwithJenna Book Club

Jenna Bush Hager from The Today Show selects modern literary fiction. Follow along on Instagram at @ReadwithJenna as she posts conversation starters about the current month’s picks.

The HusbandsThe Husbands by Holly Gramazio
COMING OF AGE

When Lauren returns home to her flat in London late one night, she is greeted at the door by her husband, Michael. There’s only one problem — she’s not married. She’s never seen this man before in her life. But according to her friends, her much-improved decor, and the photos on her phone, they’ve been together for years. As Lauren tries to puzzle out how she could be married to someone she can’t remember meeting, Michael goes to the attic to change a lightbulb and abruptly disappears. In his place, a new man emerges, and a new, slightly altered life re-forms around her. Realizing that her attic is creating an infinite supply of husbands, Lauren confronts the question: If swapping lives is as easy as changing a lightbulb, how do you know you’ve taken the right path? When do you stop trying to do better and start actually living?


The House on Mango StreetThe House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
COMING OF AGE

Readers from all walks of life have fallen for the voice of Esperanza Cordero, growing up in Chicago and inventing for herself who and what she will become. “In English my name means hope,” she says. “In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting.” Told in a series of vignettes — sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes joyous — Cisneros’s masterpiece is a classic story of childhood and self-discovery and one of the greatest neighborhood novels of all time. This gorgeous coming-of-age novel is a celebration of the power of telling one’s story and of being proud of where you're from.


The Great DivideThe Great Divide by Cristina Henriquez
HISTORICAL FICTION

It’s said that the canal will be the greatest feat of engineering in history. But first, it must be built. For Francisco, a local fisherman who resents the foreign powers clamoring for a slice of his country, nothing is more upsetting than the decision of his son, Omar, to work as a digger in the excavation zone. But for Omar, whose upbringing was quiet and lonely, this job offers a chance to finally find connection.

Ada Bunting is a bold 16-year-old from Barbados who arrives in Panama as a stowaway alongside thousands of other West Indians seeking work. Alone and with no resources, she is determined to find a job that will earn enough money for her ailing sister's surgery. When she sees a young man — Omar — who has collapsed after a grueling shift, she's the only one who rushes to his aid.

John Oswald has dedicated his life to scientific research and has journeyed to Panama in single-minded pursuit of one goal: eliminating malaria. But now, his wife, Marian, has fallen ill herself, and when he witnesses Ada's bravery and compassion, he hires her on the spot as a caregiver. This fateful decision sets in motion a sweeping tale of ambition, loyalty, and sacrifice.


Library Science (Kaia Gerber's Book Club)

Model and actress Kaia Gerber has grown her book club into a vibrant community on a mission to promote reading among young people, emphasizing the importance of inclusivity and diverse perspectives.

Real AmericansReal Americans by Rachel Khong
LITERARY FICTION

Real Americans begins on the precipice of Y2K in New York City, when 22-year-old Lily Chen, an unpaid intern at a slick media company, meets Matthew. Matthew is everything Lily is not: easygoing and effortlessly attractive, a native East Coaster, and, most notably, heir to a vast pharmaceutical empire. Lily couldn’t be more different: flat-broke, raised in Tampa, the only child of scientists who fled Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Despite all this, Lily and Matthew fall in love.

In 2021, 15-year-old Nick Chen has never felt like he belonged on the isolated Washington island where he lives with his single mother, Lily. He can’t shake the sense she’s hiding something. When Nick sets out to find his biological father, the journey threatens to raise more questions than it provides answers.

In immersive, moving prose, Rachel Khong weaves a profound tale of class and striving, race and visibility, and family and inheritance — a story of trust, forgiveness, and finally coming home.


MartyrMartyr! by Kaveh Akbar
LGBTQIA+ FICTION

Cyrus Shams is a young man grappling with an inheritance of violence and loss: his mother’s plane was shot down over the skies of the Persian Gulf in a senseless accident; and his father’s life in America was circumscribed by his work killing chickens at a factory farm in the Midwest. Cyrus is a drunk, an addict, and a poet, whose obsession with martyrs leads him to examine the mysteries of his past — toward an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as the angel of death to inspire and comfort the dying, and toward his mother, through a painting discovered in a Brooklyn art gallery that suggests she may not have been who or what she seemed.

Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! is a paean to how we spend our lives seeking meaning — in faith, art, ourselves, others.


The LoverThe Lover by Marguerite Duras
ROMANCE/HISTORICAL FICTION

Set in the prewar Indochina of Marguerite Duras's childhood, this is the haunting tale of a tumultuous affair between an adolescent French girl and her Chinese lover. In spare yet luminous prose, Duras evokes life on the margins of Saigon in the waning days of France's colonial empire, and its representation in the passionate relationship between two unforgettable outcasts.


Shondaland Book Club

The creator of hit TV series like Grey's Anatomy, Scandal, and Bridgerton hosts monthly book picks on her website that range from general fiction to romance to thriller.

Interesting Facts about SpaceInteresting Facts about Space by Emily Austin
LGBTQIA+ FICTION

Enid is obsessed with space. She can tell you all about black holes and their ability to spaghettify you without batting an eye in fear. Her one major phobia? Bald men. But she tries to keep that one under wraps. When she's not listening to her favorite true crime podcasts on a loop, she's serially dating a rotation of women from dating apps. At the same time, she's trying to forge a new relationship with her estranged half-sisters after the death of her absent father. When she unwittingly plunges into her first serious romantic entanglement, Enid starts to believe that someone is following her. As her paranoia spirals out of control, Enid must contend with her mounting suspicion that something is seriously wrong with her. Because at the end of the day there's only one person she can't outrun — herself.


Good MaterialGood Material by Dolly Alderton
ROMANTIC COMEDY

Andy loves Jen. Jen loved Andy. And he can't work out why she stopped. Now he is... without a home, waiting for his stand-up career to take off, wondering why everyone else around him seems to have grown up while he wasn't looking. Set adrift on the sea of heartbreak, Andy clings to the idea of solving the puzzle of his ruined relationship. Because if he can find the answer to that, then maybe Jen can find her way back to him. But Andy still has a lot to learn, not least his ex-girlfriend's side of the story.


How We Named the StarsHow We Named the Stars by Andrés N. Ordorica
LGBTQIA+ FICTION

When Daniel de La Luna arrives as a scholarship student at an elite East Coast university, he bears the weight of his family's hopes and dreams — and the burden of sharing his late uncle's name. Daniel flounders at first, but then Sam, his roommate, changes everything. As their relationship evolves from brotherly banter to something more intimate, Daniel soon finds himself in love with a man who helps him see himself in a new light. But just as their relationship takes flight, Daniel is pulled away, first by Sam's hesitation and then by a brutal turn of events that changes Daniel's life forever. As he grapples with profound loss, Daniel finds himself in his family's ancestral homeland in México for the summer, finding joy in this setting even as he struggles to come to terms with what's happened and faces a host of new questions: How does the person he is connect with this place his family comes from? How is his own story connected to his late uncle's? And how might he reconcile the many parts of himself as he learns to move forward?


*Title availability may vary by library & region.

Celebs aren’t the only ones picking great books. Subscribe to get an email every Saturday with reading recommendations on the Libby app.


RELATED READ: In their own voices: Most popular celebrity memoir audiobooks

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About the Author

Annie Suhy has been working in the book industry since 2006. When she’s not working, practicing yoga, or petting cats, she’s doing paint-by-numbers and buying more plants. An avid poetry fan, her favorite collection is "The Splinter Factory" by Jeffrey McDaniel.

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