Celebrity Book Clubs
August 19, 2020
Hiking 2015, by Darren Thompson
Hope you’ve all been enjoying a good summer with books galore. I’ve had some hits and misses but overall there are some good pages in the bank. You’ll hear about the best ones soon. Feel free to share your own hits!
I have an arm’s-length list of topics to share with you but it was a message in my in-box this morning that put me back in the chair to write. From whence the message? A shoe company I once patronized. The content? An invite to join their new Book Club! Not the first place I think of when I think of book clubs.
I’d already begun piecing together notes about the recent surge of celebrity book clubs so it seemed a sign. It seems everyone from the iconic, (Oprah and Reese and former NFL-er Andrew Luck), to all the TV hosts (Jenna and GMA), to every bookseller (Chapter’s, Parnassus, Powell’s) and yes, even to the shoe store, has formed a virtual book club. I haven’t actually joined in with any of the groups but I do give the books and their reviews a second look. Oprah’s picks have sometimes been a bit dark for my liking, Reese’s are quite consistently choices I’ve enjoyed though sometimes a little on the “lite” side and I’ve said before that Heather’s selections are dependably good ones for me too. What’s your experience been? Do you follow any celebrity book clubs you’d recommend?
Here are some of the latest picks that have caught my eye in a few of the most popular “Celebrity” Book Clubs:
Heather’s Book Club (Heather Reisman of Indigo-Chapters)
The Education of an Idealist by Samantha Power, A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabelle Allende, The Skin We’re In by Desmond Cole, Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
Hello Sunshine Book Club (Reese Witherspoon’s picks)
The Henna Artist by Akra Joshi, The Guest List by Lucy Foley, Everything Inside by Edwidge Danticat, Untamed by Glennon Doyle
The Overstory by Richard Powers, Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan, Preaching to the Chickens: The story of a young John Lewis by Jabari Asim, The Hare with the Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal
Good Morning America (GMA) Book Club
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, The Lions of Fifth Avenue by Fiona Davis, In Five Years by Rebecca Serle, Long Bright River by Liz Moore
A Burning by Megha Majumbdar, Valentine by Elizabeth Wetmore, The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Dare, All Adults Here by Emma Straub
Deacon King Kong by James McBride, Caste by Isabel Wilkerson, The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates, Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue
And the shoe company, Margaux’s, inaugural selection for their new book club called (wait for it) Footnotes!
