5 Celebrity Book Clubs That Are Actually Good
If you’re looking for your next summer read, don’t fret, your favourite celebrities have got your back. After Oprah Winfrey made book clubs a celebrity thing back in 1996, today it seems like there are celebrity-run book clubs popping up everywhere. And we’ve rounded up the best ones.
From Kaia Gerber‘s Library Science to Dua Lipa‘s Service95, these book clubs have some great, thoughtfully selected picks, featuring a range of authors from the well-known to the newly launched. If you’re looking for your next read, you’d do well to follow these celeb-run book clubs.
Oprah’s Book Club
Best for: Access to author interviews and discussions (the way only Oprah can do it)
The OG celebrity book club, this one is arguably the most iconic of all celebrity book clubs. It was started in 1996 by Oprah Winfrey and is still very much running today. Some of Oprah’s selections have catapulted books to bestseller status and till date there are 105 titles that have found their way to the club. Each of the books are handpicked by Oprah herself, her most recent book club pick being Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward. Other book club favourites are Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris, Wild by Cheryl Strayed and Finding Me by Viola Davis.
Reese’s Book Club
Best for: Discovering new female-centric stories.
Reese Witherspoon has a knack for discovering seriously cool women-centric novels and then turning them into global hits on screen – (think Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty, Where The Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens and Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed). Each month, Witherspoon chooses a book with a woman at the centre of the story – and while the book club caters to adults, they’ve recently announced a new YA segment that includes book club picks from her nieces. The YA pick is currently Twelfth Knight by Alexene Farol Follmuth and the latest book club title is How to End a Love Story by Yulin Kuang.
Service95 Book Club
Best for: Discovering books that go beyond the Western lens.
Other than being a world-famous singer, producer and actress, Dua Lipa is also an avid reader, and is the founder of the newsletter, Service95 that plays host to a book club. With titles chosen by Lipa, the focus of the book club picks is on diversity and showcasing writers with unique perspectives. Lipa has personally interviewed several authors including Khaled Hosseini, Hernan Diaz and Michelle Zauner, and the website and socials of the club include author discussions, op-eds and curated reading lists.
Library Science
Best for: Finding books that aren’t on typical reading lists.
Founded by supermodel and actress Kaia Gerber, Library Science is a lovely, carefully curated collection of books that makes it evident that Gerber is very serious about her reading. Currently reading Role Play by Clara Drummond, the club has an active Instagram page that began in 2020 as a weekly Instagram live. Now evolved into a passionate community of readers, Library Science covers debut fiction, short stories, translations, essays, memoirs, plays and poetry and focusses on subjects like race, sex, loss, consent, motherhood, girlhood, queerness, addiction, abuse and climate change, among other themes. For all those times when you want to read but you don’t know where to start – let Kaia help you make the choice.
Belletrist
Best for: Not just book recommendations – discount codes and giveaways too!
An online reading community founded in 2017 by Emma Roberts and her best friend Karah Preiss, Belletrist chooses a new book every month and invites its audience to read along. The book club is associated with Belletrist Productions, a TV and film production company focused on literary adaptations. The May pick for the club is Weird Black Girls by Elwin Cotman and previous picks include Memory Piece by Lisa Ko, Piglet by Lottie Hazel and My Husband by Maud Ventura.
