Books clubs wouldn’t be complete without famous people. We’ve found a ton of celebrities who have their own book clubs. Some have been around for years, while others have only recently launched. Now, some of the ones we’ve found are probably doing it for attention and don’t have any association with reading whereas others do.
Now, we’re only going to include famous book clubs with an online presence. Though, we will include an honourary mentions section.
Famous Book Clubs
Oprah’s Book Club
Oprah Winfrey’s book club is the most famous of all the celebrities on this list. She announced the launch of her book club on her talk show in 1996. The book club ended when the talk show did in 2011. However, it was later bought back in 2012, beginning with Cheryl Strayed’s Wild, as Oprah’s Book Club 2.0.
The original iteration of Oprah’s Book Club was met with several controversies. One notable controversy was the exposure of everything James Frey wrote in his book, a Million Little Pieces, being entirely untrue.
When the second iteration launched in 2.0. it was launched on social media. It has an Instagram account, a Twitter account and a Goodreads Discussion Group. There was also a short-lived Oprah’s Book Club series on Apple+ and an equally short-lived Podcast.
There was an article written by the ABC about celebrity book clubs at they note that once upon a time, Oprah had a ton of influence. However, as time has gone on, her star power in the publishing world as lessened with the arrival of other famous book clubs. Also, Oprah primarily covers black authors.
She also deals in children’s books as highlighted by Meghan Markle and her son, Archie Mountbatten-Windsor. It was confirmed a library of books were given to Archie by Oprah with ‘Archie’s book club’ sticks on the books.
Reese’s Book Club
Acting superstar Reese Witherspoon started her book club in 2017 and it has really taken off. If anything she has more of an influence on the publishing world than Oprah does. Why? Well, many of the books she has advertised have been made it to the screen under her production company, Hello Sunshine. The goal of the book club is to highlight strong female characters and authors.
Many of these books include:
- Daisy Jones & the Six (television series for Amazon Prime video)
- Little Fires Everywhere (miniseries for Hulu)
- Where the Crawdads Sing (film)
- The Last Thing He Told Me (television series by AppleTV+)
- From Scratch (miniseries for Netflix)
- Tiny Beautiful Things (miniseries for Hulu)
What’s great about Reese’s book club is that it has boosted the sales of many books that are picked. According to Yahoo Finance, as of 2019, Book Club picks didn’t have over 10,000 copies sold. After the highlights by Reese, the sales skyrocketed up to 700%, according to Buzzfeed News and they outsell other fictional books.
Controversies And Social Media
Reese’s Book Club has only had two controversies since its launch. The first involved Where The Crawdads Sing. The ex-husband of author Delia Owens and her stepson were allegedly involved in an African murder in the 90s. The second controversy was when Reese chose The Nightingale by Kirstin Hannah as the March 2023 pick. The reason for the criticism was because the book did not feature any Jewish characters and the author was also not Jewish. Reese had chosen the book because antisemitism was on at the rise at the time.
Reese’s book club has several social media channels including Facebook, TikTok, a website, Twitter, a Goodreads Discussion Goup, YouTube and Instagram. Fun fact, Reese’s Book Club insta account has more followers than Oprah’s book club insta does. There is also a newsletter that you can sign up to on the website.
Jenna Bush Hager
Former first daughter Jenna Bush Hager is a presenter on America’s TODAY show. In 2019, she launched Read with Jenna, a TODAY Show book club. There is an Instagram page for Read with Jenna, Facebook page and a Goodreads Discussion Group. There is also a very quiet podcast that has not been updated since December 2023.
The TODAY show website has a newsletter so that you can sign up to Read with Jenna.
Emma Watson
From 2016 to 2020, Harry Potter and Beauty and the Beast star, Emma Watson ran Our Shared Shelf, a bi-monthly feminist book club, due to her work with UN Women. The famous book club’s Instagram, Facebook and Goodreads Discussion Group are still active.
Natalie Portman
Natalie Portman has a book club of her own where she does the occasional interview. She has two instagram accounts. Her own personal one and one for her book club. These are her own social media accounts.
Emma Roberts
Who would’ve penned Emma Roberts to be a bookworm? We sure didn’t! Emma and her best friend, Karah Preiss, started Belletrist, a community for book lovers in 2017. They realised there was a market for it when they were constantly asking each other what they were reading.
Belletrist has become such a community that is has expanded into a production company, in which they have so far produced two projects; First Kill for Netflix and Tell Me Lies for Hulu.
There is a website, Instagram, Facebook and Tiktok.
Kaia Gerber
Who would’ve thought that Cindy Crawford’s daughter, Kaia Gerber, was a massive bookworm? This was a massive surprise when we were researching famous book clubs.
In March 2020, during the pandemic, Kaia revealed on her Instagram that she had started an unofficial book club, beginning with Sally Rooney’s Normal People. In February 2024, she announced that she had decided to up the ante and started a new Instagram page for her book club which is now named, Library Science.
Shonda Rhimes
Shonda Rhimes knows how to produce television hits. But did you know that one of her biggest streaming hits, Bridgerton, was actually based off Julia Quinn’s novels?
The Shondaland website has a whole situation dedicated to books, but we wouldn’t necessarily think of it as a full-on book club. There’s also very little information on it.
Honourable Mentions
- Dua Lipa – Service95
- Jennette McCurdy
- Kim Kardashian and Chrissy Teigen
- Florence Welch – Between Two Books
- Queen Camilla – The Queen’s Reading Room
