Let’s have a little bit of fun. Meghan Markle claims to be educated and is “the smart one”, so that made us wonder what her book recommendations would be. We have an idea of what she would pick. She has spoken about some of her favourite books before. We’ve also mentioned some of them in our Meghan Markle book club theory. It appears that when she was writing The Tig that she did “a book club” of sorts.
So, let’s look at Meghan Markle’s book recommendations.
Book Recommendations From Meghan Markle
Meghan’s Mirror shared a collection of books the former actress has referenced over the years. We added two additional books.
- The Motivation Manifesto by Brendan Burchard
- Grace: A Memoir by Grace Coddington
- In Vogue: An Illustrated History of the World’s Most Famous Fashion Magazine by Alberto Oliva, Norberto Angeletti and Anna Wintour
- The Dress: 100 Iconic Moments in Fashion Hardcover by Megan Hess
- The Coveteur: Private Spaces, Personal Style Hardcover by Stephanie Mark & Jake Rosenberg
- When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
- The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
- The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff
- The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
- Who Moved my Cheese? by Spencer Johnson
- Elements of Style by Erin Gates
- The Inner Gym: A 30-day workout for strengthening Happiness by Light Watkins
- Irreverent by Carine Roitfeld
- Spare by Prince Harry (her husband, H)
- The Bench by herself (Me Me)
Other Books
Book Riot found other books that were on The Tig back in the day.
- The Opposite of Loneliness by Marina Keegan (RIP)
- The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy
- Where’d You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple
- The Hotel on Place Vendome: Life, death and Betrayal at the Hotel Ritz in Paris by Tilar J. Mazzeo
- Rita Moreno: A Memoir
- Doctor Sleep by Stephen King
- The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
- Bittersweet by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore
- It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War by Lynsey Addario
- The Complete Ripley Novels by Patricia Highsmith
- The Martian by Andy Weir
- Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee
- God Help The Child by Toni Morrison
- The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
- Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler
- All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda
- Food and the City by Ina Yalof
- The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo by Amy Schumer
- The Colour Purple by Alice Walker (of course, she’d pick this one – women of colour)
- The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing world by the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu (RIP)
- What Not Me? by Mindy Kaling
- The Gap of Time: William Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale Retold by Jeanette Winterson
- Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
- Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill
- We Are Not Ourselves by Matthew Thomas
- I’ll Drink To That by Betty Halbreich
- Not that Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham
- The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters
The Book Riot post had a lot more books listed. Please see the list for the entire rundown.
Do We Detect A Pattern?
The few we have written here suggest that she was leaning towards female authors (before Reese Witherspoon’s book club became a thing). Though she did include male authors like Stephen King, the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu.
We noticed something interesting as we were reading through the list. Some of the authors are people Meghan would later go on to meet:
- Mindy Kaling – appeared on Archetypes
- Desmond Tutu – met in South Africa before his death
- Jake Rosenberg – her friend who did the pictures (she claimed were hers) for The Tig and now American Riviera Orchard
- Lindsay Jill Roth – a college friend of Meghan’s who referenced her in the acknowledgements of her book (not listed in this post – the book was called What Pretty Girls Are Made Of)
Meghan apparently recommends books that reflect her so-called views, i.e. strong women. One example is Rita Moreno’s memoir. Then we have Mindy Kaling and Amy Schumer, women who are both successful in their own right.
Then we have Lindsay Jill Roth and Jake Rosenberg. Looks like Meghan wasn’t above doing some promotion for her friends at this time. Would we see her do this now? Probably not. It wouldn’t be at all surprising if Meghan said to Lindsay, “Mention me in your book, and I’ll promote you, you know, because I’m so famous.”
