Like the idea of joining a book club, but can’t commit to a weekly meeting? Then why not initiate yourself into the online book clubs created by famous faces such as Opray Winfrey and Reese Witherspoon…
Celebrity led book clubs are the way to read in 2019
We get it, we should all be reading more – whether that’s keeping up to date with the latest must-read biographies or simply switching out bedtime Instagram scrolling for actual paper page-turning.
But for many of us, finding the motivation to make the move away from Netflix originals and towards literature can be tricky – which is where book clubs come in. As well as the pressure to reach the back cover by a deadline, there’s also the added social aspect.
Yet, while our intentions start well with a time-and-place style book club, our lifestyle doesn’t always match up; now this is where celebrity book clubs come in. Revealing titles and inviting discussions online, the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Emma Watson and Sarah Jessica Parker are all encouraging you to pick up a book along with them. Here are the ones to follow now.
Emma Watson
She’s not Hermione Granger anymore, but that doesn’t mean it’s now easy to find Emma Watson without a book nearby. The 29-year-old actor turned model turned activist recommends intersectional feminist reads through her online book club, Our Shared Shelf, bi-monthly. Titles include Butterfly by Yusra Mardini and Pachinko by Min Jin Lee.
See more on Instagram at @oursharedshelf.
Oprah Winfrey
We’ve always got an open ear for what Oprah Winfrey has to recommend, and her list of reads is no exception. The 65-year-old actor, television host, producer and philanthropist’s original book club started as a segment on her beloved chat show. But now she shares reviews, must-reads and interviews online for books such as Michelle Obama’s Becoming, An American Marriage by Tayari Jones and Ayana Mathis’s The Twelve Tribes of Hattie.
Follow her recommendations at oprah.com.
Reese Witherspoon
We all need a little more sunshine in our lives, right? (Well, for those of us living in the UAE, this is strictly figurative.) And Reese Witherspoon is promising to deliver just that with her round-up of monthly reads. As a segment of her Hello Sunshine production company, the Legally Blonde star turned Gone Girl producer lists a monthly historical fiction read. Recent novels include The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescot, which tells the story of secretaries turned spies in the USSR during the Cold War.
Learn about the latest reads at hello-sunshine.com.
Sarah Jessica Parker
SJP first aligned with Hogarth Press to acquire and curate fictional texts that she feels reflects her own reading habits and tastes, and now the Divorce star has launched SJP Picks over on ALA Book Club Central – an initiative of the American Library Association. She writes: “From an early age, books were my constant companions and my local library a place I could find a new friend on every shelf.” Recent recommendations include Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth by Sarah Smarsh and Anatomy of a Miracle by Jonathan Miles.
Keep up to date with SJP’s picks at bookclubcentral.org.
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