Celebrity book clubs are an encouraging modern phenomenon, suggesting that even in our fast-and-busy world of digital information and multimedia everything, people still value the old-fashioned experience of reading a good book. What started as a niche cultural experiment has grown into one of publishing’s most powerful forces. Some celebrities simply post a pretty photo of a book cover. Others genuinely dig in, interview authors, and consistently deliver reads that spark real conversation. Here is a close look at the celebrity book clubs that have earned a reputation for actually getting it right.
Oprah’s Book Club: The Original That Still Delivers
Oprah Winfrey is widely known as the founder of celebrity book clubs, and her club has seen many iterations and chosen over 100 books since 1996, when she picked Jacquelyn Mitchard’s “The Deep End of the Ocean.” Nearly three decades later, the institution shows absolutely no signs of slowing down. There is a reason it is called “The Oprah Effect” – ever since the media mogul first introduced the Oprah’s Book Club segment to her talk show in the mid-1990s, her recommendations near-instantly hit bestseller status, from Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” to Toni Morrison’s “Song of Solomon.”
In 2025 alone, Oprah spotlighted 11 books over 12 months, including a repeat pick that she actually first featured in the club twenty years ago. That repeat pick was Eckhart Tolle’s “A New Earth,” which Winfrey resurrected because she considers it “the most important book” she has ever read. Oprah’s Book Club has shaped reading culture for nearly three decades, and her list is proof of how wide and how human her taste truly is.
Reese’s Book Club: The Powerhouse with a Philosophy
Since 2017, Reese Witherspoon has chosen one book per month for her book club featuring a woman at the center of the story, and in September 2024, the club announced its 100th title. That milestone selection was deeply personal. To celebrate, Witherspoon selected “The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year,” written by her high school English teacher, Margaret Renkl. The gesture was widely praised and gave readers a glimpse into just how thoughtfully Witherspoon approaches each pick.
In a New York Times story, Witherspoon said her club’s monthly choices need to be optimistic and shareable. The results speak for themselves. In 2023, print sales for the club’s selections outpaced those of Oprah’s Book Club and Read With Jenna, according to Circana Bookscan, adding up to 2.3 million copies sold. A single pick from Witherspoon reportedly causes a book to overperform by 700 percent compared to the rest of the fiction market, which is what industry insiders now routinely call the “Reese Witherspoon effect.”
Dua Lipa’s Service95 Book Club: The Globally Minded Newcomer
Dua Lipa launched her Service95 Book Club to “represent diverse global voices, telling powerful stories spanning fiction, memoir and manifesto.” The club, which began in June 2023, moves far beyond the typical bestseller fare. An extension of the singer’s creative platform Service95, Dua Lipa’s book club showcases a diverse range of compelling reads recommended by the international star. What sets it apart further is its format: Dua takes readers into the world of a book she has loved each month and talks directly to the writer who brought it to life, promising reads that will make you laugh, cry, and even change the way you think.
In September 2025, Dua Lipa brought her Service95 Book Club podcast to the stage for a special live taping at the iconic New York Public Library – a genuine landmark moment that signaled how seriously the literary world is taking her curation. Ranked third among celebrity book clubs by one reviewer, Dua Lipa’s club landed high because her interviews with the authors are always so good and well-reflected. Few pop stars can claim that level of intellectual credibility when it comes to reading.
Kaia Gerber’s Library Science: The Literary Disruptor
Library Science, a book club by Kaia Gerber and Alyssa Reeder, officially launched in March of 2024, with the aim of highlighting books that are not on the typical bestseller lists in order to better support debut writers, new voices, and overlooked or underrepresented stories. The approach is genuinely refreshing. Library Science covers fiction, translations, essays, plays, and poetry, intensely focusing on work that could provoke larger conversations around sex, love, girlhood, queerness, grief, addiction, and beauty, while curating bookshelves around the world and hosting conversations both online and in person.
Over the last three years, the book club has become the catalyst for dialogue over race, sex, loss, consent, motherhood, girlhood, queerness, addiction, abuse, climate change, and intersectionality among other topics. Recent picks have included bold and eclectic titles like Eve Babitz’s reissued “Sex and Rage,” a choice that reflects Gerber’s book club often featuring eclectic and high-brow literary picks, such as the novel that follows a dreamy young woman who moves to New York from Los Angeles in order to find purpose. By curating diverse and impactful story selections, Gerber and guests like Gracie Abrams highlight underrepresented voices and encourage meaningful discussions, fostering a community where readers can engage with literature that broadens perspectives.
Read With Jenna: The Today Show’s Genre-Spanning Gem
The Read with Jenna Book Club, launched in 2019 on the Today Show, has become one of the most trusted celebrity book clubs, spotlighting diverse voices, thought-provoking themes, and powerful storytelling. Jenna Bush Hager’s range is genuinely one of her strongest qualities as a curator. From classics to hot new titles, mind-blowing nonfiction to heart-stopping thrillers, Hager’s selections span every genre. The club grew so large that the Today star recently celebrated the club’s first-ever in-person event in Nashville, Tennessee, that united book lovers from all over the country, and she has even spun off a children’s version called Read with Jenna Jr., which focuses on younger readers.
During the years, Jenna has chosen a wide range of books for her book club, from debut novels to historical fiction to young adult, and her selections often tackle important and timely themes such as race, identity, and family dynamics. In early 2025, Bush Hager got emotional celebrating her book club’s sixth-year anniversary, saying “Read with Jenna has changed my life.” The club’s February 2026 pick is “One & Only” by Maurene Goo, following a gifted matchmaker from a family who can see past lives as she is forced to choose between the man fate promised her and the man she is falling for now.
Noname Book Club: The Most Politically Committed of Them All
Rapper Noname’s book club has featured Zora Neale Hurston’s nonfiction masterpiece “Barracoon,” based on interviews Hurston conducted from 1927 and 1931 with Cudjo Lewis, a man who was the last person alive to recount a firsthand experience of being enslaved by White Americans. This level of historical depth and political intention is exactly what makes Noname’s club stand out from everything else on this list. A September 2024 pick featured an anthology including voices from Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, and Grace Lee Boggs, with essays, poems, and short stories speaking out on difficult topics like racism, body image, and labor rights – words described as just as relevant today as they were over 50 years ago.
An August 2024 Noname Book Club pick offered a firsthand account of the brutal realities of life in Attica, with Frank “Big Black” Smith, a prisoner at the heart of the infamous 1971 prison rebellion, recounting the horrifying treatment he and his fellow inmates suffered – a graphic novel that serves as both documentation and testament to resilience. A January 2024 pick focused on the effects of slavery and colonialism in Africa, with Noname’s club noting that the selection makes a brilliantly compelling case for why African underdevelopment is a direct product of imperial extraction from the continent. No other celebrity book club operates with quite this level of ideological consistency and intellectual rigor.
