From nepo babies to literary icons, here’s whose reading lists deserve a spot on your TBR
There was a time when joining a celebrity book club meant that Oprah told you to read a book, and you read the book.
Nearly three decades later, the field is considerably more crowded. Actors have book clubs. Musicians have book clubs. Models have book clubs. Morning-show hosts have book clubs. Some celebrities have gone one step further and built publishing imprints, production companies and entire media ecosystems around the books they love.
But celebrity book clubs aren’t all interchangeable. Some reliably deliver big, compulsively readable novels. Others champion translated literature, emerging writers or books you might never find on your own. Some feel like true reading communities; others are essentially one very famous person’s beautifully curated TBR.
So, in the interest of literary service journalism, here’s our guide to the celebrity book clubs worth knowing.
Oprah’s Book Club: The One That Started It All
Founded: 1996
The vibe: Big ideas, emotional depth, serious conversation
Come here for: Literary fiction, memoir and classics
There are celebrity book clubs, and then there is Oprah’s Book Club.
Oprah Winfrey began choosing books for her audience in 1996, long before Instagram carousels, BookTok or the phrase “TBR pile” entered the mainstream. As of 2026, she’s selected more than 120 titles and helped turn plenty of them into cultural events.
Her picks are sporadic, and Oprah tends to go deep, with substantial author conversations and discussions around each selection.
Back in 2008, TIME called Oprah’s Book Club “the greatest force in publishing today.”
Best for: Readers who would rather have a handful of memorable recommendations than a new assignment every four weeks.
Book Club on the Juniper Shelf
Oprah chose John Steinbeck’s East of Eden as her 49th Book Club pick, introducing a new generation of readers to the sprawling American classic. It’s also included in our John Steinbeck California Field Book Set, alongside The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men and more.
Reese’s Book Club: The Publishing Powerhouse
Founded: 2017
The vibe: Extremely readable, female-centered and adaptation-friendly
Come here for: Thrillers, romance, family drama and book-club fiction
Reese Witherspoon’s club may be the clearest example of what the modern celebrity book club can become: part reading community, part media company, part cultural tastemaker.
Every month, Reese chooses a book with a woman at the center of the story. The picks range from thrillers and romances to historical fiction and sweeping family dramas, but the common denominator is usually the same: they’re hard to put down.
Then there is the Hello Sunshine of it all. Reese’s production company has turned the relationship between books and screen adaptations into something close to a vertical integration strategy…which is a business-school way of saying that if Reese loves your novel, very good things may happen to it.
Best for: Anyone whose book-club requirements are roughly “smart, juicy and please make me stay up too late.”
Book Club on the Juniper Shelf
Reese chose Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale in March 2023, calling it one of the most powerful and captivating novels about World War II in recent years.
The publisher’s gorgeous The Nightingale: Deluxe Edition is available on the Juniper Books shelf, complete with decorative sprayed edges, foil details and illustrated endpapers.
Now & Gen Book Club by Genevieve Padalecki: The Smaller Club Worth Knowing
The vibe: Personal, casual and community-driven
Come here for: A celebrity book club that doesn’t feel like a media conglomerate
For something considerably more intimate, actress and self-described book nerd Genevieve “Gen” Padalecki has run the Now & Gen Book Club, with a Goodreads community of more than 1,300 members and book recommendations tied to her broader lifestyle platform.
Compared with Reese or Oprah, this is the neighborhood-café version of the celebrity book club. And that’s kind of the point.
Best for: Anyone who likes discovering the club their friends haven’t already heard of.
Read With Jenna: The Bookseller’s Book Club
Founded: 2019
The vibe: Contemporary fiction with real literary chops
Come here for: Emerging authors, emotional novels and books with an ending you need to discuss immediately
Jenna Bush Hager launched Read With Jenna on the Today show in 2019 and has built a reputation for spotting writers and novels before they become unavoidable.
Her picks tend to hit a sweet spot between literary and accessible, and the club has enough author interviews and reader discussion to feel like an actual book club rather than a monthly endorsement.
The New York Times has called Jenna Bush Hager a “publishing kingmaker.”
Best for: Readers who like literary fiction but would also, respectfully, like something to happen.
Service95 Book Club by Dua Lipa: The Global Cool-Girl Club
Founded: 2023
The vibe: International, curious and impressively literary
Come here for: Translated fiction, contemporary literature and books that make you feel slightly cooler for having read them
Here’s the thing: Dua Lipa really reads.
Her Service95 Book Club has quickly become one of the more substantive celebrity book clubs around, with hand-picked monthly reads, extensive editorial features and exclusive in-depth conversations between Dua and the authors.
The choices skew international and culturally expansive, making Service95 one of the best places on this list to encounter a writer or perspective you might not otherwise have found.
The Guardian went so far as to ask: “Is Dua Lipa the best literary interviewer?”
Best for: The friend whose carry-on contains three novels and no practical footwear.
Book Club on the Juniper Shelf
For her November 2025 Monthly Read, Dua revisited Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale—a book she first read at 15—then sat down with Atwood herself for the Book Club interview.
Our Margaret Atwood: The Handmaid’s Tale and More Book Set pairs the novel with The Testaments, Old Babes in the Wood and Burning Questions in custom Juniper jackets.
Zibby’s Book Club: The Bookfluencer’s Book Club
The vibe: Insider-y, contemporary and extremely plugged into publishing
Come here for: Buzzy new fiction, memoir, emerging authors and the books everyone in publishing is about to be talking about
Zibby Owens isn’t a celebrity who decided to start talking about books—books are essentially her entire universe. She’s the founder of Zibby Media, which includes a publishing house, an independent bookstore in Santa Monica, literary retreats and events, the Totally Booked with Zibby podcast and, naturally, Zibby’s Book Club.
The club features monthly selections alongside virtual conversations with authors, drawing on the kind of access you get when your host has interviewed more than 2,000 writers and spends her days immersed in the publishing world.
A familiar face: Zibby previously interviewed Juniper Books founder Thatcher Wine on her podcast to talk about For the Love of Books, custom libraries, and why beautifully designed physical books still matter.
Best for: Readers who want to know what the book world is buzzing about before everybody else does.
Between Two Books by Florence Welch: The Beautifully Strange One
Founded: 2012
The vibe: Gothic English manor with Wi-Fi
Come here for: Literary, poetic, dark and unusual books
Florence Welch’s club began when a fan suggested on Twitter that she should start one. Florence agreed, which may be one of the better things ever produced by social media.
The club has since featured guest recommendations from writers, musicians and filmmakers including Greta Gerwig, Nick Cave, Fiona Apple and Sally Rooney, while retaining a distinctly communal feel. Picks aren’t always monthly or predictable. That’s part of the charm.
Best for: Anyone who has ever wanted a book recommendation from the human embodiment of a Pre-Raphaelite painting.
Library Science by Kaia Gerber and Alyssa Reeder: The Indie Darling
Founded: 2024
The vibe: Downtown bookstore, but make it a supermodel
Come here for: Debuts, translations, plays, poetry and overlooked literature
Kaia Gerber—model, actress and, yes, Cindy Crawford’s daughter—founded a legitimately interesting book club.
Gerber created Library Science with Alyssa Reeder to highlight books that aren’t already sitting atop bestseller lists. Their picks span fiction, translations, essays, plays and poetry, with particular attention to debut writers and overlooked or underrepresented voices.
In other words: come for the nepo-baby joke, stay because somebody has handed you a slim translated novel you’ve never heard of and now cannot stop talking about.
“Talking and connecting through books is the opposite of pretentious.” — Kaia Gerber
Best for: People who miss saying, “I read it before everyone else.”
Belletrist by Emma Roberts and Karah Preiss: The OG Instagram Club
Founded: 2017
The vibe: Literary but accessible, with Hollywood connections
Come here for: Contemporary fiction and buzzy new voices
Emma Roberts and Karah Preiss started Belletrist after years of exchanging books and recommendations with each other.
The club chooses a new book each month and has since expanded into production, which means its selections often sit comfortably in that literary-but-cinematic sweet spot. Belletrist has now chosen more than 75 titles and produced television series including Tell Me Lies.
“Everybody loves to read more than people think.” — Emma Roberts
Best for: Readers who like contemporary fiction with a side of potential adaptation news.
Book Club on the Juniper Shelf
Belletrist’s very first selection in 2017 was Joan Didion’s South and West: From a Notebook.
That title lives in our Joan Didion Book Set, a collection of Didion’s fiction and nonfiction wrapped in a desert-inspired design. In other words, the book that launched Belletrist is already on the Juniper shelf.
TeaTime Book Club by Dakota Johnson: The Rabbit Hole
Founded: 2024
The vibe: Eclectic, artsy and occasionally delightfully weird
Come here for: Contemporary literature, classics and unexpected left turns
Dakota Johnson’s TeaTime Book Club grew out of her production company, TeaTime Pictures, and its selections range from brand-new fiction to classics.
The experience often extends beyond the book itself, with playlists, videos, interviews and other material built around each pick.
It’s less “read this bestseller with me” and more “come down this cultural rabbit hole.”
Best for: People who consider “a little strange” one of the highest compliments a book can receive.
Natalie’s Book Club: The Thoughtful One
The vibe: Curious, empathetic and intellectually serious
Come here for: Fiction and nonfiction with something to say
Natalie Portman’s reading list is rooted in the idea that stories help us understand lives beyond our own.
Her selections span fiction and nonfiction and often engage with culture, identity, history and the natural world, with author conversations adding depth beyond the recommendation itself. Portman says she looks for books that deepen our understanding of both ourselves and the world around us.
Best for: Readers who underline sentences and later remember why.
The Laufey Book Club: The Romantic’s Club
The vibe: Cozy, dreamy and earnest
Come here for: Classics, memoir, romance and books to read while jazz plays softly somewhere
Laufey’s reading community includes monthly online meetings, playlists, social channels and even its own book-club merchandise. It also has perhaps the strongest aesthetic cohesion of any club on this list.
Given her dreamy, old-school romantic vibe, it should shock absolutely no one that classic literature feels perfectly at home here.
Best for: Readers who own at least one ribbon bookmark voluntarily.
Book Club on the Juniper Shelf
Laufey chose Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women for her November book-club pick, describing the March sisters’ story as especially familiar to someone who grew up close to a sister.
Our Little Women Book Set brings all four books in the March family series together in a floral design that, frankly, looks like it wandered directly out of Laufey’s universe.
The Audacious Book Club by Roxane Gay: The Literary Heavyweight
Founded: 2021
The vibe: Smart, fearless and genuinely engaged
Come here for: Underrepresented writers and books worth arguing about
Writer and critic Roxane Gay launched the Audacious Book Club with a focus on works by underrepresented writers.
This one behaves much more like an actual book club than a celebrity recommendation engine: readers get discussion prompts throughout the month followed by a live conversation with the author, with past conversations archived online.
Best for: Readers who would be mildly offended if you described their book club as “mostly social.”
Katie Couric Book Club: The New Kid
Founded: 2026
The vibe: Read more, scroll less
Come here for: Accessible literary fiction and author conversations
Katie Couric entered the celebrity-book-club fray in 2026 with a charmingly simple premise: read one book a month and spend a little less time staring at your phone.
Her club pairs each selection with an author conversation and reader participation through Substack. It’s just Katie trying to get everybody off their phones and into a novel.
Best for: Your mother. Also possibly you.
LeVar Burton’s Book Club: Because Obviously
The vibe: Let LeVar pick your books forever, please
Come here for: Great storytelling and thoughtful literary fiction
If anyone was destined to have a book club, surely it was the man who spent decades telling an entire generation that they didn’t have to take his word for it.
LeVar Burton’s Fable reading community continues what he has spent much of his career championing: curiosity, storytelling and the idea that reading can change how you see the world.
Best for: Former Reading Rainbow kids who would still happily surrender all reading decisions to LeVar Burton.
The GMA Book Club: The Big Tent
Founded: 2019
The vibe: Something for everybody
Come here for: Commercial fiction across nearly every genre
Good Morning America’s book club casts a wide net: literary fiction, romance, fantasy, thrillers, historical fiction and beyond. It has also expanded with a separate YA Book Club.
If Oprah tends toward the weighty and Reese has a recognizable female-centered identity, GMA is the general store of celebrity book clubs. Come on in, there’s probably something for you.
Best for: Omnivorous readers who don’t want to pledge allegiance to a single genre.
And Then There Are the Book-Club-Adjacent Celebrities
Celebrity reading culture has become bigger than monthly clubs.
Sarah Jessica Parker has gone beyond recommending books with SJP Lit, her publishing imprint. Jimmy Fallon has periodically revived his summer-reading club. Stephen Colbert briefly brought author conversations to late-night television through his own book club. And Emma Watson’s now-inactive Our Shared Shelf remains one of the most notable celebrity reading communities of the past decade, particularly around feminist literature.
Not every famous reader needs a monthly pick to move books.
So, Which Celebrity Book Club Should You Join?
The good news is that nobody is making you choose.
Want the cultural institution? Start with Oprah. Want something compulsively readable? Reese. Literary fiction before your friends find it? Jenna. A passport in book form? Dua. The cool tiny-press title? Kaia. Something weird and beautiful? Florence or Dakota. A club led by someone who knows literature from the inside? Roxane Gay.
Or skip the celebrity endorsement altogether and join a book club a little closer to home.
At Juniper Books, we host our own monthly Juniper Books Book Club in our Boulder showroom, bringing readers together to discover new favorites, swap recommendations and talk through the books we can’t stop thinking about.
If you’re local to Colorado, we’d love to have you join us. No celebrity status required.