Celebrity Book Clubs: Oprah, Reese, RuPaul – Charm

OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB

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Founder: Oprah Winfrey
Plugging books since: 1996
Story arc: The Queen of All Media tells her legions what to read, spawns “the Oprah Effect,” and inspires a fleet of copycat clubs.
Inaugural pick: Jacquelyn Mitchard’s The Deep End of the Ocean
Recent recommendations: Megha Majumdar’s A Guardian and a Thief, Ann Packer’s Some Bright Nowhere
Why a book club? In 1996, a senior producer told Winfrey she should talk about books on her show. When Winfrey argued that nobody cares about books they haven’t read, the producer countered: Why not tell them what to read, too?
Don’t mess with Oprah: After James Frey was accused of fabricating parts of his bestselling “memoir” (and the September 2005 Oprah pick) A Million Little Pieces, Winfrey brought the author on her show and proceeded to tear him into, yes, a million little pieces.
Power move: When Winfrey chose Toni Morrison’s 1977 novel, Song of Solomon, in 1996, the two-decade-old book shot to the top of bestsellers lists, again.

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Founder: Reese Witherspoon
Plugging books since: 2017
Story arc: America’s Sweetheart beats Oprah at her own game.
Inaugural pick: Gail Honeyman’s debut novel, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
Recent recommendations: Rebecca Armitage’s The Heir Apparent, Charlotte McConaghy’s Wild Dark Shore
Why a book club? Frustrated by the lack of compelling, female-driven scripts coming her way, Witherspoon founded a production company in 2016 to adapt novels and nonfiction she loved; a year later, she started a club to further promote her favorite books.
Adaptation pipeline: Club picks that have turned into Witherspoon-produced streamers include Little Fires Everywhere, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice from Dear Sugar, and The Last Thing He Told Me.
Power move: In 2023, print sales of Reese’s Book Club picks bested those of Oprah’s Book Club, totaling out at 2.3 million copies sold. She’s winning on Instagram, too: Reese’s club has 3.1 million followers, more than three times that of Oprah’s.

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Founder: Roxane Gay
Plugging books since: 2021
Story arc: Award-winning author, cultural critic, and Rutgers professor Gay brings unsung writers to the masses.
Inaugural pick: Black Futures, edited by Jenna Wortham and Kimberly Drew
Recent recommendations: Sara Levine’s The Hitch, Oyinkan Braithwaite’s Cursed Daughters
Why a book club? Gay wanted to “read books by underrepresented American writers, talk about those books, and, when we’re lucky, talk to the writers of those books” (Gay has been very lucky).
Power move: Gay won the National Book Foundation’s Literarian Award for her work in creating opportunities for marginalized writers.

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Founders: Emma Roberts and Karah Preiss
Plugging books since: 2017
Story arc: Bicoastal besties Roberts (an actor) and Preiss (a producer) bond over books and start telling their hundreds of thousands of closest friends about them.
Inaugural pick: Joan Didion’s South and West: From a Notebook
Recent recommendations: Patricia Lockwood’s Will There Ever Be Another You, Loretta Rothschild’s Finding Grace
Why a book club? To inspire young women to read and give Roberts the excuse to meet some of her literary heroes, beginning with Didion.
Intriguing collabs: Valentino (ValentinoxBelletrist tote bags), Kiko Milano (Belletrist book event–beauty bar)
Power move: Tiny indie bookstores (like Oakland’s Womb House Books) have experienced big jumps in sales after receiving Belletrist shout-outs.

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Founder: Mindy Kaling
Plugging books since: 2022
Story arc: A master of the funny wants you to read more funny books by authors who aren’t her, so she publishes them herself! It’s an imprint, not a traditional “club,” but it’s celebrity-curated nonetheless.
Inaugural pick: Sonali Dev’s The Vibrant Years
Recent recommendations: Uzma Jalaluddin’s Yours for the Season, Charlene Wang’s I’ll Follow You
Why a book club? “There’s tons of women of color who are interested in comedy and write these incredibly funny books, and I just want to help people get to see them.”
Simple tastes: “All I ever want to read are stories about a) murder in ritzy places OR b) realistic and funny depictions of female friendships,” says Kaling.
Power move: Mindy’s Book Studio is a collaboration with Amazon Publishing and, you guessed it, Amazon Studios, which ups the chances of potential adaptations.

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Founder: Dakota Johnson
Plugging books since: 2024
Story arc: An actor and indie film darling searches for books to make into movies through her production company, TeaTime Pictures.
Inaugural pick: Marie-Helene Bertino’s Beautyland
Recent recommendations: Gráinne O’Hare’s Thirst Trap, Erin Somers’s The Ten Year Affair
Bonus pages: In addition to the monthly recommendations, featured authors read passages from their books, suggest films that members might enjoy (think: Ingmar Bergman, Yasujir¯o Ozu), and create playlists to groove on, presumably while you’re reading their books.
Power move: Johnson’s biggest boost probably went to the self-published Fifty Shades of Grey series, which enjoyed a sales bump after she starred in the 2015 film adaptation of the first book—a full decade before starting her book club.

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Founder: RuPaul
Plugging books since: 2024
Story arc: The world’s most famous drag queen raises up queer voices and inspirational fiction with a pay-to-join club.
Inaugural pick: His memoir The House of Hidden Meanings (nobody says you can’t pick your own book)
Recent recommendations: Jennifer Finney Boylan’s Cleavage: Men, Women, and the Space Between Us, Gish Jen’s Bad Bad Girl
Why a book club? “I wasn’t very good in school, but I read books and I watched television, and those are the ways that I was able to find my way in this great big world.”
A surprising endorsement (but hey, we liked them, too): The Curious George series
Power move: In addition to themed playlists and author interviews, RuPaul’s club sends out its own mobile library, the Rainbow Book Bus, to distribute thousands of books to cities that have instituted book bans, including Birmingham, Alabama, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana.•

Robert Ito is a journalist based in Los Angeles. He writes about film, television, and theater for the New York Times.

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