The Celebrity Bookworm

Celebrities are often at the forefront of trends, with ordinary people looking to them for tips on everything from fashion and beauty to lifestyle and fitness. In recent years, that advice has taken a new form: book recommendations.

What started with Oprah’s Book Club in 1996 has expanded to a number of celebrities running their own book recommendation groups, including Emma Watson, Reese Witherspoon, Dakota Johnson, and Dua Lipa. These celebrities highlight books — typically monthly — on their websites, social media, television shows, and newsletters. Many, like Lipa, also interview the authors of the selected books. Some celebrities even aid in the production of television and movie adaptations of their book picks, as was the case with Emma Roberts’ production company, Belletrist Productions, which produced the 2022 television adaptation of Carola Lovering’s 2018 novel “Tell Me Lies.”

While these book clubs are aimed at using their platforms to focus attention on reading, given that promoting reading has risen in popularity among celebrities, it’s reasonable to wonder if these bookworms are genuine, or if it’s simply a performance for their social media audiences.

For lifelong readers, watching celebrity after celebrity jump on the book-promoting trend may be frustrating. A hobby they have long been passionate about has turned into something everyone’s talking about. This redirected attention makes it feel as if reading is becoming a status symbol.

It’s easy to write off these celebrity book clubs as overrated or attention-seeking. It’s easy not to take celebrity readers seriously. At the same time, that’s not the response they deserve. After all, any attention brought to reading is welcome.

Maybe someone who isn’t much of a reader loved the 2001 film “Legally Blonde,” so when they notice a book sporting the yellow seal of Witherspoon’s book club on its cover, they give it a try. If Elle Woods liked it, there must be something to it, right? They start reading.

Celebrities book promotion contributes to the renewed interest in reading, drawing new readers into the literary community. Whether someone picked up a book to look trendy or because it was recommended by a celebrity, they are still engaging with the book. One title can serve as a gateway to the literary community, leading readers to explore other titles by the same author, within the same genre, or entirely new kinds of writing.

Beyond encouraging people to read, these promotions also help authors — especially debut authors — market their books to a wider audience. Jenna Bush Hager’s first five book club picks hit nearly five times the sales of other titles on the market around the same time. Though these books may have already been on a successful track, being selected by Hager helped their sales soar. Of course, this effort isn’t completely pro bono on the celebrity’s part. Celebrities stand to generate a profit from any promotion, books included. Notably, in 2021, Witherspoon sold Hello Sunshine, her media company that produced the adaptations of many of her most successful book club picks, for a substantial $900 million. Without the sales and fan base generated from her book club, that value would likely be much lower.

Celebrity-created book clubs aren’t just about the act of reading itself; they are an important part of the book industry. Aesthetics play a large role in publishing. From book covers and marketing tactics to bookstore displays, the image of reading matters. Selling books is — at the end of the day — still a business. Celebrities wouldn’t be able to have such a noticeable impact on book sales if image wasn’t so important to this business model. However, the superficial facets of book production don’t make anyone any less of a reader. A person can enjoy both the act of reading and the idea of books — no matter where they source their recommendations from.

Perhaps the more significant concern, then, is not whether celebrity book clubs come across as performative, but how they reshape the culture of recommendation itself. Reading trends perpetrated by celebrity book clubs may encourage readers to read certain books, commercializing a leisurely hobby. Instead of enthusiastic recommendations being passed between readers, celebrity book clubs can feel like advertisements, propelling one title into bookstore displays, social media feeds, and bestseller lists. They are promoting not only books, but also the image of being a reader. A book can start to feel less like something enthusiastically passed between readers and more like a product being marketed to them.

However, it would be hypocritical to dismiss celebrity readers or their fans. Readers who discover books through Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, or another celebrity are no less legitimate than those who receive recommendations from friends, critics, or librarians. The more important question is not whether someone is reading for the “right” reasons, but what happens when increasingly powerful commercial platforms begin to shape which books readers encounter in the first place.

Anyone who finds joy in reading — no matter what they are reading or how they discovered it — deserves a place in the reading community. Celebrity book clubs can introduce new audiences to literature and give authors valuable exposure. They are part of the publishing industry now, and it’s time the world embraces that.

—Staff Writer Mary E. Tito can be reached at [email protected].