Have we increased on famous book clubs?

Are there too many famous book clubs to get around? Short answer: No! In terms of getting people at Psyched about reading, especially now, we say the more the more.

It’s easy to hate on selebs jumping into the book club fold, and sometimes our first response is an eye roll: we get it, you can read! May seem opportunistic, trying to grab a slice of that Sweet action #booktok. (The hashtag has more than 100 billion hits on the app.) But at present, when the number of Americans reading for pleasure has fallen by 40 percent, according to a new study, we slow our rolls (eye) and instead say bringing them forward! In fact, start even more book clubs!

Reese Witherspoon is the biggest success story in the latest wave of club champions. The Reese Book Club launched female fiction in 2017 with Eleanor Oliphant is absolutely right by Gail HoneymanAnd she has had more than 110 spikes since then. The New York Times She was called the Queen of Book Club in May 2024, reporting that the previous year, her selections accounted for 2 million and more stunning in print sales. Witherspoon had two goals when starting the club, he said: to simplify options for busy readers and “bring the Book Club out of your mother’s living room.” And he succeeded, a great time.

Other famous folks, like today Jenna Bush Hager (Read with Jenna) and Emma Roberts (Belletrist), following the footsteps of Witherspoon. And all three have swollen the impact and reach of their clubs beyond the written page: Witherspoon and Roberts have adjusted many of their preferences for a screen (such as Taylor Jenkins Reid‘S. Daisy Jones and the Six and Delia Owens‘ Where the crawdads sing to Witherspoon, Carola loves‘S. Tell me a lie for Roberts). Bush Hager worked in partnership with The Random House Publishing Group to launch the Thousand Voices Books media company, which aims to highlight emerging voices in the publishing industry.

Things have gotten a more scratchy father with adding stars that we do not immediately associate with “books” or “read,” as Two lipa (Service Book Club95 2023), Kaia Gerber (Library Science 2024) and Dakota Johnson (Teatime Book Club 2024). Each has its own aesthetic and vibe: Gerber’s site, for example, is smoking-smoking French according to the Seine; Lipa’s slightly sassy magazine is updated for the new millennium. The Johnson website is all deliberately, pulled down and bare bones with the feeling of a substrate bookstore. In short, there is a book club for all types of readers around.

If this is the first time you have heard of some of these clubs – or you are a little skeptical – you are not alone. I’m one of Lipa’s most fans, but I don’t know I need to see her puzzling with a book once a month. And, of course, the whim of the advantage of hard -to -shake: goes into the Book Club business just a way to hop on a profitable bandwagon and add more intellectual HEFT to a trophy poppy résumé? How can you tell the difference between A-Lister who pushes books doing performance work and those invested in raising writers who might otherwise go unread in an overly big market? Better Question: Who worries? And also, what is the downside? .

These women are no less suitable for launching a book club than those who came before them, such as Emma Watson (Our shared shelf, 2016) and Queen’s Camilla (Queen’s reading room, 2021), or after (Jimmy Fallon‘s 2024 Fallon Book Club, anyone?).

Romance writer Elsie’s money #Booktok compliments to Us Earlier this year, saying he created an “expectation” for new statements like never before. It could be argued that the famous approval stamp through a book club does the same on an even larger scale. Which means that if Rec from a famous person gets you to hit the books, you will not hear any complaints from me.