By Collection Management Librarian Dontaná
Since Oprah’s first book club pick in 1996, we have been reading as the celebrities do, falling in love with, or hating, characters with our fellow book club readers. Book clubs offer an opportunity to be in community with others, even if we’re not together in person.
Other celebrities who love to read have started book clubs, and even magazines are getting in on the action! Enjoy these August picks from well-established and new celebrity book clubs.
Please note: Many of these books are brand new releases. We’ve ordered extra copies, but if you’re waiting on hold, be sure to check out the new materials shelves at the Maze and Dole branches and Hot Picks at the Main Library (these copies can’t be placed on hold or renewed). If the title is listed as available in the catalog, head over and pick up your next read before someone snatches it up!
Read with the stars
Counterfeit by Kirstin Chen
Who is reading it: The Audacious Book Club from Roxane Gay. Bonus: This book was also the June pick from Reese's Book Club.
Description: Two Asian American women who band together to grow a counterfeit handbag scheme into a global enterprise—an incisive and glittering blend of fashion, crime, and friendship.
Find all available formats in the catalog »
Last Summer on State Street by Toya Wolfe
Who is reading it: The Underrated Book Club from Stephen Curry.
Description: A coming-of-age debut about friendship, community, and resilience, set in the housing projects of Chicago during one life-changing summer.
Find all available formats in the catalog »
The Many Daughters of Afong Moy by Jamie Ford
Who is reading it: Read with Jenna from Jenna Bush Hager.
Description: Dorothy Moy breaks her own heart for a living. As Washington's former poet laureate, that's how she describes channeling her dissociative episodes and mental health struggles into her art. When her 5-year-old daughter exhibits similar behavior and begins remembering things from the lives of their ancestors, Dorothy believes the past has truly come to haunt her. A powerful exploration of the love that binds one family across the generations.
Find all available formats in the catalog »
Mika in Real Life by Emiko Jean
Who is reading it: Good Morning America Book Club. Bonus: Emiko Jean's YA novel Tokyo Ever After was a Reese's Book Club pick in 2021.
Description: Getting to know Penny, the daughter she placed for adoption 16 years ago, 35-year-old Mika Suzuki finds unexpected love with Penny's widowed father and finally has a chance to have the life and family she's always wanted until her deceptions catch up with her.
Find all available formats in the catalog »
Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister
Who is reading it: Reese's Book Club from Reese Witherspoon.
Description: After witnessing her teenage son kill a man, a mother falls asleep in despair, wakes up and it is yesterday, and wakes up again and it is the day before yesterday, getting chance after chance to stop the murder and save her son.
Find all available formats in the catalog »
The Crane Wife: A Memoir in Essays by CJ Hauser
Who is reading it: Between Two Books from Florence Welch of Florence + the Machine.
Description: Ten days after calling off her wedding, CJ Hauser went on an expedition to Texas to study the whooping crane. After a week wading through the gulf, she realized she'd almost signed up to live someone else's life. In this intimate, frank, and funny memoir-in-essays, Hauser releases herself from traditional narratives of happiness and goes looking for ways of living that leave room for the unexpected, making plenty of mistakes along the way.
Find all available formats in the catalog »
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
Who is reading it: Belletrist Book Club from Emma Roberts and Karah Preiss
Description: Spanning 30 years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, this is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before.
Find all available formats in the catalog »
Human Blues by Elisa Albert
Who is reading it: Read With Marie Claire, the book club from Marie Claire magazine.
Description: On the eve of her fourth album, singer-songwriter Aviva Rosner is plagued by infertility. The twist: As much as Aviva wants a child, she is wary of technological conception, and has poured her ambivalence into her music. As the album makes its way in the world, the shock of the response from fans and critics is at first exciting—and then invasive and strange. Aviva never wanted to be famous, or did she? Meanwhile, her evolving obsession with another iconic musician, gone too soon, might just help her make sense of things.
Find all available formats in the catalog »
About Dontaná
Dontaná is a Collection Management Librarian who was born with an unending reading list. She is almost always reading two books simultaneously and is easily distracted by cool covers.
