Some of the year’s hottest books are being read by the most active celebrity-led book clubs. See if you’re interested in any of the selections and follow along with the conversations on social media.
AMERIE’S BOOK CLUB
Luster by Raven Leilani
Singer Amerie named one of the most popular debuts this year that was already a selection for several major book clubs this year. Luster tells the story of a young Black woman who finds herself in the middle of someone else’s open marriage as she tries to save the couple’s adopted Black daughter from the emotional destruction she had experienced. The publisher is Macmillan Publishers’ imprint Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Read the she lit book review.
BELLETRIST BOOK CLUB
Collected Stories by Shirley Hazzard
When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and asha bandele
The featured book is a 28-story collection from National Book Award–winning author Shirley Hazzard. The publisher is Macmillan Publishers’ imprint Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
For the Why Not YA with Epic Reads selection, the book club helmed by actress Emma Roberts and producer Karah Preiss chose Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors’ young adult version of her memoir. Tune into Facebook for the discussion with Karah and Ebony Ladelle of Epic Reads. The publisher is Macmillan Publishers’ imprint Wednesday Books.
The book club’s indie bookstore for November is Golden Notebook in Woodstock, New York.
GMA BOOK CLUB
Memorial by Bryan Washington
Good Morning America’s book club chose the novel by the rising Black author that features a Japanese American chef living in Houston with his Black day care teacher roommate who suddenly has to travel halfway around the world to Osaka to care for his father. The publisher is Penguin Random House imprint Riverhead Books.
KAIA GERBER’S BOOK CLUB
Being Lolita: A Memoir by Alisson Wood
Supermodel Kaia Gerber unveiled earlier this month the memoir from a woman who had become a victim in high school when she became engaged in an inappropriate relationship with her teacher while bonding over Vladimir Nabokov’s classic Lolita. The publisher is Macmillan Publishers’ imprint Flatiron Books.
“I was immediately drawn to Alisson and her story,” Kaia wrote in an Instagram post. “Now after reading it four times and filling the margins with endless annotations.” She interviewed the author on IGTV earlier this month.
NONAME BOOK CLUB
Class Struggle In Africa by Kwame Nkrumah
Our History Is The Future by Nick Estes
Indie rapper Noname’s book club picked the first selection to give readers the opportunity to learn about colonialism and imperialism in Africa and how those factors play in the class struggle on the continent. The book is published by Panaf Books, which the author founded in 1968 after his two London publishers refused to work with him following the 1966 coup that ended the constitutional government of Nkrumah in Ghana.
The second selection focuses on the Indigenous movement of protecting waterways, which includes the 2016 protest encampment at the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota to block construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline which grew to be the largest Indigenous protest movement in this century. The book is published by Penguin Random House’s imprint Verso.
OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB
Though an official book selection has not been announced since Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, media empress Oprah Winfrey is promoting her latest TV venture with the HBO film rendition of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ best-selling and award-winning narrative, Between the World and Me.
READ WITH JENNA – TODAY SHOW BOOK CLUB
White Ivy by Susie Yang
The debut novel surrounds a Chinese American woman who was brought up to salvage what she needed and gets reacquainted with an old classmate, the quintessential well-to-do White man, who opens doors to a world of wealth that may be threatened by demons from her past. The publisher is Simon & Schuster.
“I’m really drawn to stories with anti-hero protagonists,” the author told the Today Show in the announcement. “When I knew that I wanted to create that kind of character, the first line of the book came to me.”
REESE’S BOOK CLUB
Group: How One Therapist and a Circle of Strangers Saved My Life by Christie Tate