Celebrity Book Club Picks for August 2023

Are you wondering what your favourite Celebrity Book Club is reading this month? Do you enjoy book communities as a way to read along with others? If so, each of these celebrity book clubs is internet-based and open to all who follow. So if you’re like me and always on the lookout for the next great read, you will now find these picks all in one spot – That Happy Reader’s blog! Without further adieu, let me introduce you to Celebrity Book Club Picks for August 2023. Click on the book’s cover to add it to your Goodreads shelf!

Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club (Hello Sunshine)’s pick for August 2023:

Founded in 2017, Hello Sunshine always chooses books with women at the centre of the story. Their website notes “We make our choices thoughtfully and look for ways to deepen our connection to books, authors and ourselves”.  This book club chose “Tom Lake” by Ann Patchett as their August 2023 pick. This book is on my TBR list for August in audiobook format – FYI it’s narrated by Meryl Streep!

From The Publisher:

In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family’s orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.

Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety, that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.

Find Reese’s Book Club Here

---

Good Morning America’s Book Club’s pick:

The GMA Book Club is officially called “Cover to Cover” and was started in the Fall of 2019. Their selections highlight diversity and books are chosen from both fiction and non-fiction genres. The book club chose “Family Lore” by Elizabeth Acevedo as their August 2023 pick.

From The Publisher:

Flor has a gift: she can predict, to the day, when someone will die. So when she decides she wants a living wake–a party to bring her family and community together to celebrate the long life she’s led–her sisters are surprised. Has Flor forseen her own death, or someone else’s? Does she have other motives? She refuses to tell her sisters, Matilde, Pastora, and Camila.

But Flor isn’t the only person with secrets. Matilde has tried for decades to cover the extent of her husband’s infidelity, but she must now confront the true state of her marriage. Pastora is typically the most reserved sister, but Flor’s wake motivates this driven woman to solve her sibling’s problems. Camila is the youngest sibling, and often the forgotten one, but she’s decided she no longer wants to be taken for granted.

And the next generation, cousins Ona and Yadi, face tumult of their own: Yadi is reuniting with her first love, who was imprisoned when they were both still kids; Ona is married for years and attempting to conceive. Ona must decide whether it’s worth it to keep trying–to have a child, and the anthropology research that’s begun to feel lacklustre.

Find GMA Book Club Here

---

Read With Jenna (Jenna Bush Hager)’s pick:

Starting in March 2019, the former First Daughter announced her book club on the Today show.  Each month she chooses a book that is sure to generate discussion.  Jenna chose “Summer Sisters” by Judy Blume as her August 2023 pick. This book is twenty-five years old and I read it when it was originally published and recommend it.

From The Publisher:

In the summer of 1977, Victoria Leonard’s world changes forever when Caitlin Somers chooses her as a friend. Dazzling, reckless Caitlin welcomes Vix into the heart of her sprawling, eccentric family, opening doors to a world of unimaginable privilege, sweeping her away to vacations on Martha’s Vineyard, an enchanting place where the two friends become “summer sisters.”
 
Now, years later, Vix is working in New York City. Caitlin is getting married on the Vineyard. And the early magic of their long, complicated friendship has faded. But Caitlin begs Vix to come to her wedding, to be her maid of honor. And Vix knows that she will go—because she wants to understand what happened during that last shattering summer. And, after all these years, she needs to know why her best friend—her summer sister—still has the power to break her heart.

Find Jenna’s Book Club Here

---

Oprah’s Book Club:

Oprah Winfrey started this book club in 1996 as a segment on her TV show. Many obscure titles have risen to bestseller status as a result of her picks. There have been no new picks since the Celebrity Book Club Picks for May 2023.

Find Oprah’s Book Club Here

---

That’s the Celebrity Book Club Picks for August 2023. Do any of these books appeal to you?  Will your book club be selecting any of these books? Let me know in the comments. I hope you have an amazing day!

Previous Book Club Selections:

July 2023

June 2023

May 2023