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 November 2023. Click on the book’s cover to add it to your Goodreads shelf!
Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club (Hello Sunshine)’s pick for November 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 “Maybe Next Time” by Cesca Major as their November 2023 pick.
From The Publisher:
One Day meets Groundhog Day, in this heartwarming and emotionally poignant novel about a stressed woman who must relive the same day over and over, keeping her family and work life from imploding as she attempts to spare her husband from an unfortunate fate.
It is an ordinary Monday and harried London literary agent Emma is flying out of the door as usual. Preoccupied with work and her ever growing to-do list, she fails to notice her lovely husband Dan seems bereft, her son can barely meet her eye, and her daughter won’t go near her. Even the dog seems sad.
She is far too busy, buried deep in her phone; social media alerts pinging; clients messaging with “emergencies”; keeping track of a dozen WhatsApp groups about the kids’ sports, school, playdates, all of it. Her whole day is frantic—what else is new—and as she rushes back through the door for dinner, Dan is still upset. They fight, and he walks out, desolate, dragging their poor dog around the block. Just as she realizes it is their anniversary and she has forgotten, again, she hears the screech of brakes.
Dan is dead.
The next day Emma wakes up… and Dan is alive. And it’s Monday again.
And again.
And again.
Emma tries desperately to change the course of fate by doing different things each time she wakes up: leaving WhatsApp, telling her boss where to get off, writing to Dan, listening to her kids, reaching out to forgotten friends, getting drunk and buying out Prada. But will Emma have the chance to find herself again, remember what she likes about her job, reconnect with her children, love her husband? Will this be enough to change the fate they seem destined for?
A moving “What if” story of what it is to be a woman in the modern world—never feeling we’re getting it quite right—about learning to slow down and appreciate life that is sure to resonate with women’s fiction fans.
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 “Class” by Stephanie Land as their November 2023 pick.
From The Publisher:
When Stephanie Land set out to write her memoir Maid, she never could have imagined what was to come. Handpicked by President Barack Obama as one of the best books of 2019, it was called “an eye-opening journey into the lives of the working poor” (People). Later it was adapted into the hit Netflix series Maid, which was viewed by 67 million households and was Netflix’s fourth most-watched show in 2021, garnering three Primetime Emmy Award nominations. Stephanie’s escape out of poverty and abuse in search of a better life inspired millions.
Maid was a story about a housecleaner, but it was also a story about a woman with a dream. In Class, Land takes us with her as she finishes college and pursues her writing career. Facing barriers at every turn including a byzantine loan system, not having enough money for food, navigating the judgments of professors and fellow students who didn’t understand the demands of attending college while under the poverty line—Land finds a way to survive once again, finally graduating in her mid-thirties.
Class paints an intimate and heartbreaking portrait of motherhood as it converges and often conflicts with personal desire and professional ambition. Who has the right to create art? Who has the right to go to college? And what kind of work is valued in our culture? In clear, candid, and moving prose, Class grapples with these questions, offering a searing indictment of America’s educational system and an inspiring testimony of a mother’s triumph against all odds.
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 “The Sun Sets in Singapore” by Kehinde Fadipe as her November 2023 pick.
From The Publisher:
Basking in Singapore’s nonstop sunshine, low tax rate, and luxury goods market, Dara, Amaka, and Lillian are living the glamorous expat dream—until their carefully constructed lives are upended by a handsome and mysterious new arrival.
Dara, a workaholic lawyer from the UK, is on the brink of partnership at her firm. Estranged from her mother, and perpetually uncomfortable around her hypercompetitive colleagues, her insecurities intensify exponentially when Lani, a new hire from Geneva (and a fellow British Nigerian), is assigned to work on what should have been her career-making case. Pitted against each other by their boss, Dara can’t help but see Lani as a threat: a privileged man poised to take her place.
Amaka, a sharp-tongued banker from Nigeria, is in the midst of a painful family dispute. Thousands of miles away from home, she’s doing her best to distract herself with a flirtatious workplace romance—and hiding a spiraling shopping addiction that’s endangering not only her finances but her very sense of self. An instant attraction to Lani jeopardizes the last shred of stability she has.
Lillian, a pianist turned “trailing spouse” from the US, is desperately trying to stay in Singapore after her marriage comes to a messy end. Rather than sell her beloved piano, the last precious reminder she has of her parents, she takes a low-paying job at a language school. A chance encounter with Lani—a man who is inexplicably, impossibly, the spitting image of her late father—triggers a grief she’s spent a lifetime suppressing, leading to an obsession that imperils everything—and everyone—around her.
Forced to confront the ghosts of their pasts, Dara, Amaka, and Lillian soon learn that unfinished history can follow you anywhere, no matter how far you run from home.
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. Oprah’s latest pick is “Let Us Descend” by Jesmyn Ward.
From The Publisher:
Let Us Descend is a reimagining of American slavery, as beautifully rendered as it is heart-wrenching. Searching, harrowing, replete with transcendent love, the novel is a journey from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans and into the fearsome heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation.
Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, is the reader’s guide through this hellscape. As she struggles through the miles-long march, Annis turns inward, seeking comfort from memories of her mother and stories of her African warrior grandmother. Throughout, she opens herself to a world beyond this world, one teeming with of earth and water, of myth and history; spirits who nurture and give, and those who manipulate and take. While Ward leads readers through the descent, this, her fourth novel, is ultimately a story of rebirth and reclamation.
From one of the most singularly brilliant and beloved writers of her generation, this miracle of a novel inscribes Black American grief and joy into the very land—the rich but unforgiving forests, swamps, and rivers of the American South. Let Us Descend is Jesmyn Ward’s most magnificent novel yet, a masterwork for the ages.
That’s the Celebrity Book Club Picks for November 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!
Jody Joy
I am in the top two book clubs, and I am going to be reading Maybe Next Time as soon as I get it. Have a wonderful Friday, Jodie.
thathappyreader
Thank you Jody! Enjoy these books and have a great weekend!
Jonetta | Blue Mood Café
I added the picks by Reese, Jenna & Oprah.
thathappyreader
That’s great Jonetta!
ER LeVar
I’ve heard amazing things about the Jesmyn Ward book! A friend got an ARC and hasn’t stopped raving–I’ll have to pick it up!
thathappyreader
I hope that you enjoy it ER!
Yvonne @ Socrates Book Reviews
I don’t usually read the book club books, but they always have such interesting choices. These sound really good.
thathappyreader
I think so too Yvonne! I read several of them a year but it’s always interesting to see what they are reading.
Carla
The only one on my TBR at this point is Class. I might try some of the others if I have time. Thanks for sharing these, Jody.
thathappyreader
Thanks for reading Carla!
Lisa Mandina (Lisa Loves Literature)
I rarely like any of the books for book club choices. But it’s always interesting to check out what is recommended. I do know I need to read something by Jesmyn Ward at some point. Thanks for sharing these!
thathappyreader
Thanks for reading Lisa.