Celebrity Book Club Picks for October 2021

Hi everyone!  Today I’m sharing my monthly feature highlighting the Celebrity Book Club Picks for the month.  These book clubs are 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!

So without further adieu, let me introduce you to four book clubs and reveal their picks for October 2021.

Good Morning America’s Book Club (GMA)

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 “We Are Not Like Them” by Christina Pride and Jo Piazza for their October 2021 pick.

The Publisher’s Notes:

Jen and Riley have been best friends since kindergarten. As adults, they remain as close as sisters, though their lives have taken different directions. Jen married young, and after years of trying, is finally pregnant. Riley pursued her childhood dream of becoming a television journalist and is poised to become one of the first Black female anchors of the top news channel in their hometown of Philadelphia.
But the deep bond they share is severely tested when Jen’s husband, a city police officer, is involved in the shooting of an unarmed Black teenager. Six months pregnant, Jen is in freefall as her future, her husband’s freedom, and her friendship with Riley are thrown into uncertainty. Covering this career-making story, Riley wrestles with the implications of this tragic incident for her Black community, her ambitions, and her relationship with her lifelong friend.
Like Tayari Jones’s An American Marriage and Jodi Picoult’s Small Great Things, We Are Not Like Them explores complex questions of race and how they pervade and shape our most intimate spaces in a deeply divided world. But at its heart, it’s a story of enduring friendship—a love that defies the odds even as it faces its most difficult challenges.

Published: October 5 by Atria Books, 336 pages

Genre: General Fiction

Add We Are Not Like Them to your Goodreads shelf

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. The book club chose “Bewilderment” by Richard Powers as their October 2021 pick.

From The Publisher:

A heartrending new novel from the Pulitzer Prize–winning and #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Overstory.
The astrobiologist Theo Byrne searches for life throughout the cosmos while single-handedly raising his unusual nine-year-old, Robin, following the death of his wife. Robin is a warm, kind boy who spends hours painting elaborate pictures of endangered animals. He’s also about to be expelled from third grade for smashing his friend in the face. As his son grows more troubled, Theo hopes to keep him off psychoactive drugs. He learns of an experimental neurofeedback treatment to bolster Robin’s emotional control, one that involves training the boy on the recorded patterns of his mother’s brain…
With its soaring descriptions of the natural world, its tantalizing vision of life beyond, and its account of a father and son’s ferocious love, Bewildermentmarks Richard Powers’s most intimate and moving novel. At its heart lies the question: How can we tell our children the truth about this beautiful, imperiled planet?

Published: September 21 by W.W. Norton Company, 288 pages

Genres: General Fiction, Literary Fiction

Add Bewilderment to your Goodreads shelf

Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club (Hello Sunshine)

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 “Sankofa” by Chibundu Onuzo as their October 2021 pick.

From The Publisher:

Anna is at a stage of her life when she’s beginning to wonder who she really is. She has separated from her husband, her daughter is all grown up, and her mother—the only parent who raised her—is dead.
Searching through her mother’s belongings one day, Anna finds clues about the African father she never knew. His student diaries chronicle his involvement in radical politics in 1970s London. Anna discovers that he eventually became the president—some would say dictator—of a small nation in West Africa. And he is still alive…
When Anna decides to track her father down, a journey begins that is disarmingly moving, funny, and fascinating. Like the metaphorical bird that gives the novel its name, Sankofaexpresses the importance of reaching back to knowledge gained in the past and bringing it into the present to address universal questions of race and belonging, the overseas experience for the African diaspora, and the search for a family’s hidden roots.

Published: October 5 by Catapult (first published June 3), 304 pages

Genres: Literary Fiction, OwnVoices, Women’s Fiction

Add Sankofa to your Goodreads shelf

Read With Jenna (Jenna Bush Hager)

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 Lincoln Highway” by Amor Towles as her October 2021 pick.

From The Publisher:

In June, 1954, eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the work farm where he has just served a year for involuntary manslaughter. His mother long gone, his father recently deceased, and the family farm foreclosed upon by the bank, Emmett’s intention is to pick up his eight-year-old brother and head west where they can start their lives anew. But when the warden drives away, Emmett discovers that two friends from the work farm have hidden themselves in the trunk of the warden’s car. Together, they have hatched an altogether different plan for Emmett’s future.
Spanning just ten days and told from multiple points of view, Towles’s third novel will satisfy fans of his multi-layered literary styling while providing them an array of new and richly imagined settings, characters, and themes.

Published: October 5, 2021 by Viking, 592 pages

Genre: Historical Fiction

Add The Lincoln Highway to your Goodreads shelf

So that’s what Celebrity Book Clubs are reading in October 2021.  Do any of these books appeal to you?  Will your book club be selecting any of these books? Let me know in the comments.

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Previous Celebrity Book Month picks:

Celebrity Book Club Picks for September 2021