Whenever I think about book clubs, I think about celebrity book clubs. Then, I think about that time Jonathan Franzen said he didn’t love the fact that Oprah Winfrey chose The Corrections for hers1. He thought Oprah’s anointment of his work would mean men would be disinclined to read it. (The impact on sales he took less issue with, presumably.) To use what feels like an overused phrase these days, there’s a lot to unpack there. And to be sure, many have already. Both at the time this happened and in the years since, think-pieces addressed ad nauseam his response to the selection and Oprah’s response in return (she disinvited him from her show).
So why am I bringing this up again now? Because it feels like book clubs are big again, doesn’t it? Celebrity book clubs, especially. That being the case, I’m reminded of the fact that people used to have a thing when it comes to book clubs, and the kerfuffle over Oprah and The Corrections is, in my mind, the perfect encapsulation of it. Beyond Jonathan Franzen’s aforementioned hand wringing about the marketing impact of having Oprah’s sticker of approval on his cover, there was an air of elitism behind the reluctance to accept the mass popularity that book club readership can signify. Book clubs were created by women, yes, and they continue to exist mostly for and thanks to women. So obviously, they face all the sexist BS that all other women things do. But they also exist on a line between the important and the popular as a venue such that, to the literary snobbiest among us, they are beneath certain types of work. That seemed to me as much part of what Franzen’s Oprah malaise was about as anything else.
He was hardly the only person to question Oprah’s taste. Another example that sticks in my mind of the dismissal of her role as literary tastemaker comes from a scene from Gilmore Girls—a show created and written by a woman about women. In the scene, Rory Gilmore tells the dean of admissions at Yale not to be put off by the Oprah’s Book Club sticker on the cover of a book she recommends to him.2 Maybe Rory was just tailoring the message to her audience, a white man likely as fragile as Franzen about gendered book marketing. Maybe it was just a way to drop yet another pop-culture reference in a show full of them. Maybe it was just me. But there was something about this comment—a throw-away line uttered during a scene transition—that felt oddly pointed, especially coming from a character the show presented as intelligent, serious and a committed reader. Either Rory Gilmore was a book snob or her creator, Amy Sherman-Palladino, was.
My money is on Sherman-Palladino, but honestly, for a while, when it came to Oprah’s Book Club, everyone was. At the peak of its initial popularity in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s, a stereotype developed around what an Oprah book would be: something schmaltzy about dysfunctional families and love overcoming obstacles that spoke to the indiscriminate predilections of middle aged women. It was a false stereotype, of course, rooted not just in sexism, but in “mysogynoir”—the kind of sexism that specifically targets black women and that in this case sought to undercut power levied by a black woman whose recognition resulted in immediate best-seller status. Oprah’s choices were varied and thoughtful and, more to the point, who cares if they weren’t all National Book Award winners? What makes that form of recognition more important or significant? The fact that it is more often conferred by men to men?
It’s been twenty years since The Corrections won Oprah’s approval along with a National Book Award. No author or publisher working today is going to turn turn their nose up at book club tie-in sales, but that doesn’t mean literary gate-keeping is behind us. That’s the thing about book clubs. They are largely by and for women, which means they don’t center traditional structures in the literary world, and by virtue of that, they feel more democratic and available to everyone. Book clubs offer empathy, escape, freedom, and voice and opportunity to those without. Books themselves offer all these same benefits, even to those who read individually and not as part of a group, but with book clubs you have added strength in numbers. Oprah and all the celebrities who have followed her footsteps simply gave book clubs a megaphone and multiplied those numbers by millions.
Books and book clubs also offer these same benefits to men, and yet women have always been the more ravenous consumers of books. Our dollars are the engine of the publishing industry. Having fought so hard for power throughout history, it’s no surprise that we don’t take anything that confers it upon us for granted.
So am I in a book club, you ask?
I have only ever been an active participant in one, mostly because I like being the one who chooses what I read. My taste and habits regarding reading are so capricious that I don’t want to subject other people to them or have to be subject to those of others. Also, I’m a Grade A introvert. That said, if you have a club, I welcome any and all invitations. Or at least, I want to know what you’re reading this month.
I do enjoy celebrity book clubs, though, because I like book recommendations, and that’s their primary purpose. I also like the concept of taste making, of seeing how different people respond to a particular cultural moment through their reading choices. Here are the ones I follow:
Oprah’s Book Club, of course. The first and still the best. She chooses things that move her, and even when the choices lead to controversy, they are always interesting.
Reese’s Book Club, pop culture’s current favorite. This is really just a side effect of Reese Witherspoon’s never-ending search for meaningful roles to play.
Read with Jenna, for those who still watch the Today Show. Jenna Bush Hager is not just the daughter and granddaughter of a president, she is also—and more importantly, for our purposes—the daughter of a librarian. I have a soft spot for her and always enjoy her choices3.
Belletrist, which is less of a formal marketing machine like these others, and more of an Instagram past-time for Emma Roberts and her best friend. I include it here, though, because their recommendations are legitimately good and because they seem to be in it for the fun.
Full disclosure: I have never read that book or anything by Franzen and continue to feel disinclined to do so.
This happened in episode 8 of season 3, in which Rory’s grandfather springs a visit to Yale on her without warning. By a season or two later, the show was unwatchable to me, and this scene may well have been sign of my coming disillusionment.
One of them was Black Buck by Mateo Askariapour, who could have offered Jonathan Franzen a lesson on how to respond with grace when a person outside of the audience you envision for your work recommends it.