Image Credit: Grunenwald, 2019.
Honestly, I think celebrity book clubs might have helped get me back into reading after a decade long slump. During 2020, I spent nearly every weekday morning watching the Today Show, specifically the 10 o'clock hour: Today with Hoda and Jenna. One of the hosts, Jenna Bush-Hager, started her own book club and once a month she would discuss the book, and usually speak to the author. While I never actually go around to reading any of the books she featured, she still placed reading and talking about books back into my mind.
I never read the books for a couple of reasons. Sometimes they just did not sound interesting to me. But, if I was at least a little bit interested, the wait time at my local library made me disinterested by the time I got the book. For example, The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah intrigued me, despite not being a big fan of historical fiction. When I went to place it on hold at my library, there were over 5oo holds on the title (this was before I really started reading e-books and I can only guess how many hold there were on Libby because there's almost always more) and I knew I wouldn't get the book for months. So, in addition to Kristin Hannah already being a popular author, the book was featured on a celebrity book club. As Nichols (2019) notes, these book clubs can sometimes be directly responsible in growth of book sales (Obama's recommendation caused a book to have a 2,300% increase in sales over three months!!), but clearly they can also be responsible for long library wait times.
These celebrity book clubs can be both wonderful and slightly annoying. They're wonderful because, as Nichols discusses, they clearly are responsible for generating interest in reading. At my library, we often have patrons request books from various celebrity book club lists like Jenna's, Reese's, and (of course, the queen) Oprah's. It is a great thing that they are getting people to read these books. Plus, they often get made into tv or film adaptations. Most recently The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave was turned into an Apple TV+ limited series starring Jennifer Garner (I have to specify she's in it because she's Jennifer Garner!!!). The book was picked for Reese's book club and her company were the ones that produced these shows. So these celebrity book clubs are clearly generating content and interest for readers and viewers alike.
But, those pesky wait times!! Some of my family members started a book club this year and the March/April pick is First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston. The book also happens to be a Reese's Book Club pick and was an option for the Book of the Month recently. Every single version my library owns (ebook, audiobook, and book) has hundreds of hold placed on it. I likely won't see a copy of the book until late April if I'm lucky (or if I get those fun Libby lucky day copies). This (very minor, I know) inconvenience is one of those slightly annoying effects of celebrity book clubs.
I could also see these phenomena being annoying for selection librarians. There's been times where my library has 25+ copies of a book that appeared on Oprah's or Obama's or Reese's lists because hundreds of people wanted to check the book out, so we had to purchase more copies to reduce wait times. Once all of those readers get through the book and it isn't in such high demand anymore, a surplus of books are now left behind to take up that valuable space on our shelves. This is, of course, why librarians weed their collections and why we have a book sale to help fund the library. But it's still a little bit annoying.
Suffice to say, celebrity book clubs are all the rage for a reason. As a culture, we love celebrities and want to know what they're reading. But sometimes, it is just so darn annoying to actually find the book once it's popularity skyrockets.
References
Grunenwald, J. (2019, October). Celebrity books clubs are all the rage. Perspectives on Reading. https://perspectivesonreading.com/celebrity-book-clubs-are-all-the-rage/
Nichols, M. (2019, August 14). How the new celebrity book clubs are boosting literary sales. Variety. https://variety.com/2019/biz/news/reese-witherspoon-celebrity-book-clubs-little-fires-everywhere-1203279897/
Katie, I enjoyed reading your story of a celebrity book club getting you back into reading after a long slump. That was one of my main points in my post- that TV personalities are promoting the idea/practice of reading to non-readers than could eventually influence them to pick up a book! So it's nice to hear that it can actually happen! But I do agree the wait lists they create is annoying!
ReplyDeleteI've seen book displays that address long wait times--a sign that reads something like, "while you wait for X, try one of these titles." I'm glad you got out of your slump!
ReplyDeleteI will definitely agree with you that these celebrity book clubs have a huge sway on the general population in terms of reading choices. However, I would almost equate it to an influencer. I have been burned way too many times by celebrity book club recs to even consider reading any featured. In fact, more often than not, I find myself holding back on a book when I see a celebrity book club seal on the cover. In my head, that does not mean the book or the writing is even good. The last time I listened to a celebrity book club rec was when I took a chance on Where the Crawdads Sing.... and I hated every minute of it. I wanted to set fire to the book as I was reading it. I kept waiting for it to get better and it just never did. So anymore, I more inclined to put a book back on the shelf if it has one of those seals. I might give it another whirl later, but I'm still traumatized by that rec.
ReplyDeleteAhhh yes, this is an excellent point! I have been burned by many Booktok/Bookstagram fantasy romance novel recommendations (and yet, somehow I still try them??) in the past year or so, and it's always disappointing. They have some level of trust that the public likes to place in them, sometimes very misguided. And I know many of those kind of influencer recommendations are often focused on just mentioning a specific trope, rather than taking note of the appeal of books like we've been doing in this class.
DeleteThose pesky wait times, ugh!! Sometimes I don't even know that something's been designated a celebrity pick until I'm looking at Libby and thinking to myself, "why the hell does this have 700 holds on it?" At the end of the day, I'm mostly glad that these book groups are actually getting people to read (sometimes for the first time!) again. I can definitely see an uptick in appeal for books that are being turned into shows/movies, which is also great for everyone.
ReplyDeleteThat's usually what happens to me. Nowadays, I only know if something's on the lists because of the label on the books, the wait times like you said, or if it pops up for me on social media because it's listening to me talk about books.
DeleteI have to admit I never really paid attention to celebrity book clubs to know what books are popular. Which also means I am usually behind when it comes to what books are currently popular (which does help me with wait times though). I do think these book clubs have been great in getting people to read though I sometimes wonder if they put these books in their book clubs because they are actually good or not. Because although I do tend to be late to the program, some books they have on there are....well...bad. But I also understand that could just be me. I would be interested to know how they choose these books though.
ReplyDeleteI have a lot of questions about how they choose these books too. How much do they actually like the book? How many ARCs do they receive and then choose which ones to read? How much are they actually reading all the time? because it's not like people like Reese Witherspoon and Oprah aren't doing 1,000 different things. And if they don't have time to read, how do they pick their books?! Do their teams go "here, read these and pick your favorite"? I'm genuinely so curious because there are so many different possibilities. I had a coworker tell me that Mindy Kaling's recommendations are usually from the same publisher that published her books, which makes me wonder whether or not she actually read them. There's so many things to know that we just don't!
DeleteI like how you mentioned the surplus of books a library has once the hype dies down. I didn't consider that before! Also, your comment about wait times reminded me that I have been on the waitlist for a book since last summer! I am so happy the book is popular (it is Babel by R.F. Kuang) but the wait times for high-demand books are no joke!
ReplyDeleteIt's funny how people flock after a book once it's recommended. I'll confess, I was always the odd one out; I wanted to be able to read the unknown titles and be the one to recommend the books rather than take advice of a popular book. To me, it was more fun to say, "let me tell you about...." rather than discuss something everybody had heard of. I am glad that celebrities have that sort of influence.
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