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<\/p>\nTHESE days,\u00a0it seems every celebrity wants to put their name to a book club: among the rich and famous, they are as common as private jets, non-disclosure agreements and\u00a0Ozempic. <\/p>\n
Reese Witherspoon, an actor, wants women to read \u2013 or, to be more precise, she wants them to embrace the power of \u201cbook joy\u201d. Oprah Winfrey, a media personality, hopes her recommendations will \u201cspark enlightenment\u201d. Dua Lipa, a pop star, wants people to \u201cread the world differently\u201d. Kaia Gerber, a model, strives to create \u201crage readers\u201d. (She does not explain what those are, nor why they would be desirable.)<\/p>\n
Celebrity\u00a0book clubs\u00a0may be a feature of 21st-century fame, but they have a long lineage. The first such club in Britain, the Book Society, began in 1929. It featured recommendations from intellectuals such as Hugh Walpole and JB Priestley, and had a practical aim \u2013 to enable \u201cthe discovery of notable new writers\u201d and to get people to buy books. <\/p>\n
As similar clubs sprang up in America and Europe in the early 20th century, there was \u201ca quiet revolution\u201d in book-buying habits, writes Nicola Wilson, an academic, in Recommended!<\/p>\n
From the outset, the Book Society was ridiculed in some circles. Its judges were mocked as \u201cmiddlemen\u201d with \u201ca taste for the second-rate\u201d; their recommendations, detractors proclaimed, flattened culture and encouraged idleness. (This attitude persists today, as critics lampoon \u201cthe celebrity book-club mafia\u201d for discouraging \u201cserious readers\u201d and \u201coriginal thought\u201d.) <\/p>\n
Yet, the Book Society has endured for almost 40 years. It promoted a new title each month, guiding and entertaining readers through the Depression and World War II.<\/p>\n
A NEWSLETTER FOR YOU<\/p>\n
Friday, 2 pm<\/p>\n
Lifestyle<\/p>\n
Our picks of the latest dining, travel and leisure options to treat yourself.<\/p>\n
Before the Book Society, most Britons believed, as HG Wells put it, \u201cthat it is extravagant and wrong to own books\u201d. Even well-to-do readers used\u00a0lending libraries\u00a0to borrow desired titles. The club suggested books were an investment and that it would help you assemble a \u201cmodern library for yourself and your children\u201d.<\/p>\n
At its peak, the club had more than 10,000 members across 33 countries \u2013 including five queens. Its selections spanned genres including memoirs, thrillers and political fiction. It helped make bestsellers of Francis Hackett\u2019s Henry the Eighth, a hefty history book, and novels such as Evelyn Waugh\u2019s Brideshead Revisited.<\/p>\n
When the Book Society folded in 1968 after financial difficulties, its records were lost. For her book on the club, Wilson meticulously parsed private papers and publishers\u2019 archives to piece together the club\u2019s forgotten history. Her effort is commendable, but at times, the reader wishes that the material had been more judiciously edited.<\/p>\n
Though the book is closed on the Book Society, its influence is everywhere. Curated reading lists are more popular than ever: people get recommendations not only from celebrities, but from bestseller lists and\u00a0literary influencers\u00a0on TikTok. <\/p>\n
The Book Society won over the sceptics. \u201cI hate you so much that I am beginning to like you,\u201d a member confessed in the 1930s. Now that\u2019s what you call a rage reader. \u00a92025 The Economist Newspaper Limited.<\/b> <\/b>All rights reserved<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"THESE days,\u00a0it seems every celebrity wants to put their name to a book club: among the rich and…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":39806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[1022,171,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-39805","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}