Week Seven Prompt

I have never before followed or thought very much about celebrity book clubs, but I found this portion of our discussion this week very interesting. Perhaps given my lack of participation in the arena, the statistics in the article astounded me; for example, after Reese Witherspoon's selection of Still Lives in her bookclub, the book jumped to No. 11 in Amazon sales, No. 2 on Audible, had a 103% increase in sales, and became Time Magazine's 2018 summer read (Nichols, 2019). 

After realizing the huge impact celebrity book clubs have on book selling and what is popular, I felt a bit bitter about the whole thing. I've never liked being told what to do and usually stay away from the most popular books. Additionally I kind of hate the whole idea of how much we let celebrities and influencers affect our lives.

Yet after thinking about things a bit more I think I've come to the conclusion that celebrities are going to have a massive platform either way, and if books are something that they choose to promote, that can only be a good thing. Many book clubs like Reese Witherspoon's and Emma Watson's promote female authors and female stories. Emma Roberts promotes local bookstores alongside her picks and gives readers discounts at those locally owned stores. Barak Obama's booklists always promote diversity, inclusivity, and own voices stories.

In our libraries we will have patrons who love a certain celebrity and are influenced to read certain things by them. Because we know this, I think it would be a great idea to create displays like "Sarah Jessica Parker's Book Club Picks This Year" or even start a read along book club. 

Nichols, M. (2019, Aug. 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/.