As the sun is setting earlier and earlier, many are looking to take on new hobbies and interests for the indoors. Some may take up knitting, and others may look to develop their cooking skills. And for the bookworm, hunting down the latest celebrity book list is a perfect way to spend a chilly dark evening in. Celebrities seemingly love to offer up their favorites, from skincare to seafood, and today, we’ve compiled a list of the best celebrity-recommended books, broken down by celebrity for you to start your new book club.
1. Oprah Winfrey
We would take any advice that Oprah gave us. If she told you to wear a purple wig with a gold hat, you’d probably do it, wouldn’t you? Don’t pretend you wouldn’t. Oprah’s Book Club compiles a list of 87 recommended books ranging from classics like To Kill A Mockingbird, to new autobiographies like First Lady Michelle Obama’s Becoming. You can have great expectations as you dig through the list to find the perfect Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece for you to cuddle up and read with a fuzzy heated blanket and a warm cup of hot cocoa. Oprah’s Book List will keep you warm all winter long.
2. Michelle Obama
In Becoming, Michelle Obama wrote that “so many of us go through life with our stories hidden, feeling ashamed or afraid when our whole truth doesn’t live up to some established ideal.” Michelle Obama is a beloved leader in all of our hearts, and her book recommendations are full of Nobel prize-winning, life-changing stories. The list is topped with the likes of Nelson Mandela’s Conversations With Myself and the book-turned-Oscar-winning film Life of Pi.
3. J.K. Rowling
Rowling is not only the queen of fantasy, but she has also compiled quite the list of book recommendations. She is a fan of the classics like Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, while also finding love for children’s fantasy novels like The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge, which she fondly credits much of the inspiration of her world-famous Harry Potter novels to. Rowling believes that reading encourages greater empathy and critical thinking in both those young and old and finds herself lost in a book as often as she can.
4. Taylor Swift
T. Swift’s new album “Red (Taylor’s Version)” may currently be living rent-free in all of our heads, but she also has dozens of books she recommends that live rent-free in our minds, too. The pop superstar has a love for the classics like The Beautiful And Damned and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. John Greene, who created the tearjerker The Fault In Our Stars, has been noted as Swift’s favorite author. She has also mentioned her love for all of the Harry Potter books created in Rowling’s fantastical world of magic.
5. Mindy Kaling
Mindy Kaling’s role of Kelly Kapoor is loved in many of our hearts, but how many of you knew that Kaling was also one of the head writers of The Office, and was also the only woman on the writing team? Writing is all too familiar to Mindy, so reading is not surprisingly one of her favorite pastimes. Amy Poehler’s Yes Please is at the top of her list along with Bossypants by Tina Fey. It’s no surprise that this award-winning comedy writer finds herself nestled up with books written by her comedy-writing comrades, but she also is keen on heart-wrenching, Pulitzer Prize-winning works of art such as Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri, which she lovingly claims “completely changed my life.” As a child, Harriet The Spy by Louise Fitzhugh was her favorite novel.