Move over, Oprah: Hollywood stars' 'book selfies' create bestsellers now
By promoting authors' works on social media, TV and film stars including Reese Witherspoon, Lena Dunham and Emma Watson give them a valuable leg-up, just as Oprah Winfrey's book club did a generation ago
Once upon a time, it was Oprah Winfrey who told America what to read. But 20 years after Oprah launched her wildly successful book club, a new generation of celebrities is using social media to share the books they love and help create bestsellers.
Lena Dunham’s book selfie with Kim Kardashian’s book of selfies, Selfish
A photo posted by Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) on May 14, 2015 at 10:06am PDT
Reese Witherspoon, Lena Dunham, Emma Watson, Emma Roberts, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Kimberly Williams-Paisley are among the stars who use Instagram and Twitter to blast “book selfies” – cellphone snaps of the (usually physical) books they’re reading – accompanied by their own enthusiastic mini-reviews. (“#OpeningBelle is a smart, biting and honest peek into what it means to be a woman on Wall Street,” Witherspoon recently raved, under the hashtag #RWBookClub.)
Witherspoon is the undisputed queen of the celebrity bookworm trend, but she’s not alone.
The actress, who earned an Oscar nomination for her starring role in the film version of Cheryl Strayed’s hit memoir Wild, has plugged books including Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling, Dad Is Fat by Jim Gaffigan and The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins. Other Witherspoon recommendations, including Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty and Opening Belle by Maureen Sherry, are books she’s so wild about that she has acquired them for film or TV for her production company, Pacific Standard.