by Zarah Yesufu

The new book club has an exteriority about it. In an ever more global arena where publishers seek to keep up with a trend-led, terminally online world, reading communities are no longer intimate. With buzzwords being used to herd individuals into categories which not only reflect, but also dictate their tastes, consumerism is now more than ever a game of group identity.

“We started this book club to stimulate our minds” protests Candice Bergan’s character to the idea of reading Fifty Shades of Grey in the film Book Club. Had her protest been successful, the movie would have ended shortly thereafter. Instead, this infamous erotic novel inspires the protagonists to find romantic adventure in their own lives. With a star-studded cast, the movie subverts the coming-of-age romcom genre into one that transcends age limits and truly is for all women. Hollywood royalty Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen show their beauty, charm and humour have no prime, continuing to stun audiences well into the noughties.

But for many, Book Club is less convincing as a celebration of all women and more so a representation of the stereotypical book club in which affluent white women find leisure in each other’s company and gather to discuss books. You can find near-identical book clubs in films like Jane Austen Book Club, or even TV like the short-lived Tuesday Night Book Club, a reality show following affluent Arizonans and the hectic lives they put on hold for their monthly book club meeting. Book clubs have since become slightly more diverse with the rise of the internet and websites like bookclubs.com allowing for international reading groups in which people drop into a chat at their convenience. 

The perfect book club book is both familiar enough to grasp, and removed enough readers feel like objective arbiters of moral ambiguity.

But with more book clubs on the rise across the world, the modern phenomenon of the book club as a type of influencer is becoming increasingly prevalent. In short, book clubs have created such a sense of taste that books are now being published for them and with the aim to reach ever larger social groupings. Book clubs no longer operate in an insular manner but seem to project a call urging writers to write for them. Indeed, book club books have become a genre as established as young adult. You will often find mention of ‘bookclub’, ‘crossover’, and ‘mid-list’ books in literary agent wish lists. 

These may seem like foreign terms to lay book consumers, or at least they are to me, but Penguin have come to the rescue with their reading list of characteristic book club fiction. You’ll find all the usual suspects such Bonnie Garmus, Gabrielle Zevin and Bernardine Evaristo, but there are also a few curveballs in there such as James Baldwin and Lisa Jewell. The article assures that “this list of modern masterpieces and timeless classics is guaranteed to stimulate a lively discussion.” I struggle to make out exactly what these books have in common, but they are all salacious stories of family drama. or sharply observational and socially concerned novels of wealth and poverty, race and love. Essentially, anything people feel they can weigh in on seems to do the trick. The perfect book club book is both familiar enough to grasp, and removed enough readers feel like objective arbiters of moral ambiguity.

(c) between2books

The pinnacle of modern book clubs must be Reese Witherspoon’s; book covers now proudly announce their anointment with a bright yellow badge bearing her insignia. Bolu Babalola’s Honey and Spice gained enormous traction after being picked in July 2022, going on to become a regular across several book clubs. A member of Bookclubs.com even said “I had to read this for my book club as it was a Reese pick.” But while her influence is undisputed, her judgment is not always necessarily taken as gospel. The member goes on to acknowledge that “sure, it celebrates black culture and strong women leads, but the plot itself is flat.” Books are, of course, subjective; that’s precisely why book clubs are a viable proposition. But how much does subjectivity matter when it’s Witherspoon-yellow that speaks loudest (or rather, shines brightest)? 

As her role moves away from creating community and towards collaborating with publishers hungry for her stamp of accreditation, a stamp that models itself on the badges reserved for the likes of the Booker Prize, we’re seeing the rise of a type of marketed exchange between book and club. The new book club has an exteriority about it. In an ever more global arena where publishers seek to keep up with a trend-led, terminally online world, reading communities are no longer intimate. With buzzwords like ‘cottagecore’, ‘European summer’, ‘dark academia’, and others being used to herd individuals into categories which not only reflect, but also dictate their tastes across fashion, music and media, consumerism is now more than ever a game of group identity. You’ll find that many books are now marketed as means to indulge in lifestyle trends (think My Year of Rest and Relaxation which has cemented the popularity of the anti-girlboss pro-girlfailure movement that so dominates TikTok discourse).

In an ever more global arena where publishers seek to keep up with a trend-led terminally online world, reading communities are no longer intimate.

The issue becomes infinitely more complicated when we consider global majority writers penning for the book club market. While the term is murky, meaning little more than a book capable of stimulating vigorous conversation and nuanced thought, the genre seems to appeal strongly to our communities. Take Yinka, Where is Your Huzband? which Lily Reads gave a 3.5 stars citing flaws in “the way the story is told”, but which many others clubs including Book of the Month rated 5 stars. We cannot ignore the vastly different demographic makeups of these two book clubs. As Lily Reads members mention, most of them Black women, the lack of nuance in the characterisation and the way in which it strangely “tells Black people about Blackness” makes the novel, while enjoyable, hard to rate much higher. I feel this sort of oversight cheapens the book, eroding authenticity as writers pre-empt misunderstanding and attempt to rectify it what might easily be solved by a quick Google search before it even arises.

Many feel these books overexplain culture while flattening characters, complaints that are widespread and ongoing. Has the rise of the book club book played a role? Is it possible that these books, as they seek to create conversation across a wide range of people, feel it necessary to make it easy for outsiders to understand? The truth is that global majority stories have been simplified to appeal to a mass (read: white) audience for longer than we can say. The book club phenomenon is certainly not the first, or probably even the last, to create the desire to do so. But if publishing will continue to pander to a book club-attending audience and their tastes, it’s crucial writers do not feel the need to sell out the integrity of their authentic stories for a badge of book-club honour. A book’s core audience, often those individuals whose life experiences somewhat align with those of the characters, should not feel nuance is sacrificed at the altar of mass appeal and juicy controversy. As Reese Witherspoon herself says, ‘may we write truer’ – and not just to be picked by book clubs.

By Zarah Yesufu

ZARAH YESUFU is a writer from northwest London. She is a recent graduate of the University of Oxford where she studied English literature and language. She’s published in The Publishing Post and POPSUGAR. Her debut novel Taffeta melds historical and mythical interests, which she also explores through her love of film, theatre, and travel.