Jenna Bush Hager Says Her July Book Club Pick Will "Lead Incredible Conversations"
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You can count on Jenna Bush Hager to recommend a book that you won't be able to put down. Since her book club, Read With Jenna, launched in March 2019, Bush Hager has championed 31 reads to date, each ranging in author and genre, but sharing the same warmth.
Generally speaking, Read with Jenna's picks are well-written contemporary novels with propulsive plots. Hager explained her taste in an interview with Good Housekeeping. "No matter what, you have to have a great, compulsively readable plot. Something where you cannot wait to figure out what's going to happen. And, obviously, I was an English major, so it has to be beautifully well-written," she said.
If you head to the TODAY Show's website for more information about Read With Jenna, you can also find Bush Hager's interviews with authors, alongside thought-provoking questions to guide your book club discussions or solo reads. Bush Hager also encourages posting your reading journey with the hashtag #ReadWithJenna.
Much like Oprah, who launched her book club in 1996, Bush Hager has made it her mission to connect people through great books. After an interview on the TODAY Show during Oprah's 2020 Vision wellness tour with WW, the two candidly gushed about their book clubs—and dissuaded any notion of competition between the two.
"I do not feel there's competition," Oprah says in the clip. Hager agreed, saying she told Reese Witherspoon, who also has a successful book club, the same thing. "We are not competing!" Then, the women each turned to the camera and said "We love to read!" to emphasize their point.
Their shared enthusiasm for reading demonstrates something that all book lovers know to be true: Being a book-lover means you're already part of a community. Whether you join Oprah's Book Club or Read With Jenna, you will instantly connect with even more people who love reading, too.
Here are the 31 books selected for Jenna Bush Hager's book club list so far, beginning with her most recent pick, Hell of a Book by James Mott.
Hell of a Book by Jason Mott
For her 31st book club pick, Bush Hager selected a book with a clever title. She calls Hell of a Book by Jason Mott "original, heartbreaking, poignant and in moments, hilarious." The novel features two parallel storylines. In one, an unnamed author travels America on tour; in the other, a young Black boy grows up in the South.
Mott is a poet and the author of four books, including The Wonder of All Things and The Returned. He said the novel is inspired by his own experiences on book tor.
Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid
From the author of Daisy Jones and the Six (soon to be a show) and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo comes another pop culture-steeped novel destined to become one of the summer's "it" beach reads. Malibu Rising centers on close-knit siblings on the day of a party that will change all of their lives.
"I felt like Malibu Rising was a compulsively fun read that anybody would want to throw in their beach bag," Bush Hager said. "I think after the year we’ve had, everybody is looking forward to summer and this book felt like the perfect kick-off."
Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead
Great Circle intertwines the stories of two women, each trying to chart her own course. Born in 1914, Marion Graves falls in love with aviation the instant a plane flies overhead, and strives to become a pilot. A center later, the actress Hadley Baxter signs on to play Marion on her final voyage in a feature film.
Bush Hager called Great Circle one of the most ambitious novels her book club has ever highlighted. "Now, more than ever, I love reading about women who chart their own courses," she said. "As a mom of two little girls and a young boy, I believe it is important to highlight fictional and nonfictional stories of fierce, independent women who don’t conform to what society says we need to be."
Good Company by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney
Flora Mancini thinks she has the facts of her life straight. Then, she finds an envelope containing the wedding ring that her husband had allegedly lost five years ago. The discovery prompts her to reassess her marriage, and her relationship with her best friend, Margo, who is somehow involved in this very personal matter (no spoilers).
Good Company is by the same author as the sweeping, tender family drama The Nest, so expect an equally immersive page-turner about changing relationship dynamics.
"It’s in some ways a coming-of-age book for a woman that is about to become an empty nester. We will always evolve and change. Watching this character do that will feel very relatable for a lot of different women," Bush Hager told TODAY.
What's Mine and Yours by Naima Coster
Bush Hager described Naima Coster's What's Mine and Yours as a "sweeping, fresh new novel," one that especially resonated with her as a mother.
What's Mine and Yours looks at what happens to a community in the Piedmont region of North Carolina after an initiative brings students from a predominantly Black school district on the east side of town to the wealthier, predominantly white schools on the west side. Mothers Lacey Mae and Jade find themselves on opposite sides of a heated debate.
"As a mother myself, I related to the mothers' fierce love for their children even when they made mistakes," Bush Hager said. "Nobody understands us like our families, even when imperfect."
Send For Me by Lauren Fox
In Send For Me, a young Jewish woman in pre-WWII Germany faces a difficult decision. She's given the opportunity to move to the United States with her husband and daughter—but in doing so, must leave her parents behind.
Send For Me was inspired by author Lauren Fox's own family history. Speaking to TODAY, Fox revealed that she found a box of letters exchanged between her great-grandmother in Germany and her grandmother in Milwaukee, where she had moved. Similarly, Clare, one of the novel's main characters, discovers a trove of her grandmother's correspondences and sets off on a journey through her family tree.
The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah has a special place in Jenna's Book Club lore. According to TODAY, Hannah's sweeping historical fiction book set in Texas during the Great Depression is the first book that readers helped her pick.
The Four Winds is Hannah's 24th novel—others include The Nightingale and Firefly Lane, which is now a Netflix series. Speaking to TODAY, Hannah named Elsa Wolcott her "favorite character" of all of her books. She described Elsa as a woman with low self-esteem who, through the hardship of supporting her family during the Dust Bowl, grows into her own power. "We can learn so much from our own history. I really think that the message of The Four Winds today, in this moment, is a reminder of the strength of the human spirit and our ability to survive," Hannah said.
Black Buck by Mateo Askaripour
Black Buck is a satirical sendup of corporate culture as experienced through the eyes of a Black man—and it had Jenna Bush Hager "underlining constantly." The novel follows Darren, a 22-year-old college grad plucked from his Starbucks job for a once-in-a-lifetime chance to work at a trendy startup. Beyond all the ping pong tables and beer on tap, though, are uncomfortable truths.
When introducing the book, Bush Hager raved about debut novelist Mateo Askaripour. "[His] voice is so fresh. The writing is so intimate. At moments, it's satirical and funny and then at moments, it's heartbreaking," she said.
Speaking to TODAY, Askaripour revealed that the novel was informed by his own experiences working in sales. "I was sort of at creative rock bottom," said Askaripour. "It was that do-or-die mentality that allowed me to say, 'Let me not shy away from the themes of my life that I had been avoiding about race, sales, startups and things that were so close to my life for years, that I didn’t think I could effectively write about.'" We're happy he didn't shy away—because Black Buck marks the start of an unforgettable literary career.
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
The Bluest Eye was an Oprah's Book Club pick in 2000, as were several other books by Morrison. In an Instagram tribute after the author's death, Oprah called Morrison "our conscience, our seer, our truth-teller." Later, in an interview with Variety, she said, "For me, there is no one else."
Now, Bush Hager is following in Oprah's footsteps by picking The Bluest Eye for the book's 50th anniversary. "It was the first book that really opened my eyes to how literature can create understanding and take you into worlds you don’t know," Bush Hager wrote about The Bluest Eye, which follows a young Black girl named Pecola who wishes, desperately, for blue eyes.
"If you are reading for the first time, I hope you marvel at the beauty of Toni Morrison’s writing the way I did when I first picked up a copy. She is my favorite author of all time, and I am honored to be recommending her book to this special group of readers," Bush Hager said.
White Ivy by Susie Yang
White Ivy is a gripping character study. Ivy, the book's protagonist, is a proud master of deceit. She lies, and she's good at it. Narrating the book in first person, Ivy explains how she came to be a social climber. Long story short? The daughter of Chinese immigrants, Ivy would do anything to make it in America.
If books like The Talented Mr. Ripley or Gone Girl are your thing, then you'll love White Ivy. "I’m really drawn to stories with anti-hero protagonists," Yang told TODAY. "When I knew that I wanted to create that kind of character, the first line of the book came to me."
And over at OprahMag.com, read an essay by the book's author, Susie Yang, about how her own childhood experiences informed the plot of White Ivy.
Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam
Read Leave the World Behind before it gets spoiled for you. Rumaan Alam's third book is a blisteringly timely thriller about two families caught in the middle of a rapidly changing world.
The book opens when Amanda and Clay take their two children for an idyllic getaway at a vacation rental. Not long into their trip, an elderly Black announces that they're the owners of the house. G.H. Washington and his wife, Rose, explain that they were forced to flee Manhattan after an inexplicable blackout. Now, the strangers all have to face the new world, and its new rules, together.
"It is a suspense at its core, but to call it only a thriller discredits the incredible detail and intimacy with which the author writes about and understands family dynamics and race," Jenna told TODAY, adding that people should read this book "with the lights on."
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
Transcendent Kingdom is the story of what happens to a family after they move from Ghana to Alabama—the turns and tragedies that befall them, and the strivings and dreams that keep them going.
The book is narrated by Gifty, a Ph.D. student at Stanford University, researching the human brain. Her academic passion may be the result of personal experience: Back home, her family is consumed by the heroin epidemic, depression, and a quest to make sense of their suffering.
The author, Yaa Gyasi, was inspired by a friend of hers who was a neuroscience student. "She used to explain it to me in layman's terms, of addiction and depression, so I wondered if it would be possible to fashion a novel around this question of a woman who is doing this research while experiencing the things that she researches in her own life," Gyasi told TODAY.
Bush Hager thinks of this book as a conversation starter. "The fact that this book tackles the themes of mental health and race at this moment in our culture, I think will lead our book club to have some really important conversations," she told TODAY.
Here For It by R. Eric Thomas
How can a collection of essays be so funny, so emotionally wise, and so politically meaningful all at once? We don't know–but we're "here for it." With his collection Here For It, Elle humor columnist R. Eric Thomas writes essays about his life and upbringing as a Black, queer man in America.
Speaking to TODAY, Bush Hager revealed that the book was chosen in a collaboration with Noëlle Santos, owner of The Lit. Bar, Bronx's only independent bookstore. "I knew [Santos] would have ideas on books that we can read as a club that would help us open our minds," she said.
If your social life has been affected by quarantining, Thomas hopes his book—written in a humorous, conversational tone—will fill the void. "The book is, I hope, like a conversation with a good friend at brunch, that’s the way I always imagined it," Thomas told TODAY. "I haven’t been to brunch in like four months so I think a lot of people are like, 'If I can’t be out in the world, at least we get to have this conversation in book form.'"
The Comeback by Ella Berman
Grace Turner is a former Hollywood star, now living in her parents' home. She left behind her glamorous life. Why? Because for eight years, she was abused by a director—the same man who helped pave the road to fame.
The resurgence of the #MeToo movement began with a wave of Hollywood actresses sharing their experiences with sexual misconduct. Narrated in first person, The Comeback puts an intimate, searing face on the headline-making quandary.
"I really wanted to focus on the aftermath of trauma as opposed to the actual incident itself, and I wanted to show how that can affect someone—their relationship with everyone in their life, their friendships, their career—that feeling of numbness or being frozen," Berman told TODAY.
Friends and Strangers by J. Courtney Sullivan
Can a mother and her nanny become friends? In Friends and Strangers, J. Courtney Sullivan explores the dynamic between two women in very different life stages, who are pulled to each other nonetheless. Sullivan drew from her own work experience as a nanny.
“I’ve been that young woman wondering what the future holds and how she’s going to pay off her student loans, and I’ve been the middle-aged mom doling out advice to babysitters in their 20s while I still am totally unsure how to handle aspects of my own life,” Sullivan told TODAY.
Elisabeth and Sam's friendship raises questions of class and privilege, and just how far an emotional bond can go in bridging divides.
A Burning by Megha Majumdar
A Burning,Megha Majumdar's taut, India-set thriller is the kind of book that will glue you to the page, even as it devastates you. The story follows three characters as their lives become intertwined in the wake of tragedy. At the center of it all is Jivan, an English tutor from the slums wrongly accused of orchestrating a train bombing in Bengal after a Facebook post, gone awry.
Bush Hager thinks this current moment calls for reading challenging books like A Burning, as well as escapist reads. "I think books are a tool for empathy," she said on TODAY. "And now when we are stuck at home—and I definitely won’t be traveling to India this summer—this is a tool for all of us to learn more about the plight of people all over the world."
Majumdar's debut novel was also recommended by Oprah, as part of a list of books to transport you this summer. For a sneak peek, check out an excerpt.
All Adults Here by Emma Straub
All Adults Here, the fifth novel by author and Brooklyn bookseller Emma Straub, is the juicy and emotionally intelligent family saga you—and Bush Hager—have been waiting for. "I loved it because I thought, on one hand, it was light and funny," Bush Hager told TODAY. "On the other, Emma Straub has the capability of writing in a way that explores these themes that are important and interesting."
The book begins when Cecelia Strick moves in with her grandmother, Astrid. Meanwhile, Astrid is caught up in her three children's drama, as well as her own. Fundamentally, All Adults Here is about the cycle of family life. Kids turn into parents, while still feeling much like kids themselves.
"It’s not easy to feel like you are the person who is supposed to be a grown-up and supposed to be in charge and still feel like a kid," Straub told TODAY. "Then also, your parents are continuing to evolve in ways that you don’t feel like you are ready for.”
Which leads us to the title, All Adults Here. "It is sort of, in my opinion, ironic because in many parts the adults in this novel are not acting very much like adults," Bush Hager said.
Valentine by Elizabeth Wetmore
Valentine might just be the perfect book to read right now: It's about a how a community in a small Texas town bands together (and falls apart) following a tragedy.
"It’s not an easy book, and in a lot of ways, it’s not a happy book, but ultimately I see it as a novel of hope in the midst of a terrible crisis and about the ferocity of these women’s spirits," author Elizabeth Wetmore told TODAY.
Specifically, 14-year-old Gloria Ramírez is attacked on a nearby oil field. Through alternating perspectives, Valentine unfurls what happened, and its effect on the people involved.
Hager was first drawn to Valentine because of its West Texas setting, but she loved it because of the characters. "Elizabeth really developed these characters that I felt like I knew," Hager told TODAY. "I found myself missing them when the story was over. The women are complicated. They are a lot of things at once."
Writers & Lovers by Lily King
If you've ever desperately missed a loved one, then this elegant novel will strike you to the core. Though there's something in Writers & Lovers, the story of a young writer trying to find her footing, that will resonate with everyone.
The book centers on Casey, a New England woman who spends her days waitressing so that she can spend her morning writers. King, author of Euphoria, expertly renders the love triangle in which Casey finds herself. Through the book is Casey's perpetual ache: If only my mom were still beside me.
“I think after she loses somebody that she loves so very much, she has to decide what her priorities are and how she is going to grow," Hager told TODAY.
Writers & Lovers, to Hager, is an unusual love story. "When you are done with this book, what you find is that as long as you are true to yourself and you really understand what makes you happy, that is the true love story,” said Hager.
The Girl With the Louding Voice by Abi Daré
Adunni knows what she wants, and she knows what other people want from her. Unfortunately, the two are diametrically are opposed. Living in Nigeria with a single father, 14-year-old Adunni dreams of an education. Her father, however, sells her to be a third wife to an old and unappealing man.
Unbelievably, that's just the start of Adunni's troubles. She's also forced to take a job as a domestic servant in a toxic household, because the last servant disappeared. (Hmmmm...) But this is not the story of how Adunni withered—it's about how she found her wings.
"While reading, there were times when I felt like Adunni was whispering, singing and in parts, crying to me," Hager told TODAY.
The Girl With the Louding Voice is an unforgettable debut that will have you standing up and cheering by the end. Hager called it the "most hopeful story" she read this year.
Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano
At the start of Dear Edward, 191 people board a plane leaving Newark airport—and 12-year-old Edward Adler is the only survivor. Dear Edward is told in alternating timelines, delving into the passengers' last hours, plus Edward's life after the crash.
Napolitano, an author of two previous novels and the editor of One Story literary magazine, got the novel's devastating premise from a real-life event. In 2010, a plane from South Africa went down in Libya, killing all but a 9-year-old boy. From the news headlines comes a masterfully wrought story about living in a pitch-black tunnel of grief—and finding the light after.
On her book club's landing page, Hager said of her latest pick: "I choose Dear Edward because it is a book about love and loss and finding your way after the unthinkable."
Late Migrations by Margaret Renkl
Margaret Renkl knows where the crawdads sing. In this unusual and contemplative memoir, Renkl slows down and savors the natural world on display in her Tennessee backyard.
Through this lens, Renkl situates her family's recent struggles within a larger context. Where do our very human yearnings for love—and our tangible experiences of loss—fit in with the buzzing world of wildlife around us? By weaving her life experiences with observations of snakes, birds, and bees, Renkl reminds us of our place in it all.
Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson
Nothing to See Here is the book about parenthood that Hager says has touched her the most.
As anyone who's ever witnessed a tantrum on an airplane can attest, kids are sometimes a handful. Now, imagine how hard it must be to care for kids who spontaneously combust when their moods become too heated. Lillian, the down-on-her-luck heroine of Kevin Wilson's hilarious third novel, finds herself in charge of children with this extraordinary affliction after she accepts a nannying job from her best friend from college.
By moving out of her mom's attic and escaping her grocery store job, Lillian feels like her life is starting. And her new wards— twins who catch fire–take her life in new, but welcomed, directions.
The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
Ann Patchett's utterly absorbing novel will eat up a weekend, guaranteed. Follow what happens after Cyril Conroy makes the fateful decision to move his family into the Dutch House, a lavish feat of architecture in a Philadelphia suburb. With that, he sets into motion a series of events out of a Dickens novel—and his kids, Danny and Maeve, bear the brunt of the misfortune.
Jumping between the past and present, the novel's nonlinear format reflects what life is like for Danny Conroy, a man thoroughly obsessed with a few long-gone years and their enduring effects.
“What I kept coming back to in this book was Danny and Maeve’s closeness, their bond, how they raise each other,” Hager told TODAY. And their fascinating relationship will stay with you, too.
The Dearly Beloved by Cara Wall
Lily Barrett and Nan MacNally are two very different women in a very similar situation: Their husbands, Charles Barrett and James McNally, are co-ministers at Manhattan's Third Presbyterian Church.
The Dearly Beloved follows decades in the couples' lives, from meeting in college to grappling with the hurdles, both material and theological, in the years to follow.
This is a book concerned with the profound: God, the afterlife, the good life. Yet the real miracle is that the book itself, sublimely written and sharply observed, rises to the occasion of its subject matter. No matter your own religious beliefs, this novel will affect you.
Patsy by Nicole Dennis-Benn
After Patsy gets a long-awaited visa to the United States, she has to make a choice. Stay in Jamaica with her devout mother and her daughter, Tru, working a minimum wage job—or, move to New York for a life that is truly her own, with the chance to reunite with her childhood love, Cicely.
In Patsy, Nicole Dennis-Benn makes the case for why a woman might do the unthinkable: Leave her five-year-old daughter behind to start over. Dennis-Benn's moving depiction of immigration, motherhood, queer identity, race, and their many intersections, is a must-read—especially in times like these. To Hager, it's ultimately a "story of love."
Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes
Evvie Drake doesn't feel nearly as bad about her husband's sudden death as the other residents in her small Maine town assume. A year after the car crash, Evvie rents a room to Dean Tenney, a former Major League pitcher escaping New York, the site of his great humiliation: Due to a case of the "yips," Dean can no longer throw a baseball. You can guess what happens next.
More than a love story, Evvie Drake Starts Over also captures one woman's journey back toward herself—and how the two strands work in tandem. For Hager, that dynamic was the draw of the novel. "I was captivated by Evvie Drake right away," Hager told TODAY. "By the character of Evvie—and her predicament of finding herself as a young widow and trying to find herself."
Host of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour radio show, Linda Holmes has made a career out of evaluating other people's work. Luckily, we can report that her own book, warm and wrought with deep empathy, is a rave.
Searching for Sylvie Lee by Jean Kwok
Sylvie Lee has always been the family's golden child, and her younger sister, Amy, knows it. Though they're sisters, they had a different upbringing: Amy grew up in the U.S. with her Chinese immigrant parents, while Sylvie stayed behind in Europe with relatives.
To Amy, her sister's "other life" in Europe has always taken on the sheen of mystery. When Sylvie disappears on a trip to the Netherlands, Amy sets off to find her–and in doing so, exposes the dark family secrets her sister already knew all too well. After tearing through this compelling literary thriller, Jean Kwok's carefully embedded observations about the immigrant experience and sisterhood will stay with you.
A Woman is No Man by Etaf Rum
Etaf Rum's acclaimed debut novel looks at Palestinian-American women's experiences within their tight-knit, patriarchal Brooklyn community. Though their neighborhood isn't far from the hip Williamsburg neighborhood of Girls, it's worlds away: Deya is expected to marry and have children, like the women before her.
When writing her book, Etaf Rum drew from personal experiences growing up in a similarly traditional community to the one depicted in the book. And like her protagonist, she had to undergo a trek to find—and listen to—her own voice.
The Unwinding of the Miracle: A Memoir of Life, Death, and Everything That Comes After by Julie Yip-Williams
Get your tissues out. The Unwinding of the Miracle is a bracingly honest book about a subject most of us would rather pretend didn't exist: Death. After she was diagnosed with terminal colon cancer at age 37, Julie Yip-Williams decided it was time to set her extraordinary life down on paper—and by paper, we mean a blog.
Her entries, at times raging and at times graceful, were posthumously turned into a book. "It's a great reminder that life is precious, and it's a gift—and to live every single day like it's our last," Hager said on TODAY.
The Unwinding of the Miracle touches the momentous occasions of Yip-Williams' life: Her difficult passage to the U.S. from post-war Vietnam with her family, her experiences as a blind woman, her pursuing a degree in law from Harvard, and her becoming a young mother. But it's her reflections on a universal experience that make this book such an urgent read.
The Last Romantics by Tara Conklin
After their raucous and unsupervised childhood, the four Skinner siblings know each other better than anyone else can. Fiona Skinner's role in the family is the historian, and when their lives veer toward an extraordinary path, it's Fiona who remembers where they came from.
Opening in the year 2079 at Fiona's poetry reading, she finally opens up on the inspiration behind her work for the first time: Her family. The Last Romantics is an immersive epic that will keep you up late at night.
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