Celebrity Book Club Picks for January 2026 #celebritybookclubs

Are you wondering what your favourite Celebrity Book Club is reading this month? Do you enjoy book communities as a way to read along with others? If so, each of these celebrity book clubs is internet-based and open to all who follow. So if you’re like me and always on the lookout for the next great read, you will now find these picks all in one spot – That Happy Reader’s blog! Without further ado, let me introduce you to Celebrity Book Club Picks for January 2026. Click on the book’s cover to add it to your Goodreads shelf!

Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club (Hello Sunshine)’s pick for January 2026:

Founded in 2017, Hello Sunshine always chooses books with women at the centre of the story. Their website notes “We make our choices thoughtfully and look for ways to deepen our connection to books, authors and ourselves”.   This book club chose “The First Time I Saw Him” by Laura Dave as their January 2026 pick.

Summary:

Five years after her husband Owen’s disappearance, Hannah Hall and her stepdaughter Bailey have built a new life in Southern California, strengthening their bond and reconnecting with Bailey’s grandfather, Nicholas, as they try to leave the past behind. Their fragile peace shatters when Owen unexpectedly reappears, putting Hannah and Bailey in danger and forcing them into a desperate flight to escape their past. As they race for safety, Hannah risks everything to protect Bailey and discovers the possibility of forgiveness, reunion, and a long-awaited second chance. The First Time I Saw Him is a gripping, emotionally rich sequel that continues the story of The Last Thing He Told Me, exploring love, trust, and the enduring power of forgiveness.

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Good Morning America’s Book Club’s pick:

The GMA Book Club is officially called “Cover to Cover” and was started in the Fall of 2019. Their selections highlight diversity and books are chosen from both fiction and non-fiction genres. The book club chose “Skylark” by Paula McLain as their January 2026 pick.

Summary:

In this richly layered novel, the New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Wife intertwines two gripping stories set centuries apart to reveal a hidden Paris shaped by courage and resistance: in 1664, Alouette Voland, the gifted daughter of a master dyer at the Gobelin Tapestry Works, risks everything to save her unjustly imprisoned father and, after being confined to the brutal Salpêtrière asylum, discovers unlikely allies and a path toward artistic freedom; in 1939, Kristof Larson, a young medical resident, is drawn into peril when Nazi occupation threatens his Jewish neighbors, forcing him to choose between safety and moral defiance. Moving between the luminous world aboveground and the shadowed city below, the novel traces two parallel journeys of survival, creativity, and quiet heroism that ultimately echo across time in powerful and unexpected ways.

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Read With Jenna (Jenna Bush Hager)’s pick:

In March 2019, the former First Daughter announced her book club on the Today show.  Each month she chooses a book that is sure to generate discussion.  Jenna chose “Home Schooled ” by Stefan Merrill Block as her January 2026 pick.

Summary:

Homeschooled is a heartbreaking yet empowering debut memoir in which Stefan Merrill Block recounts being withdrawn from school at age nine by his mother, who believed traditional education stifled his creativity, and thrust into an unregulated homeschool environment shaped by her erratic beliefs and overwhelming love. With no formal training, she isolated him from the outside world, subjected him to unsettling experiments meant to reclaim his childhood, and left him largely to educate himself during the early, barely regulated days of homeschooling in Texas. After five years of near-total seclusion, Stefan’s return to public school as a freshman is a shocking reckoning that exposes both the costs of that isolation and his own resilience. Blending humor, pain, and insight, the memoir is both an intimate portrait of a complicated mother–son bond and a revealing look at a little-examined corner of the American education system, ultimately chronicling a young man’s struggle to claim a life of his own.

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Oprah’s Book Club:

Oprah Winfrey started this book club in 1996 as a segment on her TV show. Many obscure titles have risen to bestseller status as a result of her picks. She has not yet released her pick for January 2026 but once she does this post will be updated.

Other Recent Celebrity Book Club Selections:

December 2025

November 2025

October 2025

Do any of the January picks appeal to you? Home Schooled sounds the most compelling to me. Come back next month as I let you know what the February picks are!