7 Online Book Clubs You Can Join Now

Find wonderful reads and insightful discussions with Jenna, Oprah, Reese and more

Ken Budd,

AARP

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Published August 01, 2022

/ Updated February 14, 2024

from left to right oprah winfrey then jenna bush hager then reese witherspoon

From left: Oprah Winfrey, Jenna Bush Hager and Reese Witherspoon

Photo by Michele Crowe/CBS via Getty Images / Photo by: Nathan Congleton/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images / Photo by: Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty Images

If we learned one literary lesson from the pandemic, it’s that book clubs don’t have to be in-person to be enlightening. From stalwarts such as Oprah’s Book Club to newcomers like the PBS Book Readers Club, online groups offer a fun way to converse with fellow readers, hear from writers and maybe even try a new genre or author. Here are seven online clubs where you can join the discussion — or quietly explore some fantastic book suggestions.

The Girlfriend Book Club

The Girlfriend, AARP’s newsletter and website for women 40 and older, offers a private Facebook-only book club with nearly 70,000 members and counting — but anyone can join. It’s fun and lively and packed with mostly female bibliophiles. Each month, the club focuses on a different book that was chosen through a Facebook poll, and authors participate in a live Facebook chat (which occurs on the third Tuesday of each month). Recent selections have included Tom Lake by Ann Patchett; The Spectacular by Fiona Davis; Lady Tan’s Circle of Women by Lisa See; and The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride. It’s an amiable community whose members offer suggestions to anyone looking for their next binge-worthy book. Added bonus: The Girlfriend often treats club members to book giveaways.

Goodreads Choice Awards Book Club

The best book recommendations come from friends, Goodreads.com cofounder Otis Chandler believes. And with 140 million members, the site offers lots of potential pals who want to talk about books they love (or dislike). Goodreads’ online groups focus on everything from romance to travel books, but if you want a broad mix of titles — and are more interested in great reading recommendations than a cozy community — check out the more than 16,500-member Goodreads Choice Awards Book Club. The group focuses on books that have won the site’s best-of-the-year awards (as determined by Goodreads members). Among the books on their reading list: The novels Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah and the mega-bestselling Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros, plus the nonfiction Poverty, by America, by Matthew Desmond. To enter the conversation, just start or add to a discussion thread on the site.

Oprah’s Book Club

Oprah Winfrey’s book club is arguably America’s most influential literary hit-maker, turning unknown titles into massive bestsellers — from its early days on The Oprah Winfrey Show to its rebirth in 2012 in the pages of her magazine as “Oprah’s Book Club 2.0.” While some may snub their nose at her mass-market appeal, Winfrey has awfully good taste in books. You can hardly go wrong if you turn to the more than 100 books she has chosen through the years. Recent selections have included Let Us Descend from National Book Award-winning novelist Jesmyn Ward and Wellness by Nathan Hill. Go to OprahDaily.com for book-related articles and interviews. You can also sign up for a book club newsletter.

Los Angeles Times Book Club

This club hosts a community event with each of its authors, many of whom are heavyweights, from Barack Obama to Jane Goodall to Billie Jean King. Author and veteran news editor Donna Wares hosts the club, and the Times runs articles related to book selection topics.

Recent events have featured bestselling author Dean Koontz discussing his novel The Bad Weather Friend and Walter Isaacson on his biography of Elon Musk. You can sign up for a newsletter on the book club site and subscribers can watch videos of past events (including a conversation with Reading Rainbow founder LeVar Burton on banned books).

Read With Jenna

When Today show cohost Jenna Bush Hager launched her book club in 2019, it seemed like a perfect fit. Hager is a lifelong bibliophile and her mother, former first lady Laura Bush, launched a foundation to assist America’s libraries, one of her multiple literary endeavors. Hager’s club picks a new book every month, sometimes including great reads by new authors (The Measure, by Nikki Erlick), as well as literary faves such as Naima Coster and her novel What’s Mine and Yours. The book club site, housed under the Today show umbrella, offers discussion questions, author interviews, other book recommendations and a list of previous book club selections. Readers can sign up for a newsletter and post their book comments on Facebook and Instagram by using the hashtag #ReadWithJenna.

Reese’s Book Club

Before you dismiss Reese Witherspoon’s book club as some Hollywood vanity project, consider this: Many of her picks rise to the New York Times Best Sellers list, and she has excellent literary taste. Each book centers around a woman’s story, such as First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston, a fast-paced thriller about a woman with a secret identity, and Maybe Next Time by Cesca Major, the tale of a London literary agent trapped in a time warp. To learn each month’s pick and chat about the selections, follow @ReesesBookClub on Instagram (where the club has 2.8 million followers), Facebook and Twitter. You can also find her complete list of selections — starting with her first pick, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman — on her site, ReesesBookClub.com.

PBS Books Readers Club

A PBS book club makes soooo much sense. The network has aired documentaries on novelists ranging from Mark Twain to Ernest Hemingway, and its programming focuses on nonfiction topics such as science, history and the arts. The club offers a monthly video series featuring discussions with authors, weekly social media content, a biweekly newsletter, and a Facebook group where readers can talk about books and submit questions for featured authors. The first video was released in January 2024 and shared conversations with Jamie Crichton, executive producer and head writer of All Creatures Great and Small — based on the novels by James Herriot — and Pulitzer Prize winner Geraldine Brooks, the author of the 2022 novel Horse, among many others. The video series is available on the PBS book club website, Facebook, YouTube and the PBS app.

Editor's note: This article was originally published on Aug. 1, 2022. It has been updated to reflect new information.

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Ken Budd has written for National Geographic Traveler, Travel+Leisure, The Washington Post Magazine and many more. He is the author of a memoir, The Voluntourist.