Here’s What Celebrities Are Reading This Fall

Written by

Samantha Zabell
Samantha Zabell
Samantha is a writer, runner, and avid plan-canceler living in Manhattan. In between Netflix binges, she's working her calligraphy side hustle at @samzawrites.
updated May 3, 2019
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Person in a gray sweater holding a coffee cup and open book, sitting on a bed with patterned socks.
(Image credit: Anthony Tran/Unsplash)

Ready for a new read to cozy up with as the temperatures drop? Grab your favorite fall drink (I will never be convinced pumpkin spice lattes are better than black coffee) and choose one of these novels that the stars can’t put down.

Reese Witherspoon’s pick: This Is How It Always Is

Reese just announced her October pick, and she warns readers that “as a mother, this story absolutely tore at my heartstrings.” If you have your tissues ready, pick up a copy of This Is How It Always Is to read along with Reese and her digital book club. In this tight-knit family, parents Penn and Rosie must balance their impulses to both shelter and celebrate their transgender son, Claude.

Debra Messing’s pick: To Shake the Sleeping Self

Written by her friend Jedidiah Jenkins, Messing says this book is “a calm in the storm…the salve you didn’t realize you needed.” Jenkins chronicles a sixteen-month, 14,000-mile bike ride from Oregon to Patagonia—from the incredible scenery to the reflections and questions that keep his mind occupied along the way. Cheryl Strayed, whose book Wild took readers on a similar self-awakening journey, says: “Every chapter shimmered with truth.”

Sarah Jessica Parker’s pick: She Would Be King

“This beautiful novel dazzles and makes you want to lock yourself away and only read,” Parker writes. “Ms. Moore illuminates what it means to be of and from places that are both faraway and inescapably familiar.” Through three different characters, the “cursed” Gbessa, bulletproof June, and the powerful Nanni who can draw from the power of the land, author Wayetú Moore reimagines the formation of Liberia drawing on both history and a bit of magic.