Celebrities Don't Recommend Books. Like Ever.

With a few notable exceptions, why won't actors tell us what they're reading?

Beyond Reese Witherspoon. Beyond Oprah and Jenna and former President Obama, I recently discovered that it’s incredibly hard to find a celebrity whose social media feed features books. Fiction, non-fiction, mysteries or romance. You don’t see actors post about what they’re reading between takes. You don’t even see actresses on a beach snapping photos of themselves holding a novel. I realized this when I was researching a recent issue of Dear Fiction focused on celebrity book picks.

I was a bit curious about silly things, like: What novel does Jennifer Anniston have on her nightstand? And James Franco — he’s so artsy: He must be reading something of interest, maybe a book of poems by William Blake. Emma Watson? The actress who played Hermione? She has a reputation for being a bookworm. Surely, she must have posted about her latest read in her personal feed.

Maybe this is crazy — actually, it’s most definitely crazy — but I typed about fifty celebrity names into Instagram the other night. (My husband was at band practice so I had some time alone with “Abbott Elementary” in the background.) Anyway, I came up with very little, and it became clear that Hollywood types rarely, if ever, post what they’re reading. A few things they did post on their feeds quite often: Pictures of them laughing in filtered sunlight or photos of them hugging other beautiful people or pics of them looking incredibly sexy or even photos of themselves as babies, awkward kids or flawless teenagers. God how adorable celebs are!

Ok, maybe it’s not particularly surprising that celebrities are obsessed with themselves. But I was a little shocked that most A-listers don’t post about books even sometimes. After all actors and actresses are storytellers. I’m certain that most of them read books all of the time — isn’t that one of the ways that they find projects they’re interested in and have TV series or movies made? So why aren’t celebrities sharing their book picks online? Clearly, it’s on purpose.

My first thought was that celebs feel as though their reading choices would reveal too much about them — and possibly impact their brand. Think of it this way. If an actor is an Oscar contender but she loves reading Beth O’Leary romances, would directors think of her as a less serious actress? If you’re a sitcom actor and you love serious literary fiction, would it mean alienating your fans who probably don’t? If I’m on that actor’s feed, I want to laugh, not hear her thoughts on the the latest Cormac McCarthy book.

To find celebrity book picks, often you have to turn to famous people who have book clubs, i.e. separate social media feeds for book choices. There aren’t very many. Emma Roberts posts little to no book recs on her personal social media, but her Belletrist Instagram feed features one after the next. Remember how I was looking for Emma Watson’s picks? They’re all on her feminist book club Insta-feed called Our Shared Shelf. Florence Welsh (of Florence and the Machine fame) also has a book club on there called Between Two Shelves; their latest pick was the Shirley Jackson novel, The Haunting of Hill House.

But when it comes to a celeb’s personal social media? It’s crickets.

Katie Holmes is an exception. She occasionally posts about things she’s reading. On Jan. 3, she put up a photo of The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho with the caption: Three emoji butterflies. In May 2021, she showed a cover image of Ocean Vuong’s novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous along with the caption: Incredible book + heart emoji. At other points in her feed, she reprints poetry, and I had to laugh because how Joey Potter is it to reprint women’s poems in her social media feed! (Made me love Katie Holmes even more!) Holmes picks are on point with her brand, too. If she posted pics of her reading one of the super-commercial Colleen Hoover novels, the actress would confuse us. She’s a sophisticate!

Sarah Jessica Parker is launching a book imprint next year, so she’s been working hard to cultivate her bookish persona online at @SJPlit, which is where I found these seriously bookish photos of her. On her regular SJP Insta feed though, she also posts about what she’s reading. Beginning in May of 2022, she posted about several novels including Adriana Trigiani’s The Good Left Undone, Rogues by Patrick Radden Keefe, Ali’s Well That Ends Well by Ali Wentworth, Hurricane Girl by Marcy Dermansky, among others.

Still, I was hard pressed to find others. (Note: I did track down one self-help book on Gwyneth Paltrow’s feed back on June 7th, but it was one published by goop press — doesn’t count!) I began to think that maybe famous people don’t post about books because many of them are Millennials and that generation doesn’t have the attention span to read a 90,000 word novel. The assumption being that they can’t get through a book so how would they ever post about it? That theory was quickly squashed though since it’s been widely reported that Millennials read more than every other generation, an average of five books per year.

So…what is the real reason why most celebrities aren’t posting about what they’re reading on social media? For one, it’s giving attention to someone else, and sharing the limelight isn’t a celebrity’s strength. But I’m going to guess there’s a simpler reason…

Perhaps they just hate social media. Even famous people likely do the bare minimum to keep their feed active and engage with their followers so they can keep expanding their audiences. But celebrities — since they really are just like us — only use social media as part of their job. They keep the rest private. They don’t want you to know what they’re reading or eating or what hotel they’re staying in. What I’ve noticed when posting about my own book picks on Insta: Sometimes telling everyone what I’m reading takes away the joy of reading the book itself.

One more thing before you go, I wonder: Would you be more likely to pick up a book if it was recommended by, say, Olivia Wilde? I’d love to hear your take.