Modern literary fiction

Song of Solomon

“Morrison's 1977 novel — the one that won her the Nobel — follows Milkman Dead across three generations of a Black family in Michigan and the South. Obama has spoken about Morrison as a writer who made her understand that Black life deserved the full weight of literary form, not just documentary attention.”Michelle Obama

Beloved

“Toni Morrison's novel was Oprah's personal obsession long before she selected it. She produced and starred in the 1998 film adaptation after years of trying to bring it to screen. On her show she called it the book she would want with her on a desert island.”Oprah Winfrey

Rabbit at Rest

“I finally made it through the entire Rabbit series. This book was by far the weakest of the four, and it still makes my top 5 list. Updike is, in my opinion, the best fiction writer of the last century.”Andrew Wilkinson

Middlesex

“Jeffrey Eugenides' Pulitzer-winning family saga was selected in 2002 during the original club's final season. Oprah was drawn to its multigenerational scope and its unflinching account of identity formation across bodies and borders.”Oprah Winfrey

My Dead Dad Was in ZZ Top

“the book he wrote about it is hilarious”Andrew Wilkinson

Little Fires Everywhere

“Celeste Ng's second novel was a 2017 selection that Witherspoon and Kerry Washington co-produced as a Hulu limited series. The book's central question — who gets to define a family, and who gets to burn down the rules — maps directly onto themes the club returns to repeatedly.”Reese Witherspoon

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine

“Gail Honeyman's debut was one of the club's earliest picks and established the tone for what was coming: a protagonist who is brittle, strange, and deeply sympathetic. Witherspoon has described Eleanor as one of the most original characters she'd encountered in years of reading.”Reese Witherspoon

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

“Taylor Jenkins Reid's Hollywood-set novel was selected in 2019 and introduced many club readers to Reid before Daisy Jones arrived. Witherspoon has talked about Evelyn Hugo's moral complexity — a woman who made ruthless choices and refuses to apologize for them — as exactly the kind of female character the club exists to champion.”Reese Witherspoon

Normal People

“Sally Rooney's second novel was selected for the Apple TV+ era of the club. Oprah described it as a book that captured something true about the difficulty of intimacy that she hadn't seen articulated that precisely before.”Oprah Winfrey

The Great Alone

“Kristin Hannah's novel about an Alaska homestead gone wrong was a 2018 pick that gave the club one of its starkest protagonists: a teenage girl watching her father's trauma unravel the world her mother built around it. Witherspoon has cited it as the Hannah novel that hooked her on the author entirely.”Reese Witherspoon

Where the Crawdads Sing

“One of the club's signature picks and its best-known adaptation — Witherspoon's production company produced the 2022 film. She selected it in 2018 and has described it as the book she hand-sold to more people than any other, telling friends to cancel their plans and read it immediately.”Reese Witherspoon

The Vanishing Half

“Brit Bennett's novel about twin sisters who choose opposite racial identities was a 2020 selection. Witherspoon has described it as a book that opens up the question of what we choose about ourselves versus what is chosen for us — and what it costs either way.”Reese Witherspoon

The Lincoln Highway

“…books I've recommended, highlighted to death, or forced on friends.”Andrew Wilkinson

“A favorite novel he put at the top of his entrepreneurs reading list.”Fred Wilson

The Road

“Cormac McCarthy's 2006 Pulitzer winner was a departure from the club's usual emotional register — spare, brutal, without resolution. Oprah's on-air conversation with the notoriously press-shy McCarthy remains one of the club's most-watched segments.”Oprah Winfrey