Find out what the Read with Jenna book club is reading this month and see every book on Jenna Bush Hager’s book club list.
In March 2019, Jenna Bush Hager announced the start of her Read With Jenna book club on the Today show. Quickly the former first daughter developed a loyal following, choosing intriguing discussion-worthy books every month.
Impressed with the quality of Jenna Bush Hager’s book club, I wanted to share the full Read with Jenna book list.
You’ll find plenty of thought-provoking reads among Jenna Bush Hager’s book club books. Although most of her choices are novels, a few nonfiction picks slip in from time to time.
In 2020, Jenna Bush Hager and Book of the Month partnered together, making all of Jenna’s new book selections available in the subscription book box.
Without further ado, here is your complete guide to Jenna Bush Hager’s book club list, including the Jenna Bush Hager September 2020 Book Club Selection.
Jenna Bush Hager’s Book of the Month
Black Buck
by Mateo Askaripour
Although he was valedictorian of Bronx Science, twenty-two-year-old Darren is content to work at Starbucks and live with his mother. Until the charming CEO of New York’s hottest tech startup convinces Darren to join an elite sales team. The only Black person in the company, Darren reimagines himself as “Buck,” a ruthless salesman, and hatches a plan to help young people of color enter America’s sales force. Read more →
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December 2020 Pick
The Bluest Eye
by Toni Morrison
Nobel-Prize winning author Toni Morrison set her debut novel, The Bluest Eye, in her hometown of Lorain, Ohio. In 1941, Pecola Breedlove, an eleven-year-old Black girl, desperately wants blue eyes. Tired of being considered “ugly,” Pecola wishes more than anything to fit in to white America. Morrison’s novel typifies her writing – discussing race, abuse, class and gender in a thought-provoking story.
November 2020 Pick
White Ivy
by Susie Yang
Although you’d never suspected by looking at her, Ivy Lin has been raised by her grandmother to be the perfect thief and liar. Thus, Ivy is able to maintain the appearance of at least middle class status and attract the attention of her wealthy classmate Gideon Speyer. When her mother realizes Ivy’s flaws, she sends Ivy to China to live with relatives. Now Ivy is back and again has Gideon’s attention, and she is determined not to let it go. Read more →
October 2020 Pick
Leave the World Behind
by Rumaan Alam
While vacationing at a home rental in a remote part of Long Island, a white couple is surprised when a Black couple shows up claiming to be the homeowners. They say they are fleeing from a mass blackout and disaster in New York City. A genre-bending family drama that most reviews found thrilling. Read more →
September 2020 Pick
Transcendent Kingdom
by Yaa Gyasi
In her fifth year studying neuroscience at Stanford, Gifty is determined to find the cause of suffering, studying depression and addiction in mice. The further she dives into the science, the more her childhood faith seems to call to her. Can faith or science alleviate the suffering she sees in her family of Ghanaian immigrants struggling with depression, addiction, and grief? Read more →
August 2020 Picks
The Comeback
by Ella Berman
Grace Turner was a up and coming young actress until a car crash ended her career. Now she’s just trying to be a better person. When Grace is asked to present a lifetime achievement award to director Able Yorke, former she realizes it’s time to reveal the truth about the manipulative director. For she isn’t powerless anymore. Read more →
Here For It
by R. Eric Thomas
In a series of essays, R. Eric Thomas looks back at what it means to be “other.” Viewed through his own experiences as a Black urban kid at a mostly white suburban high school and a gay man at a conservative church all the way to his Ivy league college experience and becoming a writer for Elle online, Thomas uses humor and thoughtfulness to tackle a deeply emotional message. Read more →
July 2020 Pick
Friends and Strangers
by J. Courtney Sullivan
Elisabeth is an accomplished journalist, struggling to adjust to both a newborn and a new life in a small town. For help, she hires Sam, a senior at the local college, to babysit. Sam is worried about student loans, choosing a career, and deciding whether to marry. The complicated friendship between these two women at different stages in life is the crux of J. Courtney Sullivan’s new novel. Read more →
June 2020 Pick
A Burning
by Megha Majumdar
After a careless Facebook comment, Jivan, a Muslim girl from the slums of India, is accused of a terrorist bombing. Lovely, the only one who can provide Jivan with an alibi, will lose everything if she comes forward. Meanwhile, Jivan’s gym teacher decides to use Jivan’s downfall to improve his own circumstances. Majumdar’s debut novel is described as a literary tour de force that will rip your heart out and make you want to change the world around you. Read more →
May 2020 Pick
All Adults Here
by Emma Straub
After witnessing an accident, Astrid Strick realizes that she wasn’t the best mother. Watching her children struggle to parent, she ponders about the long-term consequences of her failures and whether she can set things right. A character study about family dynamics, this May release was Jenna’s pick of the month. Read more →
April 2020 Pick
Valentine
by Elizabeth Wetmore
The morning after Valentine’s Day 1976, fourteen-year-old Gloria Ramirez wanders into Mary Rose Whitehead’s ranch house, a victim of a brutal rape. When justice is slow coming, the fierce women of Odessa, Texas, decide that maybe they should take justice into their own hands. This character-driven piece is said to have a slow start but builds to an intensely thought-provoking conclusion. Read more →
March 2020 Pick
Writers & Lovers
by Lily King
Aspiring writer Casey Peabody is determined to make her dreams of a creative life come true. Even though she is now waiting tables and living a lonely life, she believes life has more for her. Then she falls in love with two men at the same time, causing her already precarious life to shatter even more. Read more →
February 2020 Pick
The Girl with the Louding Voice
by Abi Daré
This debut novel from up-and-coming author Abi Daré highlights the coming-of-age of a Nigerian woman. All Adunni wants to do is get an education so that she can craft her own future. When her father sells her as the third wife to a local man, Adduni runs away to the city, only to become a servant to a wealthy family. Yet, Adunni finds that no matter her circumstances, she can still speak out for herself and all the other girls just like her. Read more →
January 2020 Pick
Dear Edward
by Ann Napolitano
On a flight from New York City to Los Angeles, 191 people are killed in a plane crash. The sole survivor: 12-year-old Edward Adler. Although Edward recovers physically, learning to deal with the fact that he is alive while so many others, including his parents and older brother, are not is a slow and painful process. With split narration between Edward’s post-crash years and the time leading up to the fatal accident, Dear Edward shows that surviving is just the beginning. Read more →
See What’s on The New York Times Best Seller List!
Read With Jenna Book Club Books 2019
Late Migrations by Margaret Renkl
Nonfiction
December 2019
An essay collection of the author’s childhood among the dirt and riverbanks, and the transition from child to caregiver. Amazon | Goodreads
Nothing To See Here by Kevin Wilson
Contemporary Fiction
November 2019
Lilian is hired by an old school friend to watch twins who spontaneously burst into flame whenever they get upset. Amazon | Goodreads
The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
Historical Fiction
October 2019
Shortly after World War II, two siblings’ lives are changed when their father buys a Philadelphia estate. Amazon | Goodreads | Read more
The Dearly Beloved by Cara Wall
Historical Fiction
September 2019
The ups and downs of the relationships of two couples in 1960s Chicago who are stewards of a historic church. Amazon | Goodreads
Patsy by Nicole Dennis-Benn
Contemporary Fiction
August 2019
A Jamaican woman abandons her daughter to move to America, only to learn it is not the dreamland she imagined. Amazon | Goodreads
Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes
Romance
July 2019
When a struggling major league baseball player moves into the spare room of recently widowed shut-in Evvie Drake, a friendship blooms. Amazon | Goodreads
Searching for Sylvie Lee by Jean Kwok
Contemporary Fiction
June 2019
Amy Lee is determined to find her older sister, who vanished on a trip to visit their dying grandmother in Amsterdam. Amazon | Goodreads
A Woman is No Man by Etaf Rum
Contemporary Fiction
May 2019
Following three generations of Palestinian women in arranged marriages, even in Brooklyn. Amazon | Goodreads | Read more
The Unwinding of the Miracle by Julie Yip-Williams
Nonfiction
April 2019
After being diagnosed with terminal cancer, Julie Yip-Williams reflects on her life – from being a blind child in Vietnam to a Harvard-educated lawyer and a mother of two young children. Amazon | Goodreads
The Last Romantics by Tara Conklin
Contemporary Fiction
March 2019
The four Skinner children bond when their mother is plunged into a years-long depression with consequences following them throughout their lives. Amazon | Goodreads | Read more
Which book from Jenna Bush Hager’s book club list will you read first?
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