Florence Welch's Book Club Is Full Of Hidden Gem Recommendations

"To be conscious and to be present to really feel what's going on — even though it's painful — it feels like much more a truly reborn spirit of rock and roll," Florence Welch once told the New Yorker Radio Hour. She wasn't talking about her book club, Between Two Books, but the sentiment could easily apply; that same raw, rock 'n' roll spirit runs through every recommendation she makes.

She's always bucked the standard-issue popstar archetype. Her references are literary, her wardrobe operatic, her lyrics riddled with myth — all in service of her romantic approach to art. So, it tracks that her book club would follow that ethos. Where big-name book clubs like Reese's Book Club or Read With Jenna center mass-market appeal and film-adaptable fiction (and to be clear, we love those too!), Between Two Books rebels against algorithmic favorites.

The selections span genres: literary fiction, memoir, poetry, drama, and cultural criticism. But it comes as no surprise that the chanteuse is often drawn to books that circle music, even obliquely. Patti Smith features prominently on the list, with "Year of the Monkey," "A Book of Days," and "Just Kids" all being selected (the last of which is incidentally one of Emma Watson's favorite books, and one of the celebrity memoirs you'll want to listen to on audiobook).

That musical throughline continues with "The Importance of Music to Girls," by Lavinia Greenlaw. This is an elliptical memoir that maps the author's early life through the music that shaped her. Florence also selected "Crying in H Mart" by singer Michelle Zauner, another musically rooted memoir that's become a recurring presence in the libraries of famous readers, selected for both Dua Lipa's Service95 book club and Natalie Portman's.

Florence Welch has also invited guests to her book club with their own musical instincts. Model Adwoa Aboah selected "The Rose That Grew From Concrete," a posthumous collection of poems by the late, great Tupac Shakur. Rock legend Nick Cave chose "Here I Am" by Jonathan Safran Foer — a novel about a Jewish-American family in catastrophe. Fiona Apple, meanwhile, chose Joyce Carol-Oates's "On Boxing," a philosophical essay collection that examines the ritual of the sport.

But Between Two Books doesn't rely solely on music-related picks. Her literary fiction selections reveal a particularly clear window into Welch's sensibility. For readers drawn to the classics, "Good Morning, Midnight" by Jean Rhys might be a good fit — a spare portrait of a woman adrift in interwar Paris. Octavia Butler's "The Parable of the Sower" imagines a dystopian America as a young woman with a radical spiritual vision who sets out to build a new future. Zora Neale Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God," meanwhile, explores Black womanhood through the protagonist Janie Crawford's search for identity and freedom.

Among Florence's more contemporary picks is Elif Shafak's "There Are Rivers in the Sky." This novel calls upon the Epic of Gilgamesh to show three lives: an impoverished Victorian boy, a Yazidi girl in ISIS-era Turkey, and a modern London woman escaping her husband. Sinéad Gleeson's "Hagstone," the Irish essayist's debut novel and Florence's pick for November 2024, follows a reclusive artist living on a remote, folklore-steeped island.

Readers can keep up with Florence's selections via the club's dedicated Instagram page. There, you'll join a devoted enclave that's been sustained by her instinct for beauty and emotion since the club's founding in 2012.