Celebrity Book Club Picks For August 2025 To Add To Your Reading List

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A new month means new picks from all of our favorite celebrity book clubs. The August 2025 selections are ripe with juicy reads, with each book offering something new and compelling for eager bibliophiles everywhere. Oprah Winfrey's club never fails to deliver an unforgettable tilte; just look at the best Oprah Book Club reads from the 2020s alone. They're a treasure-trove of reads. Then there's Reese Witherspoon's book club, which highlights female authors of female-driven stories. The highest rated reads from Reese's Book Club are worth every minute of time they take to get through.

There are other beloved celebrity book clubs, too, and all of these have contributed quality books for their August 2025 picks. Jenna Bush Hager's book club is on the pulse of quality literature, and Read With Jenna's summer 2025 reading list is full of hit books. Other celebrity book clubs jumped on their monthly announcements, offering a plethora of compelling choices for August 2025 reading.

While many celebrity book clubs choose new releases, Oprah Winfrey went a totally different route for her August 2025 pick. She opted for Richard Russo's "Bridge of Sighs," originally published in 2007. Russo is the Pulitzer prize-winning author of "Empire Falls," so the author has a robust publishing history. Russo and Oprah sat down with Gayle King on CBS Mornings on August 5, 2025 to discuss the wonderful honor. Russo expressed his surprise that Oprah was interested in a 20-year-old book, but for Oprah, the choice made perfect sense. First of all, Oprah said that she loves all of Russo's writing, and secondly, "Bridge of Sighs" struck a chord with her. "I love stories about small towns," Oprah said to King and Russo. "Having grown up in a small town, I have a real affinity for it." Oprah called Russo a "master at capturing the ordinary moments that reveal the deepest truths." 

The novel takes place in upstate New York where protagonist Lou and his wife, Sarah, take a trip to Venice. While the story is rich and compelling, Russo admitted to Oprah that this was the hardest novel he's ever written. There are so many characters and so many moving parts, so it's by no means a simple book. Place and class are the two most interesting elements to Russo, and he makes much of these in his 2007 novel, as well as the issue of race. It's a deeply moving, rich story. 

"You guys, I read this book in one sitting," Reese Witherspoon said of her August 2025 book club pick, "Once Upon a Time in Dollywood" by Ashley Jordan. Witherspoon said that the writing is so lively and engaging that it feels like you're talking to your best friend. The novel was first published in August 2025, so Witherspoon is jumping on this exciting, new book. To make matters even more interesting, Jordan is a LitUp Fellow, meaning that she was chosen to join the writing program LitUp, created by Reese's Book Club. So it's that much more exciting that Jordan's novel was chosen for Reese's Book Club. 

The novel tells the story of a Haitian-American playwright Eve Ambroise who gets overwhelmed by life in New York City; so she takes a break at her grandmother's small cabin in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Things get spicier when Eve notices her cabin neighbor, Jamie Gallagher, who just so happens to be very handsome. The two strike up a connection, but Eve has a hard time surrendering to love, and so the two have to face their fears, and unpack their emotional baggage, to finally be happy together. 

Emma Nanami Strenner's novel "My Other Heart" landed in the August 2025 spot for the Read With Jenna book club. The debut novel was first published in August 2025, so Jenna Bush Hager isn't wasting any time. "I love this book so much. It's the story of mothers, daughters, friendship. It's full of heart and full of twists. I could not put it down," Bush Hager said of the novel on Instagram. People appreciated the recommendation. "Loving this one so far!" a fan wrote on Instagram. "Been obsessively reading and listening for two days! I'm almost at the end. Love it!" another chimed in. 

"My Other Heart" is about Mimi Truang, a young mother who's baby daughter goes missing at the Philadelphia airport while they're waiting for their flight back to Vietnam. Mimi spends years searching for her lost daughter. The novel then introduces two teenage friends, Kit and Sabrina. The two enjoy their last summer together, before going off to college, looking into their own personal histories, trying to make sense of their pasts. Mimi gets an unexpected tip about her missing daughter, and she rushed back to Philadelphia. Unexpectedly, Mimi, Sabrina, and Kit become intertwined. The novel wraps in an unexpected climax, giving an unforgettable story that's wrenching and hard to put down. 

Dua Lipa's August 2025 pick for her book club, Service95, was a more obscure, interesting choice. She narrowed in on the 2015 nonfiction book by Helen Garner called "This House of Grief." The true crime work goes into the trial of Australian Robert Farquharson, who drove his car off the road into a dam in 2005, killing his three sons while Farquharson himself survived. The subsequent trial was gripping, as people all over the world wondered whether Farquharson murdered his sons, or if it was an accident. Garner gets into the story from various perspectives and delves into the complexity of Farquharson's case. 

For Lipa, "This House of Grief" was an obvious choice. "Although Helen has been writing for almost 50 years, her work is new to me and it's a thrilling discovery," Lipa said on Service95's monthly newsletter. "She's one of the most fascinating writers I have come across in recent years," Lipa loved the book for its complex understanding of human nature, and its wide grasp of empathy in a trying situation. People lauded her August 2025 selection. "Just finished it. I think it's the fastest I've finished a book in a minute," one fan wrote on Instagram. Others loved that Lipa brought attention to Garner as an author. "Helen Garner is an Australian treasure. We adore her books. We adore HER. She's the best kept secret we have," another commented. It's not an easy read, but it's worth it.