Oprah's Book Club Picks That Are Perfect Fall Reads

With the changing seasons comes an overall change in mood. As we say goodbye to summer, we head into fall 2025 with new hair trends on our radar, autumn-friendly looks to add to our wardrobe, and, of course, a whole slew of books to add to our TBR list. Just as much as the best beach reads for the summer are meant to align with long, hot days, when it comes to fall reads, it's about finding stories that strike the right tone of the season for short, chilly days and long, cozy nights. That's where Oprah's book club becomes a great resource. 

Since 1996, Oprah's Book Club has platformed 117 books. In some cases, she introduced members to new writers, while in other instances, she dug into the classics that people may have missed, which should definitely be on everyone's TBR list. Although there were a few controversies along the way, like James Frey's alleged memoir, "A Million Little Pieces," that turned out to only be partially true, for the most part, the book choices have gone without incident and did what a book club is supposed to: encourage more reading and introduce readers to books they wouldn't have read otherwise.

While many of the 117 books make for great fall reads, some really stand out as perfect for the autumn season ahead. Because fall just hits differently, a good way to embrace that is through the books you read. So, in addition to our most anticipated book releases of fall 2025, be sure to add these Oprah picks to your list, too.

With the publication of her memoir, "Love Warrior" in 2016, Glennon Doyle became a voice for women everywhere. Although "Love Warrior" is about Doyle's struggle with alcohol addiction, motherhood, and the infidelity of her partner, you don't have to have had any of these things in your life to find Doyle's journey relatable. After all, women are constantly being put through the wringer no matter what we say or do, and the reason we're able to come out the other side is because within each of us is a warrior. It just sometimes takes a bit of digging to discover that aspect of ourselves. But when we do, we can be our best, truest selves.

"You're going to absolutely love this book and the spirit of it, whether you're married or single, whether you're a mom or not," Oprah said on OWN back in September 2016 when she announced the addition of "Love Warrior" to her book club. "All women are going to see themselves in these pages. It's daring, and it's raw, and it's filled with a lot of naked — I do mean naked — truths!"

As much as Doyle's memoir is about her own personal story, it's also a rallying cry for women everywhere, as it stares the complexities of being human in the face and doesn't look away. It's heavier in depth than a typical beach read, making it a great book for the fall. "Love Warrior" also makes for one of the best book club picks for women in their 40s and beyond, because of its intense subject matter.

Let's be honest: autumn and Charles Dickens go together as perfectly as peanut butter and jelly. Dickens had an amazing talent for writing about the downtrodden in a way that isn't just beautiful, but stays with you — the man wrote a book called "Bleak House," after all — and each novel is perfect for cozying up by the fireplace in your wool socks while you get lost in Victorian-era London. While it's Dickens's "A Christmas Carol" that's still the most popular, when it comes to both plot and prose, "Great Expectations" blows the former out of the water.

Although published in 1861, this three-volume novel is still just as relevant as it is today. Centering around Pip, an orphan who lives with his older sister and her husband, Joe, the story follows Pip's journey from humble beginnings to his eventual success and ultimate downfall. As much as "Great Expectations" is about social class, the effect money has, and the people who come in and out of our lives who shape us, it's also a homecoming that emphasizes the importance of forgiveness.

"Great Expectations" is a gothic novel, meaning it's not exactly an easy read; it's dark and moody in the way it presents its drama, and is often cruel to its characters — there are many of them — but Dickens also injects some humor too. Miss Havisham alone, still rocking her torn and tattered wedding dress from decades before, is a smirk-inducing spectacle. When you finish it, you can lighten things up with a feel-good pick from the Read with Jenna Book Club.

Because the nights are so darn long in the fall, finding a book that covers decades of characters' lives just seems so fitting. Especially as the holidays get closer and getting lost in the drama of a family that isn't yours feels so much better. That's exactly what Jonathan Franzen gives us with "Freedom."

Published in 2010, "Freedom" covers decades while focusing on Patty and Walter Berglund, an idyllic married couple who move back to St. Paul, Minnesota, to raise their kids, Jessica and Joey. Like all young families, the Berglunds are living their best upper-middle-class life, but over time, cynicism, infidelity, lies, corruption, and even death throw this once-perfect family into a spiral. Like "Great Expectations," after all is said and done, there's a homecoming that makes the years of sorrow and turbulence worth it, and, because Franzen is the writer he is, it also makes the very long read worth it, while proving he's the master of writing dysfunctional families.

"I recently passed the age that my father was when I first knew him as a person," Franzen told NPR in September 2011 about what inspired this novel. "Since my parents died when I was relatively young, the kind of adult presence I had in my life that they provided, I've had to learn to provide myself ... I turned my parents into people my age; into people I might be or I might know. And that was the real engine. It was something that came from inside." It's worth noting that Franzen's 2001 novel, "The Corrections," is also an Oprah Book Club pick.

Published in 1960, "Night" is Elie Wiesel's memoir about his experiences with his father in the Nazi concentration camps. While perhaps not exactly a seasonal read, it's something that, especially now that fascism is finding more and more traction, is a must-read. When Oprah announced in 2006 that "Night" would be the next book club selection, she said of her choice, via Today, "Like Dr. King, I have a dream of my own, too, that the powerful message of this little book would be engraved on every human heart and will never be forgotten again. That you who read this book will feel as I do that these 120 pages ... should be required reading for all humanity."

"Night" is a devastating and harrowing account of what Wiesel endured while in Auschwitz and Buchenwald, after the Nazis invaded Hungary in May 1944. Between May and April of that year, hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews were deported, via train, to concentration camps, and Wiesel and his family were among them. Upon arrival, Wiesel's mother and seven-year-old sister were immediately sent to the gas chambers, while his other two sisters were separated from him and his father, the latter of whom would ultimately not survive the camps' brutality.

In 2011, Wiesel gave a talk about "Night," saying, "After all, one doesn't write to be published ... One writes because one writes. The obsession that a writer has is that of a witness, meaning he or she must bear witness." When you read "Night," you, too, are forced to bear witness, and that's important in making sure it's never forgotten.

Since Toni Morrison never wrote a novel that would be considered a beach read, it makes sense to keep her work in the autumn and winter seasons when we tend to contemplate things a bit more deeply than we do in the summer sun. Although all of Morrison's work is worth reading, if you're in the mood for some banned book club action, then "The Bluest Eye," her first novel, is the place to go. Just know it's going to hurt, which is exactly what Morrison intended.

"The Bluest Eye" is about a young Black girl named Pecola Breedlove who's coming of age in Lorain, Ohio — the same town where Morrison grew up. Because Pecola is constantly told she's ugly, she becomes obsessed with having blue eyes, believing that blue eyes (which also signify whiteness) will solve all her problems. Like many of Morrison's characters, Pecola faces racism, sexual assault, and other forms of abuse. Between the negative external forces and her internal obsession with blue eyes, she eventually spirals into insanity, from which she doesn't return.

In 2004, while discussing her motivation to write, Morrison said that "The Bluest Eye" came out of a need to write something that was in contrast to the 'Black is beautiful' narrative that was being written by Black men in the mid-1960s. As Morrison explained, she wanted a reminder that it hadn't always been that way and that racism, even in the slightest forms, hurts. Morrison purposely chose the most vulnerable of society, a little Black girl, to tell her story and make her point.

Another epic for the fall? You better believe it. Although not as long and involved as "One Hundred Years of Solitude," Gabriel García Márquez's 1985 novel, "Love in the Time of Cholera," covers a whopping 50 years, nine months, and four days. Yes, it's about love in the time of cholera, taking place in Colombia between 1875 and 1924, centering around the lives of Florentino Ariza and his beloved Fermina Daza, the latter of whom married a doctor who's dedicated his life to eradicating cholera.

As much as it's about Florentino and his hundreds of affairs over the 50 years, it's also about Fermina's marriage to Juvenal Urbino and the ups and downs that come with such a relationship. Like most of Márquez's work, levels of the supernatural are woven within, and a boatload of flawed, sometimes problematic characters propel the story forward. It's also a book that leaves you feeling conflicted. Considering all the sexual affairs that Florentino has had in his lifetime, including one with a 14-year-old (yikes), does he love Fermina?

The prose and carefully crafted characters in "Love in the Time of Cholera" are stunning, making it a great place to start if you've been wanting to give Márquez's work a try. "This is one of the greatest love stories I have ever read," Oprah said of the novel. "It is so beautifully written that it really takes you to another place in time, and will make you ask yourself: How long could you, or would you, wait for love?"