Before Oprah’s Book Club, there was the Book Society

THESE days, it seems every celebrity wants to put their name to a book club: among the rich and famous, they are as common as private jets, non-disclosure agreements and Ozempic.

Reese Witherspoon, an actor, wants women to read – or, to be more precise, she wants them to embrace the power of “book joy”. Oprah Winfrey, a media personality, hopes her recommendations will “spark enlightenment”. Dua Lipa, a pop star, wants people to “read the world differently”. Kaia Gerber, a model, strives to create “rage readers”. (She does not explain what those are, nor why they would be desirable.)

Celebrity book clubs may be a feature of 21st-century fame, but they have a long lineage. The first such club in Britain, the Book Society, began in 1929. It featured recommendations from intellectuals such as Hugh Walpole and JB Priestley, and had a practical aim – to enable “the discovery of notable new writers” and to get people to buy books.