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Showing posts with the label Ann Patchett

OPEN POST: With The Peckerwood Book Club, Plus Celeb Recommendations And Douglas Stewart's "John of John!"!

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Greetings hors, and welcome to Monday's Open Post and The Peckerwood Book Club - combined! Can you believe? We can do that, you know. It's allowed.  Meanwhile, take note, in 2026, there are over a dozen active celebrity book clubs and counting, everything from Oprah's long-reigning club to Natalie's Book Club curated by Natalie Portman to TeamTime hosted by Dakota Johnson to Service95 run by DuaLipa . That's a lot of recommendations and a lot of books. Do you take their recommendations seriously? Or are you like Jonathan Franzen, who refused to have his book included as a 2001 Oprah Book Club pick because he found her selections overall to be "schmaltzy" and "one dimensional"? They reconciled a decade later, but the point was made. Book club celebs aren't universally loved, and they aren't always the best pickers. The latter point was made by Oprah (again) when she selected Jeanine Cummins' 2020 novel "American Dirt" as ...