12 Book Club Picks For September 2024, From Reese’s 100th Pick to Matzah Book Soup
Welcome to September, where the vibes are all about kids being back in school, many readers are hoping for relief from the excessive heat that will come with fall weather, the countdown for Halloween has begun, and a bunch of great book clubs have announced their new picks! As per my monthly tradition I’ve rounded up book clubs that offer a variety of great choices, are almost all virtual — or have a virtual component — and allow you to join in as much or as little as fits with your reading life.
Nonfiction readers have a collection of essays from a recent new voice in cultural criticism and also a work by a groundbreaking, trailblazing activist. There’s a novel set in New York with a cast of characters and a missing person, and Octavia E. Butler’s timely novel keeps making the book club rounds. You can read Tiffany D. Jackson’s gut-punch YA mystery (chosen with Banned Books Week in mind), and romance fans can read a love story with the added bonus of some magical elements. If you’re behind on your modern classics, there’s a historical fiction option. Plus, a dark comedy, a novel about sisters with a modern-day Little Women vibe, a rewritten classic from a new perspective, and a Maine set novel by a Pulitzer Prize-winning author. This month also marks Reese Witherspoon’s 100th book club pick!
Sapph-Lit
Communion by bell hooks
About the book club: Born from TikTok, Sapph-Lit is a safe space book club for sapphic women and nonbinary readers to come together and chat books and life as well as offer each other support. One book a month is selected, alternating between fiction and nonfiction.
What Sapph-Lit said about the book: “Explores the ways ideas about women were changed by feminist movement, women’s full participation in the workforce, and the culture of self-help.”
Subtle Asian Book Club
Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino
About the book club: Tiffany and Alexandra, longtime friends, created the Subtle Asian Book Club in 2020 with the goal of uplifting Asian voices and storytellers. You can read along with the monthly book pick, join in on discussions on social media, and watch videos of their live author interviews.
About the book: If you’re looking for a collection of thoughtful essays that deeply dives into cultural criticism, this is your book club this month!
Follow Subtle Asian Book Club on social media: Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Discord
The Audacious Book Club in 2024
The Rich People Have Gone Away by Regina Porter
About the book club: Author Roxane Gay (Bad Feminist, Ayiti, The Banks) selects a book every month with the goal of uplifting “authentic and necessary perspectives from writers who fearlessly share their stories.”
What Roxane said about the book: “Next month in the Audacious Book Club, we’re talking about The Rich People Have Gone Away by Regina Porter (@ReginaMPorter). I hope you’ll join us at The Audacity to discuss this excellent novel throughout the month of September and on September 25 when we’ll be in conversation with Regina. Register here or at the link in my stories.”
Follow Roxane Gay on social media: Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads
Mocha Girls Read
Monday’s Not Coming by Tiffany D. Jackson
About the book club: Mocha Girls Read is a monthly book club of Black women who love to read. They currently have chapters in 14 cities across the United Stats. Starting in 2024, anyone can join an “IG Live every first Saturday of the month at 5 pm PT. Alysia, our founder, will chat about our current book club selection.”
Mocha Girls reading schedule: “Our September book: Monday’s Not Coming by Tiffany D. Jackson
📚Reading Guide:
Week 1: Chapters 1-14
Week 2: Chapters 15-28
Week 3: Chapters 29-42
Week 4: Chapters 43-56″
Follow Mocha Girls Read on social media: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, MeetUp, Goodreads, Pinterest
Eclectix The Book Club
Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
About the book club: Dawnshaeé Reid is a self-proclaimed eclectic blogger who created this book club with Black authors as a priority. It aims to highlight a wide range of genres. There’s an in-person, once-a-month meeting option if you’re in Louisville, KY, and a virtual option that meets the last Tuesday of every month.
What Eclectix The Book Club said about the book: “❤️ September Pick: Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler — our first sci-fi pick of the year, and it was selected by our very own book club members!”
Follow Eclectix The Book Club on social media: Instagram, Discord, TikTok
Matzah Book Soup: A Jewish Own Voices Book Club for All
Magical Meet Cute by Jean Meltzer
About the book club: Lillianne Leight and Amanda Spivack created this book club with a focus on Jewish books and characters “with varying relationships to Judaism” that welcomes all readers — Jewish and non.
What Matzah Book Soup said about the book: “We are so excited to be welcoming back one of our favorite authors, @JeanMeltzer, this month! MAGICAL MEET CUTE is a perfect magical realism romance for fall, and we can’t wait to chat with Jean on SEPTEMBER 25th @ 7 PM EST!”
Follow Matzah Book Soup on social media: Instagram, Facebook
The Stacks Book Club
Jazz by Toni Morrison
About the book cub: Hosted by Traci Thomas, The Stacks is a podcast that chats all about books, and there’s a monthly book club! The book chosen for the month is discussed on the podcast the last week of the month with a selected special guest.
What The Stacks Book Club said about the book: “SEPTEMBER BOOK CLUB ANNOUNCEMENT
It is Toni Morrison Month here at #TheStacksBookClub! We’re reading JAZZ, her 1992 novel, set in the Harlem Renaissance that follows a couple from the South trying to make it in New York. All that is complicated by a murder from their past.
Our JAZZ episode drops September 25th, and tune in this Wednesday September 4th to find out who our guest will be. Any guesses?”
Follow The Stacks on social media: Instagram, Facebook, TikTok
Good Morning America‘s GMA Book Club
Colored Television by Danzy Senna
About the book club: Read along with Good Morning America Book Club, which aims to “showcase book picks from a wide range of compelling authors.”
What GMA said about the book: “SEPTEMBER: Colored Television by bestselling Caucasia author Danzy Senna is this month’s #GMABookClub pick! 📺
Danzy Senna’s new novel is a brilliant dark comedy about love and ambition, failure and reinvention, and the racial-identity-industrial complex.”
Reese’s Book Club
The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year by Margaret Renkl, Billy Renkl (Illustrator)
About the book club: Every month, Reese Witherspoon picks a book for Reese’s Book Club that centers a woman in its story.
What Reese said about the book: “Our 100th @ReesesBookClub pick, #TheComfortOfCrows by @Margaret.Renkl is a beautiful love letter to nature and the world around us. Divided into fifty-two chapters, it follows the creatures and plants in Margaret’s backyard over the course of a year, capturing both the joy of nature’s ongoing pleasures and the grief of fleeting moments. 🍃🐝🌷🦋
As my high school English teacher (!!), Margaret had a profound impact on my life, making it incredibly special to have her as our 100th author. 🥹 I’d love to hear about a teacher that had a positive impact on you in the comments below. ⬇️
Thank you all for reading with me, 100 books later. 💛📚 Listen to #TheComfortOfCrows on @AppleBooks our official audiobook partner, all month long! 🎧”
Follow Reese’s Book Club on social media: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube
TODAY Book Club, #ReadWithJenna
Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors
About the book club: Jenna Bush Hager — current co-host of Today with Hoda & Jenna — independently chooses a book each month that she personally loves. (“Jenna was not paid to mention these items and is unaffiliated with the authors and publishers“)
What Jenna said about the book: “TODAY’s Jenna Bush Hager says her September Read With Jenna pick, Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors, is a modern-day Little Women.
‘I grew up with a mother and grandmother who read Little Women to me, which is about a strong group of sisters. Not since then has a book about sisterhood stuck with me as much as Coco Mellors’ Blue Sisters,’ Jenna says.”
Follow Read With Jenna on social media: Instagram, Facebook, Read With Jenna Goodreads group
Amerie’s Book Club
James by Percival Everett
About the book club: “A modern book club for the modern reader” that invites casual readers to bibliophiles to join in on social media to talk about exciting books.
What Amerie said about the book: “Percival Everett reintroduces to the world James, also known as Jim, from Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. But JAMES isn’t simply a retelling from the enslaved man’s perspective; it is a comprehensive reimagining of the man, his family, the lives of the enslaved peoples around him, as well as the entire dynamic between the enslaved and their captors and the system that binds them. To read Everett’s JAMES is to see the classic tale—and history, itself—with a fresh lens.”
Follow Amerie’s Book Club on social media: Instagram, YouTube
Oprah’s Book Club
Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout
About the book club: Oprah’s book club has taken on different forms over decades, starting in 1996 on The Oprah Winfrey Show. She’s still book clubbing, and this month she picked her 103rd title!
What Oprah said about the book: “The start of fall always feels like turning over a new page—and even more so when we have a new Oprah’s Book Club pick to snuggle up with! Today on CBS Mornings, Oprah revealed her 107th selection: Tell Me Everything, by Elizabeth Strout. ‘Tell Me Everything has all the things: Romance and mystery and secrets,’ says Oprah, it’s ‘perfect for this time of year.’”
Follow Oprah’s Book Club on social media: Instagram, Twitter
If you want to know about past monthly book club picks, prepare your TBR shelf and take a look.
