
Photo illustration: by The Cut; Photo: Getty Images
On Tuesday, Dakota Johnson opened up her book club, Tea Time, in a uniquely entertaining interview with Bustle, and her first choice was beautyland, Written by Marie-Elene Bertino. The book, published in January by FSG, is a quiet, lyrical book about a working-class girl named Adina, born in 1977, who soon collects information about life on Earth from another galaxy. She begins to be visited every night by aliens who use her to do what she wants. It's exactly how you would expect Dakota Johnson to be attracted if you were, like me, a Queen Nepo Baby semi-scholar who makes fun of Ellen DeGeneres and claims to love and love her. Well, things aren't quite right. She won't be promoting the blockbuster movie she wants because she's allergic to Lyme. madame web, that's what she's actually supposed to be interviewing now. Instead, here she was talking about a book club. “Our book club is literary fiction. It's not beach reading. It's not silly,” Johnson tells Bustle. “They're not all women writers, but they're pushing women to the forefront, and there's a lot of people writing novels for the first time.” She hopes to use the club to bring a bit of dignity to Instagram. . “Rather than talking about the facial serum they use and thinking it's the most important thing in the world, people need to dig deeper into knowledge about certain things.” She then said, I mentioned that I love face serums.
Every aspect of this presentation intrigued me. It also made me wonder why so many actresses want to become bookfluencers. For Johnson, it's not just about material gain. She hasn't made a choice. beauty land Still, I just thought about how she would adapt it, recognizing that it would be difficult to adapt. (Margot Robbie's company my year of rest and relaxation. But how? I don't know how you do that. ” Me too Dakota! ) For others, of course, it is all About cash. Reese Witherspoon is most keen to monetize her book hobby, sending out monthly book recommendations in a newsletter, promoting them on her website, and running her production company, Hello Sunshine, which she recently sold to Blackstone Group. Launched a business that takes advantage of these options. For $900 million. Witherspoon's desire to have her books selected by her book club turned into movies or TV shows is clearly the driving force behind Witherspoon's club. But she also used her idea of being a bookworm to burnish her own image. Being a leading influencer in the industry on the production side, Witherspoon, 47, is at an age when actress roles start to become rarer for women, and she's a compelling voice for her next chapter. There is.
Dua Lipa, Emmaus (Roberts and Watson), Sarah Michelle Gellar, Florence Welch, and all have book clubs or at least media channels promoting books. The most dedicated seems to be Emma Roberts, who runs her Belletrist with former producer and developer Carla Place. Similar to Hello Sunshine, Belletrist, founded in 2017, also functions as a production company, and he has successfully converted two of its monthly recommended shows into streaming shows. first kill Netflix and Tell Me Rise on Hulu (I've never heard of either, but actually converting a book into streamable content is a huge accomplishment. Congratulations). Also, “Belletrist'' is written by someone who clearly has a taste for books and doesn't limit his reading to only new books. sex and anger, a collection of stories by Shirley Hazzard, by Eve Babitz. Place seems to be doing much of the work here, but the whole plot has the effect of making Roberts seem less like Julia Roberts' niece and more like a serious actress.
Beyond the club, some celebrities simply want to be seen reading a book, ideally a good book. In this category you will find professional gorgeous people: Kaia Gerber and Kendall Jenner. Gerber technically has a “book club,” which consists of hosting chats with authors like Emily Ratajkowski on Instagram Live, and includes titles by Dorie Alderton and Annie Ernaux. He is often photographed holding a book. But they both look great, and Jenner is the queen who is pictured holding a book that coordinates with her swimsuit, and the book she's pictured with is particularly obscure and often published by small print companies with limited circulation. It is published by.
In 2019, Darcey Wilder, the author of one of these books, decided to investigate how members of the Kardashian family ended up being photographed reading the memoir. Literally, show me a healthy person. After Jenner was shot reading the book, it was sold out on Amazon. Wilder found Ashley Gonzalez tagged in Jenner's IG post, making it relatively easy to figure out how the book ended up in Jenner's hands. Gonzalez, who is also a published poet, is now widely known as Jenner's book concierge, providing the model and reality star with “grammatical literature, annotated throughout with turquoise post-its.” I am tasked with doing that.
But does being anointed by a celebrity usually boost sales, as Kendall Jenner's photo did with Wilder's book? One agent I spoke to said that being photographed for a book in Kaia Gerber's arms was more of a self-esteem booster for everyone involved than anything else, but that the effort behind the scenes was He said it may have been activated. But I also think that the novel felt like it had momentum and topicality at a critical time in its publication, which led the publisher to redouble its publicity and marketing efforts. ” She continued: Another agent whose book was briefly visible in the scene, “We all really want people to be interested in books, so to be honest, we're going to take all we can get.” and just like that … — Learn more about how books are chosen as props for this fascinating work trend Story — said it caused a temporary jump but was not sustainable. “The Amazon rankings rise over a period of hours or even a day, and then settle back down to the previous position.” In general, clubs don't have the power to change a book's trajectory, the agent says. Because in today's dire publishing environment, nothing really changes. , or to be Good morning, America Picks may have an immediate effect on success, but they seem to be less effective in truly oversaturated markets. ”
My theory on all of this is frankly cynical. Celebrities mostly use books to add a new layer to their persona and carry status handbags shaped like piles of paper filled with pages. Although the rationale may vary, developing a love of books is the best way to move from one stage of your career to a more multidimensional stage. This is the equivalent of a former Disney teenager making a guest appearance in a movie. Law and Order SVU as a murder suspect to graduate to a more mature role. And while Dakota Johnson clearly has no interest in anything, he's running a book club because he wants to, especially if it leads to a movie project. As with everything Johnson does and doesn't do, I can't help but co-sign her choices. She is an agent of chaotic good.