Jenna Bush Hager Shares Her Book Club Secrets

Goodreads: Tell us a bit about where you got your love for reading.

Jenna Bush Hager: I don’t remember a night when I was a little girl that I went to bed without one of my parents reading to my sister, Barbara, and me. It was just part of our nightly routine. And so it’s part of how I was raised. We never had a TV in our room, at least until, really, college, so it was the way that I entertained myself. And I had a mom who was an only child, and, really, she’s said that she found this partnership in books. She found this companionship that she didn’t have with a sibling in books. She passed that on to Barbara and me.

GR: Why did you create the #ReadWithJenna book club?

JBH: We tested it out last summer. We tried a summer book club with The Today Show, and we read Tommy Orange’s There, There. I was really excited by it. I mean, one, it was so much fun to talk about books with other people via Instagram or the show and hear other people’s reviews—I’m constantly asking friends for recommendations, and so I thought, "Why not do what I do in my personal life on television?"

And I feel like it’s translated really well because, fundamentally, people love to read. People love books. They love to hear what other people are reading. They love recommendations. They love the community books bring them, whether that’s reading with good friends or reading with your mom or your sister. A lot of times, when my sister and I travel together (which is less and less now that I have multiple children), we’ll pick a book and read it at the same time. Part of what’s fun about that is the conversation. It’s really fun to read and get to know these characters, but it’s also really fun to have conversations around reading and around books. And I think that’s what this book club does.

GR: How do you decide which books to select?

JBH: Well, we’re reading constantly to figure out what books to select. I ask friends, and I ask avid readers. I’m constantly asking for recommendations of great books that are coming out, and we get advanced copies of some of these books. I think I want to highlight characters that we feel like we know that also we maybe have never met—characters that feel fresh and unique in their voices and we also relate with them somehow. And we’ve focused really on women authors so far, although that’s not going to be the criteria at all. I'm looking for books that you can lose yourself in, but also learn about other cultures and other ways of life and the other ways that people live.

GR: In your opinion, what makes a great book club pick?

JBH: I think a great book club pick is a book that people want to stay up late reading and then the next morning call their friends and talk all about.

GR: What tips would you have for readers choosing their book club selections?

JBH: Choose books that vary in perspective from yours. Or that vary from book to book and have different narrators. Choose books that you know will lead to conversations but that you know are also really fun to read, because the worst feeling is showing up to a book club meeting—which I’ve done before—and not have finished the book. You feel like the slacker.

So you want books that people can’t put down, first and foremost. You want something that’s really readable, and you want to stay up late reading.

GR: Beyond the book, what tips do you have for making a book club successful?

JBH: I think, first of all, bring the snacks and the wine. Step one is have a good snack plate. Create a fun atmosphere. Whether that means you’re with people that you love to be around (including maybe people that you don’t spend much time with) or people who love to read, and then bring on some good food!

GR: What else are you reading and suggesting to friends?

JBH: I just finished Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams, which I really liked a lot. I’ve never met a protagonist like Queenie, and I thought it was fun and fresh and raw. So that was a good one.

I loved American Marriage. American Marriage was my favorite book of 2018, and I constantly recommend it to people just because I think it’s such a beautiful book, and one that you’ll read—like, I could read it again. And I think I’ll read it multiple times.

I like Tana French a lot—she’s an Irish mystery writer. I think her mysteries are really fun. I particularly liked The Secret Place.

Another British author, her name is Erin Kelly. She wrote a book called The Poison Tree. I'd recommend reading The Poison Tree first and then The Dark Rose. And she’s a mystery writer as well. I like mysteries.

I love Donna Tartt and Ann Patchett. I’ve read every single thing they’ve ever written, both of them. The Secret History is one of my go-tos that I recommend constantly for people.

And then another book called The Thirteenth Tale is one that is so much fun. It was out a long time ago and I read it, and then I’ve reread it, and then I’ve recommended it—my sister read it at the same time.

GR: What are some of your all-time-favorite books?

JBH: The Secret History, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and Bel Canto are a few of my all-time favorites. A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara is one of my favorites, too. It’s so beautiful.

And then I loved American Marriage and Homegoing.

GR: Tell us about your recent book club picks!















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