Question #24: Famous Recommendations

[Danine]

Some people get it from Oprah, but what about you? Have you ever got interested in reading a book because it was recommended by your favorite celebrity or well-known persona?

This Friday question brought to you by Dini. Thank you, Dini!

I hope everyone has a good weekend :)

[Aprile]

She is NOT my favourite celeb, but for awhile Oprah had some great choices on her book club. So I read a lot of them.

[Laurie]

I have "The Pity of It All: A Portrait of the German-jewish Epoch"" by Amos Elon on my TBR shelf because I read an interview where Natalie Portman had stated she read it and it really made her think and realize some things. I checked out what the book was about and sounds very intriguing.
Also, I read Maria Shriver's "Just Who Will You Be?" because she wrote it.

[KrisT]

I do like to see what celebs are reading. I don't necessarily go pick it up myself though. I also like watching tv or movies and if there are books being read on the show or even just sitting around the room I like to check them out to see why they might have made enough of an impression to make it to the show.

[Ed]

Danine wrote: "Some people get it from Oprah, but what about you? Have you ever got interested in reading a book because it was recommended by your favorite celebrity or well-known persona?

This Friday questio..."

I avoid Oprah's recommendations. I can't imagine reading a book because some celebrity liked it. I have picked up books that were recommended by people I admire and respect like Bill Moyer, etc. Sometimes I'm happy I did sometimes, I'm not.

[Dini]

Thanks Danine for posting my question :)

I don't follow Oprah's book club, but occasionally I got interested on books she featured on her show. That's how I found out about Middlesex and Into The Wild.

Also, I was first interested in Neil Gaiman after hearing that Eric Kripke, the creator of my favorite TV show Supernatural, listed Gaiman's American Gods as one of the inspirations behind the show. Although when I read it I found out that the book was too long, I still find his works fascinating.

[Lauren]

I don't follow any celeb book recommendations religiously. However, that being said I have read a number of Oprah's bookclub suggextions because they are good books! If I see a book recommendation that peaks my interest I may check out the book but I don't read something just because a celeb recommends it.

[Meg]

I do check out what Oprah selects. My dream in life is to be the person that picks the book selections for Oprah. Some of her selections have been amazing and I wouldn't have picked them up prior because I never knew about them. Julia Roberts helped Oprah pick a book one month, The Heart is the Lonely Hunter.

I read the NY Times book section and just read an article about what the presidents are reading or have read that were important to them. I read that President Obama was reading American Lion, biography of Andrew Jackson. It intrigued me and I ordered it, it looks like a masterful book and am really looking forward to reading it.

[Susan]

I am a huge fan of the now-sadly-ended TV show Gilmore Girls. Many of the show's characters are avid readers, Rory in particular, and I find myself looking up books either being read or mentioned on the show.

[Molly]

Susan wrote: "I am a huge fan of the now-sadly-ended TV show Gilmore Girls. Many of the show's characters are avid readers, Rory in particular, and I find myself looking up books either being read or mentioned ..."

Speaking of TV shows and books - "Lost" has a book club that is VERY diverse here:
http://abc.go.com/primetime/lost/inde...

[Rachel]

I realised last year that a lot of the books I was borrowing from the library had Richard and Judy Bookclub stickers on the front of them, so I've started to look to them for inspiration. Not all the books which they recommend are good but quite a lot of them are. For example, they've promoted A Quiet Belief in Angels by R. J. Ellory, The Girls by Lori Lansens and The Island by Victoria Hislop.

[Christie]

Kristen Armstrong does a blog on Runnersworld.com she mentioned "Swimming to Antartica" by Lynn Cox, it was one of the best I have ever read.

[Dana]

Susan wrote: "I am a huge fan of the now-sadly-ended TV show Gilmore Girls. Many of the show's characters are avid readers, Rory in particular, and I find myself looking up books either being read or mentioned ..."

Susan, you should check out the Rory Gilmore book club on Goodreads!

[Jonathan]

Bill Simmons of ESPN has a lot of great suggestions for sports books, if you're into that sort of thing.

[Molly]

Oh I agree with Jonathan - Bill Simmons' posts about sports books (and movies) are all great. His own book was pretty hilarious as well.

[Susan]

Dana wrote: "Susan wrote: "I am a huge fan of the now-sadly-ended TV show Gilmore Girls. Many of the show's characters are avid readers, Rory in particular, and I find myself looking up books either being read..."
I am a member of that club ;) but thanks Dana!

[Danine]

I don't read the Oprah picks. Most of the time her choices are far from what I would actually want to read. I am an advocate of the classics so I'm glad she choose a lot of classics to keep them fresh on people's minds and on reading lists.

I get a lot of recommendations from NPR. I've been thinking about this question for a week and no celebrities come to mind.

[Eva]

I like reading books that Jon Stewart talks about on his show. They're usually funny and smart.

[TheReadingKnitter/]

I hardly ever read a book just cause it was recommended by someone famous or anyone for that matter. Usually I look at the cover and if the cover or title is interesting I'll read the summary and if that's interesting then I'll put it on my TBR list.

[Tiffany, Administrator]

Like Eva, I get a few of my books from The Daily Show, as well as The Colbert Report. I also get a few authors from This American Life.

The most obvious "celebrity recommendations," or celebrity-induced reads, for me are Sister Carrie and The Illuminatus Trilogy , both brought on by The Posies. The Posies have a song called "Solar Sister," in which the lyric "I'll call you sister Carrie" and the phrase "sister Carrie" is repeated a few times throughout the song. When I found out there was a book called Sister Carrie, I had to find out if the song was in any way inspired by it (If it was, it wasn't obvious, at least not to me). Second, The Posies' "magic number" (as I call it) is 23, brought on (supposedly) by Illuminatus!, so of course I had to read that to see what all the fuss was about.

[ஐ Briansgirl (Book Queen)ஐ]

I would have to say no. I've never liked the books on Oprah's book lists. Always seemed like strange choices to me. Closest I've come is when I used to watch The Gilmore Girls, I was always curious to see what books Rory was reading. However, most of those looked boring to me, lol, so never picked up odd russian novels, etc just because she was reading them.