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Reese Witherspoon’s book club pick is the perfect cosy read for autumn
‘The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year’ traces a year-in-the-life in the author’s garden
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What do the viral books Daisy Jones and The Six, Where the Crawdads Sing and Little Fires Everywhere have in common? They were all selected for Reese Witherspoon’s book club.
Launched in 2017, the actor started a trend for celebrity-backed book clubs (see Dua Lipa, Kaia Gerber and Dakota Johnson). But Reese’s remains the most popular.
Sharing monthly recommendations with her millions of loyal subscribers online and with her Instagram followers, her only criteria for picking a tome is that a woman must be front and centre of the story.
This hasn’t just impacted the global bestseller lists (Reese Book Club picks regularly secure spots in The New York Times), but also influencesd Hollywood. From Daisy Jones to the upcoming Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine movie, many of the books are adapted for the screen through Witherspoon’s production company, Hello Sunshine.
The pick for September 2024 is special in more ways than one, being the 100th book selected and authored by Witherspoon’s high school English teacher, Margaret Renkl. Here’s everything you need to know to read or listen along this month.
‘The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year’ by Margaret Renkl, published by Spiegel & Grau: £18.43, Amazon.co.uk
A warm read to ease you into autumn, The Comfort of Crows follows the creatures and plants in Renkl’s back garden over the course of a year. Moving through various seasons and life events (from grown children home during the pandemic preparing to leave again), there’s crows observed in December, bluebirds in December and songbirds in spring.
Described by Witherspoon as a “beautiful love letter to nature and the world around us”, it’s divided into fifty-two chapters, capturing both the joy of ongoing pleasures and the grief of fleeting moments.
The book is currently out of stock but you can pre-order it for delivery when it’s back, or read along for Reese’s Book Club on Kindle and Apple ebooks. Plus, listen on Audible with narration from Renkl herself.
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Want more recommendations? These are the books to pick up in 2024