Celebrity Book Club Selections You’ll Want to Dive Into in June 2025

Since starting her book club in 2021, Natalie Portman has recommended everything from classics like Henry Thoreau’s “Walden” to modern bestsellers like “Crying in H Mart” by Michelle Zauner. Now, for June 2025, the “Black Swan” star chose Helen DeWitt’s witty book, “The English Understand Wool.” Portman wrote on the club’s Instagram page, “A gift from my friend Bessie and our June book pick! Helen DeWitt’s novella is a darkly funny but honest look at the exploitation of trauma within publishing.” 

The 69-page short story, which came out in 2022 and has a 4.3 rating on Amazon, follows the story of Marguerite, who was reared in a hoity-toity environment before venturing to New York City to take on the publishing world. One reviewer who gave the book five stars wrote, “This is for a very discerning reader.” Portman doesn’t do low-brow, after all, and if you think this sounds right up your alley, you should definitely check it out.

For her June 2025 Service95 book club pick, singer Dua Lipa offers up “Widow Basquiat,” which was published in 2000. The biography, written by Jennifer Clement, follows the romance of renowned street artist and painter Jean-Michel Basquiat and Suzanne Malouk.

With New York City in the ’80s as the backdrop, with all its artistic characters from Andy Warhol to Madonna featuring, the book deals with themes of ambition, drugs, racism, jealousy, and excess. “As much as anything, this is a love letter to an almost mythical New York City that no longer exists. To say I loved ‘Widow Basquiat’ is an understatement. I’m sure you will too,” Lipa wrote on the book club’s website.

The book has 4.4 stars out of 5 on Goodreads, with one five-star reviewer writing, “This book didn’t try to make excuses for him, it just stated the facts. Definitely a must-read for any Basquiat fans.” Another said, “This book totally blew me away.”

Dakota Johnson started the TeaTime Book Club in 2024 as a complement to her production company of the same name. For June 2025, Johnson’s pick is Susan Choi’s “Flashlight,” which was just published at the top of the month. On the club’s Instagram page, the “Madame Web” actor summarized the novel, “It’s about tracing a father’s disappearance across time, nations, and memory. It will make your head spin in the best way.” On Goodreads, the book has a 4.09 rating, and one reviewer echoed Johnson’s praise, writing, “I could not put down this big beautiful expansive story! Filled with emotion, love, grief, and family drama, the gorgeous prose grabbed me from the first pages.”

And then there’s National Book Award winner Choi, whose way with words is both elegant and confronting at the same time. You can expect sadness, struggle, family secrets, and espionage. Sounds like all the makings of a thriller that could be a box-office hit, doesn’t it, Johnson?

If you’re not already busy with the best summer beach reads from Reese’s Book Club, then consider Reese Witherspoon’s June book club pick, “The Phoenix Pencil Company” by novelist and software engineer Allison King. The book, which also hit shelves in early June 2025, follows the cross-generational story between a young woman and her grandmother.

One Amazon reviewer who gave the book five stars wrote, “The Phoenix Pencil Company by Allison King will definitely make it to my list of favorite books in 2025. This inventive novel has a bit of magic in it but it grounds itself in the very real history of China during WWII, its civil war, and the present.” King pulls readers in with easy-to-picture locations, beautiful characters that you root for, and the emotional backdrops of war and failing health due to aging. Oh, and the book has 4.4 stars on Amazon.

She’s a pop-jazz singer, Iceland’s most successful music artist, a Grammy winner, a social media sensation with more than 8.3 million TikTok followers, and also a book club maven — we’re naturally talking about Laufey. In August 2022, she announced that she was starting a book club to her followers, writing, “Books and storytelling have always been really important to me, especially as a songwriter! I’m so excited to talk to you all about it.”

To introduce her recommendation for June 2025, the singer wrote, “Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors navigates grief, addiction, and the complexities of family to find healing and reconnection.” The novel has a 4.1 rating on Amazon. Laufey isn’t the first celebrity to recommend “Blue Sisters,” either. Jenna Bush Hager put her stamp of approval on the book, recommending it in September 2024. Bush Hager likened the book to a modern day “Little Women.” After one of the sisters dies, the other three come back together from their homes around the globe to work through their past issues and present grief alike. As one Goodreads reviewer put it, “I knew this was going to be a 5-star read from the very first paragraph and it somehow just got better and better.”

We have no doubts that the celebrities above are challenged every month to narrow their picks down to one book. So, how did we decide which celebrity picks to include? For starters, we wanted a variety of options, from a sweeping, heart-wrenching novel to a humorous short story. We also included the opinions of members of their book clubs, who posted their feedback on the clubs’ social media pages, and we took into consideration the feedback and rankings on Goodreads and retail sites like Amazon.