Jimmy Fallon is joining the ranks of Reese Witherspoon, Kaia Gerber, Emma Roberts, Emma Watson, Dakota Johnson, Dua Lipa, Amerie, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Florence Welch, and Jenna Bush Hager by starting a book club. In a marketplace oversaturated by famous women telling you which books to read, Fallon has a unique value proposition: He is a man with a TV show.
Last month after a March Madness–style tournament to pick his spring read, Fallon announced on the Tonight Show that his book club would be reading Nightwatching, a thriller by debut author Tracy Sierra. They even had one of those stickers that lets you know a celebrity approves of the book you’re about to read.
“We’re all gonna read this book together. I’ll be on social media checking in, letting you know where I’m at,” Fallon declared. As of last week he seems to be on “Chapter 14/15” and loving it. “Legit, I do not want to put this book down,” he wrote on Instagram under a photo of him looking at what seems like chapter 2/3.
Fallon tested out a book club last summer when he and his fans read Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin. Now the Fallon Book Club (FBC) is re-launching with more fanfare. There’s an Instagram account on which they’ve posted brief excerpts from the book and a Q&A with the author. People in the comments seem really into it, hyping up the book and talking about how they read it in one sitting. Fallon picking the book led to it jumping from No. 20,143 on Amazon to No. 46. Like Zevin before her, Sierra will get to appear on the Tonight Show. This is, above all else, great publicity for whomever Fallon picks.
Do I believe Fallon is actually an avid reader whose taste I should trust to guide me to my next read? Well, no. First of all, he didn’t pick this book. He let his fans vote on it. Second of all, in a recent interview with Anne Hathaway, Fallon didn’t seem too hot on the concept of “reading.”
“We don’t read. This is the Tonight Show. You wanna go over to Stephen Colbert if you wanna get people that read books.”
— Taylor Robinson (@finelytaylored) April 30, 2024
You could hear a PIN DROP I’m fucking crying help ??? ???? pic.twitter.com/0B6Q0b53jY
While promoting her movie The Idea of You, Hathaway asked the crowd if any of them had read the book it was based on. When no one said anything, Fallon joked, “This is the Tonight Show, you wanna go over to Stephen Colbert if you wanna get people that read books.” That is a funny joke but maybe not the one to make if you’re also on Instagram plugging your book club? Just my two cents!
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