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When Jenna Bush Hager was growing up in Texas, she always found solace in reading. Books she loved early on as a kid included “The Baby-Sitters Club,” with its messages of female empowerment and entrepreneurship. Books she has grown to love as an adult include the approximately 70 selections named to her “Read with Jenna” book club, which was launched in 2019, the year she was named a co-host on NBC’s Today show of its fourth hour, “Today with Hoda & Jenna.”
The twin sister to Barbara Pierce Bush — and daughter to former President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush — began her book club with a mission to honor and celebrate newer authors, female authors, and writers with diverse backgrounds as a way to help cast more light on their work. It’s been a success, with well over half of her picks hitting the bestseller lists including her most recent selection, “All the Colors of the Dark” by writer Chris Whitaker.
“People love book recommendations,” said Bush Hager at Explore Booksellers at an intimate reception on June 24. Hot off the press, it was the first time Whitaker had seen the finished book, replete with the “Read with Jenna” sticker on the cover.
“I still don’t believe it,” he said. “It’s the Jenna Effect.”
The novel had sold a few thousand copies as pre-orders until the announcement of it being her book of the month for July when it hit 10,000 sales in a day and soon reached #1 on Amazon’s bestseller list.
Whitaker’s book “blends genres,” noted Bush Hager in describing why it resonated with her. “It’s a love story. It’s a thriller. It takes place in a small town in America.
“Chris is from London,” she continued, “but he understands small-town America.”
She added, “If you turn on the TV, you can lose hope. People want interaction and conversations, and that’s what good books do.”
Explore Booksellers, the site of the reception, is owned by the Center for Public Interest Research, whose mission includes serving the Aspen community by hosting free literary events with local and visiting authors, educational events, and workshops with a variety of speakers, round table discussions, and other programming with thought-leaders of the day.
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2024-06-29 05:30:00Z
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