Reading Lists

These books take a critical look at fame, without sacrificing the glamour and complexity of life in the limelight

Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash

Being interested in celebrity is not something most people like to admit. It’s a waste of time! Crass! Anti-intellectual, even, to be so invested in the lives of people you’ll never meet.* *But the thing is, as anyone who has clandestinely scrolled down the Daily Mail’s sidebar of shame or taken a cursory interest in Taylor Swift’s romantic life will tell you, fame—*real *fame, the kind that we all implicitly recognize but very few possess—is fascinating.

For my part, I’ve had an almost morbid curiosity about fame for as long as I can remember: As a child growing up in the 00s, I would take every chance I could to catch up on what was going on in the public lives of the rich and glamorous. I did my best to hide my guilty pleasure, but I still whiled away more hours than I could count refreshing gossip blogs and leafing through tabloids. As I got older, that interest morphed into something more critical, and I started to think more deeply about the relationship between us (the general public), them (famous people), and the strange, quixotic social contract we all cosign that keeps them on their pedestals—or in their gilded cages, depending on which way you look at it. And believe me: I’ve looked at it every which way. Ultimately, it’s what led me to write my debut novel, I Make My Own Fun, a satirical examination of celebrity culture and obsession. I wanted to unpick fame as a cultural phenomenon and see what might happen when stratospheric, excessive fame goes unchecked. How might society bend to keep someone famous? What privileges does that level of celebrity *really *afford someone? And what might they get away with?

That desire to understand fame and the ways we all participate in it has also informed my reading choices over the years. I’m a wide reader—I like everything from searing social commentary to delicious beach reads and plenty in between, but one of the unifying traits among the books that stay with me is a character that feels like they’re spilling out and over the pages, brimming with complexity, or charm, or intensity. Naturally, books about famous people—fictional or otherwise—tend to have this in spades, and I’ll keep coming back to them over and over.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

It’s not possible to make a list of this kind and leave out Taylor Jenkins Reid. I had my pick—complex famous women are TJR’s specialty—but I had to go with Evelyn Hugo because the eponymous protagonist has that seismic, dial-shifting fame that is so difficult to capture. The book follows Evelyn Hugo, an elusive, Elizabeth Taylor-eqsue actor, as she opens up for the first time about her rise to fame, her decades in the spotlight, and her infamous seven marriages. This is the book you take on holiday and delay pre-dinner drinks to finish reading: It’s propulsive, emotionally absorbing, and oozing with old-Hollywood delights.

The Meaning of Mariah Carey by Mariah Carey

Mariah Carey knows she’s a character, and the title of her memoir conveys a heavy wink to camera. But The Meaning of Mariah Carey is as much a meditation on how she became the Mariah we know today—she admits in the book that she didn’t feel like “her life” would begin until she had a record deal—as it is a study of the sheer resilience needed to get there. Working with the writer Micheala Angela Davis, Mariah takes us through her difficult (often traumatic) childhood, the experience of growing up mixed race in 1970s America, and her emotionally abusive marriage to Tommy Mottola (it’s hard not to see the parallels of that relationship, where she was monitored via cameras constantly, and the height of her fame). It is not at all what you might expect from a celebrity memoir, veering away from gossip and closer to deep self-excavation.

It’s Terrible the Things I Have To Do To Be Me by Philippa Snow

Philippa Snow writes about fame as an art form, and when I first discovered her work, it felt electric. Here was someone writing with such intelligence, such clarity of thought, and infinite wit about things that until that point I’d felt a lingering embarrassment for being interested in. From Marilyn Monroe and Anna Nicole Smith to Elizabeth Taylor and Lindsay Lohan, the book looks at famous women whose lives mirror each other in some way or another as a vehicle for examining fame, femininity, and the complex relationship between the two. *It’s Terrible the Things I Have to Do to Be Me *is a biting exploration of fame as performance, whose excellent title is taken directly from something Anna Nicole Smith said in court. Fabulous!

The Favorites by Layne Fargo

Wuthering Heights meets Ice Princess. Need I say more? In all seriousness, I was wildly entertained by this novel. Following competitive figure skater Katarina Shaw and her childhood sweetheart-turned skating partner Heath Rocha on their dramatic, often scandalous road to the Olympics, it’s a tale of love, ambition, and notoriety. It asks whether it’s possible to have one without sacrificing the others. What this book does well—alongside making reading about figure skating feel like watching it (no mean feat)—is showcase just how many people are involved in making—and keeping—somebody famous. It offers as much a peek behind the fame machine as it does the world of Olympians, and I gobbled it up in one sitting.

Didion & Babitz by Lili Anolik

Joan Didion and Eve Babitz were two of the most celebrated chroniclers of twentieth century life, including Hollywood and high society. They were also, to use common parlance, frenemies of the highest order. Or were they? Set against a backdrop of LA in the 60s and 70s, Anolik’s biography of the relationship between these two women is wonderfully gossipy. So be warned: If you are someone who believes themselves above gossip, it’s not for you. Anolik herself and her loyalty to Babitz (whom she has written about many times) are also very present in the text—but if you enjoy dipping your toes into the murky waters of second and indeed third-hand tea, then you will have a great time with Didion & Babitz.

Swing Time by Zadie Smith

As an adopted North Londoner (I moved to this city at 18), I’m a long-time Zadie Smith fan. I love how perfectly she paints my city in all its grey glory, which often serves as the backdrop to her novels, including Swing Time, which moves from London to New York to West Africa in a sweeping, intricate story of friendship, talent, and privilege. The central relationship is between our unnamed narrator and her childhood best friend Tracey, both dancers desperate to use their love of music to leave their neighborhood. But it’s the figure of Aimee, the enormously famous pop star who becomes our narrator’s ticket out of her housing estate, that serves as an excellent commentary on contemporary celebrity and the often posturing philanthropism that come with it.

The Most Famous Girl in the World by Iman Hariri-Kia

If you followed the rise and fall of Anna Delvey, German-farm-girl-turned-European-art-magnate-turned-imprisoned-scam-artist (whew!) then you will devour this book. The Most Famous Girl in the World is about Rose Aslani, a first-gen Middle Eastern American journalist who writes an article that breaks the internet, revealing socialite Poppy Hastings to be a scammer. A pace-y, satirical skewering of a very 2020s type of celebrity, this is a mixed-media joyride of a book about society’s fixation on fame and the lengths people will go to get to the top—and tear someone back down.

Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry

Emily Henry is the reigning queen of the beach read (she even wrote a book called Beach Read). Often, her novels are about writers falling in and out (and in again) of love with each other, and *Great Big Beautiful Life *is no exception. But it’s the story within the story that makes this novel a welcome addition to the “books about fame” canon. Two writers are brought together to compete for the commission of the biography of Margaret Ives, the reclusive scion of a great American entertainment dynasty. Think the Coppolas and then magnify them. This is at once a sweet romance and a juicy, emotive story of the highs and lows of a life lived entirely in public view and the complicated baggage we inherit from our families, and yes—I read it on a beach, and it was perfect.

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