If we were pressed to select the face of the celebrity book club trend, we’d point to Kaia Gerber. Sure, the daughter of Cindy Crawford and Rande Gerber is a model by trade, but a scroll through her Instagram reveals a deep passion for literature.

Kaia Gerber’s book club has had a home online since 2020, building an audience of avid readers, book enthusiasts, friends, and fans. What started as a weekly Instagram Live evolved naturally into a community that uses reading as a gateway into some important, albeit difficult, conversations. Over the last three years, this book club has become the catalyst for dialogue over race, sex, loss, consent, motherhood, girlhood, queerness, addiction, abuse, climate change, and intersectionality among other topics.

Dubbed Library Science, the project intends on “spotlighting young voices, debut writers, translations, contemporary classics,” with a promise that “you won’t be seeing the typical bestseller list here.” Rather, Library Science is committed to showcasing new fiction, short stories, poetry collections, and plays that “we really feel open us all up to larger (sometimes difficult) conversations,” read an Instagram post. To mark a new chapter of the project, Gerber recently hosted a conversation with Iranian-American poet Kaveh Akbar about his debut novel, Martyr!, which launched in the US earlier this year, immediately landing on The New York Times best sellers list. The in-conversation style interview is expected to be a regular feature for Library Science audiences.

By visiting the Library Science website, you can find a shoppable recap of the previous titles chosen as part of the book club. They include Slave Play by Jeremy O. Harris, Acts of Service by Lillian Fishman, Joan Didion’s Play It As It Lays, and Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Moving forward, the mission is simple: get young people reading. Library Science will continue to curate books that aren’t on the typical bestseller lists in order to better highlight new voices, writers to watch, and overlooked or underrepresented stories. For greater context, they will occasionally throw in a classic that might better inform contemporary work. They cover writers and books from all points of view to reinforce the truth that all books are for everyone and that we often learn the most from the stories that aren’t our own

With Library Science, Kaia Gerber is not just sharing her love for reading but is also creating a platform for critical and impactful discussions. Her initiative stands out in the sea of celebrity book clubs by emphasizing diverse voices and challenging conversations, making it a meaningful addition to the literary community. Thanks for being here –– we’re so excited to keep reading with you.