Pro sports teams with book clubs? They’re more common than you think

It’s starting to feel like everyone has a book club these days. 

Think musician Dua Lipa, influencer Morgann Book, actor Reese Witherspoon and broadcaster Oprah — just to name a few. 

But the latest book club trend is happening somewhere you might not expect: professional athletes are organizing book clubs for their teammates. 

In the NBA, the San Antonio Spurs players Victor Wembanyama and Harrison Barnes have a book club and are trying to get more team members to join, according to a video on the league’s YouTube channel. 

The NHL’s San Jose Sharks also have a book club on the go, composed of Will Smith, Macklin Celebrini, Tyler Toffoli and Ty Dellandrea, and it’s become a bit of a running joke that none of the players will reveal what they’re reading. 

Book clubs are also a bonding activity for athletes of the PWHL and the WNBA — including the Toronto Sceptres, Montreal Victoire, Toronto Tempo and New York Liberty.

“A lot of us really love reading,” said Toronto Sceptres forward Claire Dalton on an episode of The Next Chapter, recorded in February of this year. 

She previously played for the Montreal Victoire and was part of the team’s book club, so it was “just sort of natural” to bring it to Toronto, she said. 

Dalton started the book club with the team’s goalie Raygan Kirk, who also had one on her team in college as a way to debrief recent reads and unwind with her teammates. 

“I would have loved to do it last year, but as a rookie, I wasn't going to kind of come up and say, ‘Let's do this,’” she said. 

The Sceptres’ book club met over coffee during the season, combing Google and Reddit for prompts for their conversations, said Kirk. Their books have included Gone Before Goodbye by Reese Witherspoon and Harlan