books to read based on your zodiac sign

While you’re working on your resolutions and reading goals, here's the ultimate book recommendation list and best book club books based on your zodiac sign. We’ve consulted the oracles and here’s what you’re destined to read in 2023!

The Rebel ♒

Aquarius: January 20 – February 17

Element: Air

Character Traits: Esoteric, independent, rational, contrary, inscrutable, outcast

Famous Aquarians: Harry Styles, Oprah Winfrey, Gertrude Stein, Langston Hughes

Book: The Bandit Queens by Parini Schroff.

Release date: January 3, 2023

book cover image of The Bandit Queens

Aquarians are the rebels of the Zodiac; they think for themselves and don't let anyone write the rules of their lives. There's never much you can predict about an Aquarian's next step as they live in the present moment and tend to roll with whatever comes their way, which is what happens when Geeta’s no-good husband disappears. Village rumor has it that Geeta killed him because she’s clearly enjoying the freedom of her widowhood. But Geeta’s dangerous outsider reputation becomes a double-edged sword, when women start asking for her help, making her an unwitting consultant for husband disposal. “Filled with clever criminals, second chances, and wry and witty women, Parini Shroff’s The Bandit Queens is a razor-sharp debut of humor and heart that readers won’t soon forget.”

The Dreamer ♓

Pisces: February 18 – March 19

Element: Water

Character Traits: Dreamy, emotional, imaginative, romantic, fluid, introspective

Famous Pisceans: Rhianna, Albert Einstein, Simone Biles

Book: Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age by Katherine May

Release date: February 28, 2023

This one goes out to all the dreamers. Pisceans have a gift for intuition and sensitivity. These innate talents allow them to feel their way through an inward-facing boundless life full of dreaminess and imagination. In Enchantment, May invites the reader to come with her on a journey to reawaken our innate sense of wonder and awe that is often lost in the anxious grind of an ever-changing modern life that often makes us feel fatigued and fearful. In this follow-up from her 2020 hit, Wintering: The Power of Rest & Retreat in Difficult Times (a Bookclubs staff favorite), May explores the restorative properties of the natural world, teaching us –like a Pisces–how to move through life with curiosity and tenderness, sensitized to the subtle magic all around. “Enchantment invites each of us to open the door to human experience in all its sensual complexity, and to find the beauty waiting for us there.”

The Ram ♈

Aries: March 20 – April 19

Element: Fire

Character Traits: Competitive, honest, direct, intense, spontaneous, hot-headed, impulsive

Famous Aries: Reese Witherspoon, Lady Gaga, Tennessee Williams

Book: My Nemesis by Charmaine Craig

Release date: February 7, 2023

book cover of My Nemesis

An Aries gives zero F's and they can come across as too harsh on others because they are wholly unafraid of conflict, highly competitive, and brutally honest. They are driven by a desire to prove themselves and their strength, much like Tessa, the protagonist of Craig’s thought-provoking sophomore novel, My Nemesis, who clashes with Wah, the wife of a philosopher-scholar friend, going so far as to call the latter “an insult to womankind.” My Nemesis is an immersive and searing story of two women, the rivalry between them, and the ways we publicly define and privately deceive ourselves.

The Naturist ♉

Taurus: April 20 – May 20

Sign: Earth

Character Traits: Dependable, practical, patient, physical, committed, fears change, stubborn

Famous Taureans: Queen Elizabeth II, Charlotte Brontë, William Shakespeare

Book: Saving Time by Jenny Odell

Release date: March 7, 2023

book cover for Saving Time by Jenny Odell

Taureans are often known for being bullish or stubborn, but this earth sign also has a unique connection to nature causing them to be grounded, stable, and resolved. They’re the perfect audience for bestselling author Jenny Odell’s subversive new book which argues that humanity has been living on the wrong clock for too long and it’s destroying us. Odell takes a deep dive into the fundamental structure of our society and found that the clock we live by was built for profit, not people. This is why our lives, even in leisure, have come to seem like a series of moments to be bought, sold, and processed ever more efficiently. Saving Time tugs at the seams of reality as we know it—the way we experience time itself—and rearranges it, imagining a world not centered on work, the office clock, or the profit motive.

The Twin ♊︎

Gemini: May 21 – June 20

Element: Air

Character Traits: Intelligent, analytical, inconsistent, perceptive, versatile, expressive, worried

Famous Geminis: Marilyn Monroe, Louise Erdrich, Joyce Carol Oates

Book: Sam by Allegra Goodman

Release date: January 3, 2023

book cover of Sam

A Gemini mind is an endless race track. They are perceptive and analytical with an unreserved, childlike curiosity scanning under the surface of their current reality for something that they haven’t seen before. Gemini’s namesake is the twin, a symbol of duality, and I can’t think of a better example of duality than the exciting, confusing, joyful, and painful experience of moving from childhood to adulthood. In this Read With Jenna Book Club pick, author Allegra Goodman offers us a tender yet unforgettable coming-of-age portrait in Sam and asks us, “what happens to a girl's sense of joy and belonging--to her belief in herself--as she becomes a woman?”

The Empath ♋

Cancer: June 21 – July 21

Element: Water

Character Traits: Highly sensitive, layered, moody, guarded, deep, empathetic

Famous Cancers: Mindy Kaling, Susan Sontag, Tom Hanks

Book: Bad Cree by Jessica Johns

Release date: January 10, 2023

book cover of Bad Cree

The Cancer personality is layered and sensitive, often weighed down by their own sorrows and the sorrows of those around them, feeling haunted by grief. It’s hard for Cancers to share their pain and vulnerability with others, fearing that their weaknesses may be used against them. They’re an exposed nerve, just like Mackenzie, the protagonist in a debut novel spun from alarming omens, complicated grief, and eerie dreams. Returning home to her rural hometown in Alberta, she finds her family still steeped in the same grief that she ran away to Vancouver to escape. They welcome her back, but their shaky reunion only seems to intensify her terrible dreams--and make them more dangerous. Author Paul Tremblay classifies Bad Cree as a “mystery and a horror story about grief, but one with defiant hope in its beating heart."

The (Fierce & Fabulous) Lion ♌

Leo: July 22 – August 22

Element: Fire

Character Traits: Warm, creative, vain, brash, charismatic, confident

Famous Cancers: J.Lo, Meghan Markle, Aldous Huxley

Book: Horse Barbie: A Memoir by Geena Rocero

Release date: May 30, 2023

book cover of Horse Barbie by Geena Rocero

Ruled by the heart, Leos are bold, warm, and loving. They’re ambitious, captivating, natural performers confident in their instincts and abilities. They live for praise, but when they’re hurting, it shows. In Horse Barbie, model-turned-producer Geena Rocero pens a heartfelt memoir of her life as a prominent and successful trans pageant queen from the Philippines who went back into the closet to model in New York City — until she realized she felt most powerful living her truth as the iconoclast she’d always been. When she moved to the United States, Rocero was able to change her name and gender marker on her documents, but in order to survive, she went stealth and hid her trans identity, gaining one type of freedom and truth at the expense of another. The tenuous double life finally led Geena to a breaking point when she had to decide how to reclaim her power and truth. “A radiant testimony from an icon who sits at the center of transgender history."

The Perfectionist ♍

Virgo: August 23 – September 22

Element: Fire

Character Traits: Perfectionist, critical, particular, self-contained, anxious, productive, chaotic

Famous Virgins: Prince Harry, Zendaya, Mary Oliver

Book: Spare by Prince Harry

Release date: January 10, 2023

book cover of Spare by Prince Harry

We had to include the highly anticipated celebrity memoir from Prince Harry, a Virgo in the flesh. Virgos are perfectionists; finicky, cautious, and critical to a fault. They also may have trouble expressing themselves and hide inside their introverted fortress (in Harry’s case, Buckingham palace). Much like the royal family in general, Virgos are also known for being intelligent, yet you rarely know what they’re thinking and feeling deep inside. The Duke of Sussex’s memoir promises to change all that by spilling the tea about the monarchy in his painfully honest look at what it was like growing up in the royal family after Princess Diana’s tragic death and details the challenges that led Harry and Meghan Markle to step back from their royal duties.

The Charmer ♎

Libra: September 23 – October 22

Sign: Air

Character Traits: Social, indecisive, receptive, empathetic, sensitive, needy, adventurous

Famous Libras: Serena Williams, Ursula K. Le Guin, Cardi B.

Book: Quietly Hostile, by Samantha Irby

Release Date: May 16, 2023

book cover of Quietly Hostile by Samantha Irby

In true Libra fashion, Irby is a charming constellation of personalities. Libras are simultaneously extroverted and introverted, strategic and spontaneous, focused and intuitive. ant to be seen as the responsible figure who can balance out the turbulent elements around them. There is nothing quiet about this new collection of side-splitting essays by the hilarious Samantha Irby, touching on everything from her rotting teeth, QVC obsession, and frequent bouts of diarrhea due to Crohn’s disease. She also provides gems of advice for the bathroom etiquette you were dying to know but were always too afraid to ask and how to speak with a teenager. Quietly Hostile takes us on another outrageously funny tour of all the gory details that make up the true portrait of her relatable life behind the fame.

The Enigma ♏

Scorpio: October 23 – November 21

Sign: Water

Character Traits: Probing, complex, popular, manipulative, mysterious, perceptive

Famous Scorpios: Zadie Smith, Pablo Picasso, Kurt Vonnegut

Book: Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez, translated by Megan McDowell

Release date: February 7, 2023

book cover of Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez

Perhaps the darkest sign of the zodiac, Scorpios are notoriously difficult people to get to know. They’re blunt, yet tactful, and very intentional about what they reveal and what they conceal. Scorpios boldly confront the things most other people fear: darkness, pain, and death. Likewise, Our Share of Night is a novel like no other: a family saga, a ghost story, and a tale of the occult and supernatural. A woman’s mysterious death puts her husband and son on a collision course with her demonic family, a terrifying cult in search of immortality. Editor Kelly Link warns this book is not for the faint of heart, “Reader, beware! Our Share of Night is a novel so disquieting, so unsettling that I could neither put it down nor read it late at night.”

The Empiricist ♐

Sagittarius: November 22 – December 20

Sign: Fire

Character Traits: Friendly, magnanimous, optimistic, explorer, reckless, restless, insatiable

Famous Sags: Joan Didion, Brittany Spears, Brad Pitt

Book: Who Gets Believed? by Dina Nayeri

Release date: March 7, 2023

book cover of Who Gets Believed by Dina Nayeri

The Sagittarius is a devoted empiricist concerned with justice and seems to spend much of their life on a quest to promote truth. They are explorers of the human condition and are unafraid of change. They are fearless adventurers as well as jaded critics. For these reasons, Sag readers will be drawn to the work of award-winning author and former refugee, Dina Nayeri. Through "shocking and illuminating case studies of asylum seekers to emergency rooms to corporate offices, Who Gets Believed? is a reckoning with our culture’s views on believability and a “form-shifting memoir of an already-remarkable life.”

The Fixer ♑

Capricorn: December 21 – January 19

Sign: Earth

Character Traits: Responsible, disciplined, mature, dutiful, reserved, pragmatic, level-headed

Famous Caps: Michelle Obama, Dolly Parton, Martin Luther King, Jr.

Book: Night Wherever We Go by Tracey Rose Peyton

Release date: January 3, 2023

book cover of Night Wherever We Go by Tracey Rose Peyton

Capricorns have a strong sense of responsibility and desire to fix things, which is why they will respond to this gripping, debut novel about a group of enslaved women on a Texas plantation determined to protect themselves by staging a covert rebellion against their owners. Like Capricorns, these women don’t want to be admired, but they do want to be respected and they're driven by a need to prove their own abilities to themselves. “Visceral and arresting, Night Wherever We Go illuminates each woman's individual trials and desires while painting a subversive portrait of collective defiance.”

For further astrological reading and book recommendations, explore the titles below and browse the public book clubs reading them:

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