Whether via her highly successful book club or her production company, Jenna Bush Hager is bringing stories to life for diverse authors across the country.
"My kids call me the book lady,” shares Jenna Bush Hager with a laugh. As co-host of NBC’s TODAY with Hoda & Jenna and founder of the TODAY book club, Read With Jenna, it is a title she wears with pride. “From the beginning, our goal was to highlight debut and diverse voices; to hear stories from those that haven’t poised historically been listened to; to meet new authors who don’t necessarily have all the marketing money behind them and are just sort of on the brink of starting their careers,” shares Hager. “So it’s been an incredibly fulfilling journey because we’ve gotten to work with incredible authors, publishers and agents—but also the community of readers has just blown us away.”
Fulfilling, indeed. The wildly popular program boasts 53 book club selections to date, with 37 becoming New York Times bestsellers. Steadfast in her mission to highlight debut and diverse authors, most Read With Jenna picks are from first-time and diverse authors. Last year Bush signed a first-look production deal with Universal Studio Group to bring stories to life by developing and producing projects for television and film, launching her production company, Thousand Voices. Through these outlets, Jenna can bring books and stories to life by developing and producing projects for television and film. So far, 29 Read With Jenna books have been optioned.
"I’m so happy that we can be part of the Aspen Ideas Festival because it is a place where people can come together and listen. I don’t know that we do enough listening as a society, hear perspectives, which can be varied and different, and have dialogue. We can sit next to people and have conversations about some of the most important issues that we’re facing.”
Hager is excited to return to Aspen this summer to lead conversations at the AIF as part of the NBCUniversal News Group team. This year she conducts a variety of discussions, including a dialogue with Rainn Wilson on the importance of spirituality, an Aspen Ideas Festival Book Club conversation with Amor Towles and a Read with Jenna panel with authors Javier Zamora and Qian Julie Wang. The multitasking mom has been enjoying the rare beauty of Aspen since the age of sixteen, she says, when she first skied at Snowmass. “It’s just such a beautiful, beautiful place,” Hager marvels, sharing a long list of outdoor adventures she has enjoyed with her family throughout the seasons.
This November, Hager will debut her children’s book, Love Comes First, with her sister Barbara. Now both mothers with their expanding broods, the book was a joint labor of love. “I think what we wanted with this book is to show that families can grow, friends can grow, communities can grow—and there’s always room in our hearts for more love,” she says. “It’s the kids that teach us that, right? Our kids have an amazing capacity for love and acceptance.”
“I think storytelling is a catalyst for change,” says Hager. “I know that sounds kind of extreme. But we’ve witnessed amazing book club members who live all over the country read a book, have a conversation, and it opens their eyes to other’s lives. It creates empathy. It creates conversations—which we need more of right now. We’re living in a time that’s divisive and can be complicated. But I believe by witnessing these incredible people share their hearts and open up about stories different from theirs. There’s a commonality that we’re all human. We’re all connected by humanity. Having conversations and opening up a dialogue based around literature can bring us together—and when we need it more than ever—I’m so happy to be part of that.”
“I’m so happy that we can be part of the Aspen Ideas Festival because it is a place where people can come together and listen,” she says. “I don’t know that we listen enough as a society, hear perspectives, which can be varied and different, and have dialogue. We can sit next to people and have conversations about some of the most important issues that we’re facing. So I’m just so happy that we can be part of it. Because we all know what it felt like to be physically separated during the pandemic, but also ideologically. We often hear the words, ‘We’re so divided. Everything’s so hard,’ but being in the same room is when change happens, conversations happen, and people can connect. And I think we need that connection more now than ever.”
Photography by: Photographed by Elke Scholiers
