The Stars of “Book Club: The Next Chapter” Share Books That Made a Difference

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In 2018, Candice Bergen, Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, and Mary Steenburgen teamed up to star in Book Club, a movie that highlights just how life-changing and inspiring starting a book club with your friends can be. In that movie, the ladies read 50 Shades of Grey, which inspired them to turn up the heat in their love lives and to make their next chapter of life the best one yet.

Now the ladies are back for a sequel. In Book Club: The Next Chapter (out now), they’re heading to Italy for a girls’ trip while reading Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist. Here, three of the stars—Candice Bergen, Jane Fonda, and Mary Steenburgen—share the books that made a difference in their real lives.

“After reading the script for Book Club: The Next Chapter, I read The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho, the book that inspires the ladies in the film throughout their Italian adventure. My favorite part about The Alchemist is the way it slowed my life down and focused me immediately. I love that it took you inside this tiny patch of sand and dissected it and brought you concentration and a focus on the immediate life. I loved the oasis. It was the biggest oasis I ever read about—300 palm trees. It was impressive! It makes you see that you have to embrace your life and the challenges that come with it.” —Candice Bergen

“On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal, by Naomi Klein, is a book I read in a day. It made up my mind to move to D.C. and engage in weekly nonviolent civil disobedience, which came to be called Fire Drill Fridays. It hit me like a bolt of lightning.” —Jane Fonda

“I very much loved the book Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel García Márquez. At the time I first read it, I wasn’t sure if I would ever know a lasting love in my life. After 30 years of being with my husband, Ted Danson, the book about a long and treasured love is more meaningful.” -Mary Steenburgen

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