Oprah's New Book Club Selection Has A Matching Playlist & It's The Perfect Reading Soundtrack

If you like to mix music into your reading routine, you're in luck, because the playlist for Oprah's new book club pick is almost as good as the book itself. Author Tayari Jones has put together a Spotify playlist for her critically acclaimed novel, An American Marriage, and you can listen to it right now!

The latest pick for Oprah's Book Club, An American Marriage centers on Roy and Celestial, a young married couple who are separated by tragedy when executive Roy is arrested and jailed in Louisiana for a crime he did not commit. Left in Atlanta, artist Celestial finds herself drawn into a new relationship with her best friend Andre, who narrates the book's later chapters. After serving just five years of a 12-year sentence, Roy is unexpectedly exonerated, but his return is not the happy reunion he might have imagined.

An American Marriage just hit store shelves earlier this month, so it hasn't been nominated for any awards yet, but you can bet it's on its way to shortlists as the year wears on. As of Friday morning, the book held the No. 2 spot on the New York Times Best Seller List for Hardcover Fiction.

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones, $16, Amazon

Tayari Jones put together the An American Marriage Spotify playlist above for Largehearted Boy's Book Notes series, which tasks authors with combining inspirational or narrative music with their books. Lauren Groff (Fates and Furies), Amy Bloom (Where the God of Love Hangs Out), Jesmyn Ward (Men We Reaped), Hari Kunzru (Gods Without Men), and others have contributed similar lists in the past.

Jones' list includes a lot of R&B hits, including two from Stevie Wonder. She begins her playlist with Prince's "Adore," which describes a passionate love affair between two chaotic young people, and ends it with Wonder's "As," which Jones says is the story of "a communion that takes its quiet but awesome strength from the interconnectedness of the entire universe." The An American Marriage Spotify playlist also includes songs from Etta James ("I'd Rather Go Blind"), Luther Vandross ("Superstar"), and DMX ("Party Up").

If you haven't picked up Tayari Jones' An American Marriage yet, you can read an excerpt of it here. Oprah's website has a reading guide for the novel, but be warned, it contains major spoilers for the events of the book, so I'd recommend avoiding it until you're ready to talk about An American Marriage with your book club.

What's your favorite bookish playlist?

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones, $16, Amazon