Independent bookstores are running out of copies of a twenty-four-year-old feminist text, and the reason sits right in the White House.
When Vice President JD Vance dropped his new spiritual memoir, Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith, the publishing world braced for a massive conservative marketing blitz. What they didn't expect was a quiet, furious counter-revolution from local bookshops and readers who noticed a bizarre pattern in Vance's literary career.
This is the second time Vance has released a major book with a title that mirrors the work of the late Black feminist theorist and cultural critic bell hooks. Back in 2012, hooks published Appalachian Elegy. Vance followed years later with Hillbilly Elegy. Now, his 2026 release shares a distinct, single-word title with hooks's 2002 classic, Communion: The Female Search for Love.
Instead of letting the new political memoir dominate the shelves, independent booksellers across the country started a coordinated push. They told customers to buy the original Communion instead. The protest went viral, stock cleared out, and bell hooks climbed straight back onto the New York Times bestseller list.
The accidental revival of a feminist masterpiece
It started as a grassroots effort around Juneteenth. Bookstores in Boston and Minneapolis began setting up display tables putting the two books side by side. The message was clear: read the text that examines love, patriarchy, and community without domination, not the one serving as a political rebranding campaign.
The backlash points to a deeper frustration with how political figures use language. When someone like Vance writes a book called Communion, the search algorithms shift. A student looking for hooks's critical social theories is suddenly bombarded with promotional material for a Vice President's faith journey.
Buyers didn't just notice the coincidence; they actively weaponized their purchasing power. For independent shops, selling out of hooks's Communion became a badge of honor. It proved that readers want substance over political spin.
A strange habit of borrowing titles
You can argue that "communion" is just a common religious word. It carries heavy weight in Catholicism, the faith Vance famously embraced. But doing it twice feels less like an accident and more like a strategy.
Look at the two authors side by side.
- bell hooks wrote about Appalachia from the perspective of an insider who understood its deep history, its grief, and its marginalized voices without exploitation.
- JD Vance used Appalachia as a stepping stone, framing its struggles as a cultural failure that individuals just need to grit their teeth and overcome.
When hooks wrote Communion, she examined how women find love and selfhood in a world that tries to restrict them. Vance's Communion focuses on his own private spiritual journey back to faith while balancing his role as a political leader. The contrast couldn't be sharper. By reaching for words that hooks already filled with deep moral imagination, Vance accidentally reminds everyone of the superior thinker who came before him.
Why readers are choosing the 2002 original
If you walk into a bookstore right now looking for a real examination of connection, hooks gives you the hard truths. She didn't write about love as a sentimental feeling or a private escape. She wrote about it as an active practice that requires dismantling systems of power.
That message resonates deeply right now. People are tired of the sanitized, focus-grouped language coming out of Washington. Buying a copy of hooks's book isn't just an act of solidarity; it's a rejection of the idea that politicians get to dictate our cultural vocabulary.
If you want to understand this literary moment, skip the vice-presidential memoir line. Go support a local bookshop, order a copy of Communion by bell hooks, and read what actual cultural authority looks like.
This video provides context on JD Vance's book launch and his public messaging surrounding his new memoir.
