Biblioracle: Questlove is getting his own publishing imprint. These other celebrities should get one.

Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson — musician, author, award-winning documentarian — is going to have his own publishing imprint, AUWA, nested under MCD books, which is part of one of the Big Five publishers, Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Thompson, best known as drummer for the Roots and director of the Oscar-winning documentary “Summer of Soul,” says he sees his new imprint as similar to a record label. His goal will be to “keep my ear to the streets, keep it underground and keep my eyes on people that you otherwise would have never have heard of, but who I feel can really do a paradigm shift.”

This is great news on the publishing front. I’ve long been a champion of publishers tapping talented creators as scouts for writers who may not grab attention via the traditional routes.

I said the same thing just about two years ago, following the announcement that Roxane Gay would be overseeing her own publishing imprint for Grove Atlantic. I wish I was championing this kind of news more often than every couple of years.

Perhaps the problem is that publishers need some help thinking of celebrity artists who they should consider for the gigs. If that is the problem, I’ve got some suggestions below.

At the top of my list is Janelle Monáe because there’s obviously nothing that the singer, rapper, actress and writer cannot do, so having a publishing imprint shouldn’t be too tough. More important is the fact that she has already created a multimedia narrative with her album “Dirty Computer,” which was also turned into a sci-fi film and associated short story collection, “The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer.” While Questlove may have his ear to the streets, Monáe seems like she’d have her eye on the stars.

Next on my list is my favorite of the acting Chrises, Chris Pine, star of the most recent “Star Trek” reboots and super charming in his role as Wonder Woman’s love interest, Steve Trevor. Pine was an English major at UC Berkeley. He recently revealed an eclectic taste when giving Esquire a list of 15 books he thinks everyone should read, blowing past the magazine’s requested number of five. Sounds like a guy who knows what he likes, a necessity for a good head of an imprint.

Since we’re a Chicago publication, we need some Chicagoans, so how about a joint effort between two of our own who are already buddies: Jeff Tweedy and Nick Offerman?

Wilco frontman Tweedy has published poetry, memoir and the delightful quasi-self-help book, “How to Write One Song,” while Offerman is a passionate reader and author of several books of his own, including, “Where the Deer and the Antelope Play: The Pastoral Observations of One Ignorant American Who Loves to Walk Outside,” which features a hiking trip between Offerman, Tweedy and writer George Saunders. I’d love to see what they would do if they put their heads together. They can invite Saunders along as a creative adviser.

Quinta Brunson’s ABC sitcom “Abbott Elementary” has done more to illuminate the lives of teachers and students attempting to work under very trying conditions than a dozen sober documentaries, while being delightfully funny and utterly charming in the process. For Brunson, I see an imprint that takes on contemporary issues but does so in a way that’s engaging and illuminating to regular folks, much like her show.

I know these are all busy people and the relatively low glamour of books and publishing pales next to their primary gigs, but I’d be genuinely fascinated to see what kind of books they’d shepherd into the world.

John Warner is the author of “Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities.”

Twitter @biblioracle

Book recommendations from the Biblioracle

John Warner tells you what to read based on the last five books you’ve read.

1. “The Candy House” by Jennifer Egan

2. “I Have Some Questions for You” by Rebecca Makkai

3. “Lessons in Chemistry” by Bonnie Garmus

4. “Horse” by Geraldine Brooks

5. “Lincoln in the Bardo” by George Saunders

— Evie P., Chicago

Francine Prose writes a lot of good books and one from a few years ago that I thought was particularly great but didn’t get the attention it deserves is “Mister Monkey.” I think it’s a good fit for Evie.

1. “Braiding Sweetgrass” by Robin Wall Kimmerer

2. “Demon Copperhead” by Barbara Kingsolver

3. “Shutter Island” by Dennis Lehane

4. “Billy Summers” by Stephen King

5. “Annihilation” by Jeff VanderMeer

— Lane M., Naperville

Recommending this book has been either a huge hit or a slight miss for me, so there’s a little risk, but I’m going to lean into the big upside and hope it provides Lane an experience that is both grooved to his interests and unlike anything he’s read before, “Version Control” by Dexter Palmer.

1. “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” by Carson McCullers

2. “Absalom, Absalom!” by William Faulkner

3. “To the Lighthouse” by Virginia Woolf

4. “Revolutionary Road” by Richard Yates

5. “Nightwood” by Djuna Barnes

— Blake N., Bloomington, Indiana

Quite an interesting list of books. Not the most uplifting array, but all emotionally potent and unsparing in their deep dives into some dark parts of humanity. If Blake hasn’t read Flannery O’Connor’s “Wise Blood,” he must because it would fit perfectly in this group.

Get a reading from the Biblioracle

Send a list of the last five books you’ve read and your hometown to biblioracle@gmail.com