Kareem-Abdul Jabbar writes Sherlock Holmes books?

He sure does! Memoirs and tell-alls from celebrities are nothing new, but several actors, singers and influencers have quietly been penning fiction when they are not on stage or screen. And some of it is actually good! Here are some well-known celebs that are also under-the-radar authors, and the books you may want to check out.

Lauren Graham
Best known for her role as Lorelai Gilmore on Gilmore Girls, Graham released her debut novel in 2013. Graham’s venture into book writing Someday, Someday Maybe was called “heartfelt, hilarious, and hopefully, just the first example of what she can do with the written word,” by the Washington Post. As is the case with some novels by celebrity authors, the story was described as a fictionalization of her own experiences; this book is about a aspiring actress in New York City in the ’90s. Graham was said to be writing a sequel to that book with some of the same characters, but that hasn’t happened yet. Her follow-up book was a memoir called I’m Talking as Fast as I Can.

Hilary Duff
She grew up on the teen show Lizzie McGuire then graduated to starring on Younger as a book editor, so Hilary Duff’s venture into young adult fiction seems like a logical next step. Her debut novel Elixir was released in 2010 and co-written by Elise Allen, an experienced author and television writer. The book centers on Clea Raymond, a talented photojournalist whose life starts to unravel after her father’s disappearance. A mysterious stranger, Sage, might be the only one who can help her.

The paranormal romance novel ended up on The New York Times best seller list for Children’s Chapter Books, and Duff has written two sequels called Devoted and True.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
The basketball sensation, actor and cultural ambassador has been a fan of the Sherlock Holmes series of novels since he was a rookie with the Milwaukee Bucks. Abdul-Jabbar’s books put the spotlight on Sherlock’s brother Mycroft, however, in a series of the same name. Created with writer and producer Anna Waterhouse, Mycroft Holmes was released in 2015, and the third book in the series, Mycroft and Sherlock: The Empty Birdcage came out in 2020.

Hugh Laurie
Best known to American audiences for his title role on House, Hugh Laurie made his authorial debut in 1996, back when he sported his British accent in movies like 101 Dalmations. His spy novel deals with CIA agents, terrorists, and arms dealers—everything you would want in a book called The Gun Seller, a satire of spy thrillers that has earned comparisons to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. Laurie told The Independent that he was worried about being a “celebrity author,” so he originally sent his manuscript to publishers under a pseudonym, only revealing himself as the author after it had been accepted.

Pete Wentz
He may be more than you bargained for. Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz released his semi-autobiographical novel, Gray, in January, 2013. The book centers on a young man who also happens to be a rock star and also has some issues with drugs, women, and fame that he needs to work out. That doesn’t sound anything like him, honestly. Wentz told The Independent that “My inspiration and my ideas don’t begin and end at the beginning and the ending of a song,” he said. “It is too limiting.”

Tyra Banks and Naomi Campbell
America’s Next Top Model host Banks wrote Modelland, a sci-fi drama that takes place on an “alternative earth” and tells the story of Tookie De La Crème (for real), a young girl invited to attend a famous boarding school called Modelland where women are trained to be an “Intoxibella”(what Banks calls a supermodel.) Ok. The character, naturally, has drawn comparisons to Banks herself. During an episode of VH1’s Big Morning Buzz, Banks revealed that the writing process took her five years, where she was “on the verge of tears constantly” because of the stress of deadlines.

Banks isn’t the only model-turned-author. A decade before, Naomi Campbell released her own, less fanciful model-based novel called Swan with co-author Caroline Upcher. The book, published in 1994, follows six girls and their adventures in the world of fashion and modeling. According to Campbell, who talked to the Sunday Times she wrote the novel to “get back at journalists who had misrepresented her life.”

Sharon Osbourne
Reality star and rock and roll wife Sharon Osbourne released her debut novel, Revenge in 2010. The story focuses on two sisters who fight over men and fame and have a lot of sex along the way. Despite sounding like a Dynasty ripoff, the book received decent reviews, with The Guardian saying Osbourne’s debut was “glorious, fast-moving, and unashamedly commercial fun.”

Chris Harrison
The former host of the Bachelor franchise Chris Harrison thought of another way to make fictional romance in 2015 with his debut novel, The Perfect Letter. His book is about a book editor who faces the hardships of a love triangle when she travels back to her Texas hometown from New York City. In 2015 Harrison told NPR, “you know, writing a book, I’ve had the utmost respect for authors and what these successful authors do, because it’s one thing to say, ‘Oh, I have a great story, and I want to write pen to paper, yay, here’s my essay,’ turn it in like you’re in school—it’s so far from that. Writing is almost just half the project,”

Kardashians and Jenners
Writing as teams, two sets of sisters from this famous family have co-written novels. Kourtney, Kim, and Khloe Kardashian’s novel, Dollhouse is a semi-autobiographical story about three sisters who are trying to help their family’s struggling restaurant survive when one of the sisters is discovered by a modeling agency and becomes famous. Just one? “It is based on our lives but we’ve added a lot of crazy fictional twists and turns,” Kim told Digital Spy. “You’ll have to decide for yourself which storylines are true to life, and which ones we dreamed up.”

Not to be outdone, Kendall and Kylie Jenner released their own work of fiction, Rebels: City of Indra – The Story of Lex and Livia with ghostwriter Maya Sloan in 2014. Their book is a dystopian science fiction novel that focuses on two young women, one who comes from the haves and one who comes from the have-nots, who both have superpowers and who are both trying to make sense of their world. “The fans seem to love it. That’s why we did it,” Kylie told the Toronto Star. The book spawned one sequel, Time of the Twins, in 2016.

Molly Ringwald
In When It Happens To You, the Pretty in Pink and Riverdale star tells the story of a Los Angeles family and their friends and neighbors who try to negotiate the hazardous terrain of everyday life.

“I originally thought that I was going to write a collection of short stories along the general theme of betrayal,” Molly told NPR in 2012. “And as soon as I wrote the first story, I realized that that wasn’t going to work at all, that I really wanted the characters to be—I wanted there to be less characters. I wanted them to be more connected, and that’s really sort of when the novel began to take shape.” She has earned praise from author Lauren Groff (Arcadia) who wrote “When It Happens to You is absolutely lovely, a smart, emotionally sophisticated, intricately dovetailed novel of stories. World, I’m telling you now: Molly Ringwald is the real deal.”

50 Cent
Playground, Fifty Cent’s young adult novel follows 13-year-old Butterball, a former outcast who works to understand his past and why he became a bully, a novel approach to stories about school bullies. “I had more experiences where I was a part of the problem, where I was actually bullying,” the Grammy winner told Today.

He told HuffPost “To know now from an adult’s perspective and be able to write things, I can look back on those actual situations and say, ‘That was completely wrong.’ But I know what was motivating it now.”

Playground wasn’t 50’s first foray into publishing. The rapper founded his own publishing imprint, G-Unit, with Pocket/MTV Books in 2005, that focused on novellas and graphic novels about 50’s former rap crew.