Oprah's Book Club
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Oprah's Book Club is a book discussion club segment of the American talk show The Oprah Winfrey Show, highlighting books chosen by host Oprah Winfrey. Winfrey started the book club in 1996, selecting a new novel for viewers to read and discuss each month. Because of the book club's wide popularity, many obscure titles have become very popular bestsellers, increasing sales in some cases by as many as several million copies[1]; this occurrence is known colloquially as the Oprah effect.[2]
In 2007 the club had the honor of being granted Cormac McCarthy's first ever on camera interview.[3]
The book club has also been connected to several well known literary controversies such as Jonathan Franzen's public dissatisfaction with his novel The Corrections having been chosen by Winfrey, and the now infamous incident of James Frey's memoir, A Million Little Pieces, a 2005 selection, being outed as partly fabricated. The latter controversy resulted in Frey and publisher Nan Talese being confronted and publicly shamed by Winfrey in a highly praised live televised episode of Winfrey’s show. [4]
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[edit] History
The book club's first selection in September 1996 was the recently published novel The Deep End of the Ocean by Jacquelyn Mitchard. Winfrey's choices averaged one new book a month for the next six years. Winfrey discontinued the book club for one year in 2002, stating that she could not keep up with the required reading while still searching for contemporary novels that she enjoyed.[5] After its revival in 2003, books were selected on a more limited basis (three or four a year)
[edit] Influence
In Reading with Oprah: The Book Club That Changed America, Kathleen Rooney describes Winfrey as "a serious American intellectual who pioneered the use of electronic media, specifically television and the Internet, to take reading—a decidedly non-technological and highly individual act—and highlight its social elements and uses in such a way to motivate millions of erstwhile non-readers to pick up books."
Business Week stated:
Perhaps the most astonishing aspect of the Oprah phenomenon is how outsized her power is compared with that of other market movers. Some observers suggest that Jon Stewart of Comedy Central's The Daily Show could be No. 2. Other proven arm-twisters include Fox News's Sean Hannity, National Public Radio's Terry Gross, radio personality Don Imus, and CBS' 60 Minutes. But no one comes close to Oprah's clout: Publishers estimate that her power to sell a book is anywhere from 20 to 100 times that of any other media personality.[6]
In 2009 it was reported that the influence of Winfrey's book club had even spread to Brazil with picks like A New Earth dominating Brazil's best-seller list.[7]
[edit] Controversies
Jonathan Franzen, whose book The Corrections felt conflicted about being chosen as a book club selection. After the announcement was made, he expressed distaste with being in the company of other Oprah's Book Club authors, saying in an interview that Winfrey had "picked some good books, but she's picked enough schmaltzy, one-dimensional ones that I cringe, myself, even though I think she's really smart and she's really fighting the good fight."[8] Franzen added that his novel was a "hard book for that audience."[9] Franzen also felt conflicted about being selected by Winfrey because he was hoping to attract a male audience.[10]
Following the criticism Franzen was uninvited from the televised book club dinner, and he apologized profusely.[11] When Franzen was not invited back, he suggested that perhaps he and Winfrey could still have dinner but not on TV, but Winfrey was all booked up, and her spokesperson said she was moving on.[12]
New York Times Verlyn Klinkenborg said "lurking behind Mr. Franzen's rejection of Ms. Winfrey is an elemental distrust of readers, except for the ones he designates."
Andre Dubus III added, "It is so elitist it offends me deeply. The assumption that high art is not for the masses, that they won't understand it and they don't deserve it -- I find that reprehensible. Is that a judgment on the audience? Or on the books in whose company he would be?" [13]
Others accused Franzen of sexism asking "Is it misogyny, do you think, or class prejudice, or worse?"[14]
In late 2005 and early 2006, Oprah's Book Club was again embroiled in controversy. Winfrey selected James Frey's A Million Little Pieces for the September 2005 selection. Pieces is a book billed as a memoir—a true account of Frey's life as an alcoholic, drug addict, and criminal. It became the Book Club's greatest selling book up to that point, and many readers spoke of how the account helped free them from drugs as well. But the additional attention focused on Frey's memoir soon led to critics questioning the validity of Frey's supposedly true account, especially regarding his treatment while in a rehabilitation facility and his stories of time spent in jail. Initially, Frey convinced Larry King that the embellishments in his book were of a sort that could be found in any literary memoir; Winfrey encouraged debate about how creative non-fiction should be classified, and cited the inspirational impact Frey's work had had on so many of her viewers. But as more accusations against the book surfaced, Winfrey invited Frey on the show to find out directly from him whether he had lied to her and her viewers. During a heated live televised debate, Winfrey forced Frey to admit that he had indeed lied about spending time in jail, and that he had no idea whether he had two root canals without painkillers or not, despite devoting several pages to describing them in excruciating detail. Winfrey then brought out Frey's publisher Nan Talese to defend her decision to classify the book as a memoir, and forced Talese to admit that she had done nothing to check the book's veracity, despite the fact that her representatives had assured Winfrey's staff that the book was indeed non-fiction and described it as "brutally honest" in a press release.
The media feasted over the televised showdown. David Carr of the New York Times wrote, "Both Mr. Frey and Ms. Talese were snapped in two like dry winter twigs."[4] "Oprah annihilates Frey," proclaimed Larry King.[15] New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote, "It was a huge relief, after our long national slide into untruth and no consequences, into Swift boating and swift bucks, into W.'s delusion and denial, to see the Empress of Empathy icily hold someone accountable for lying,"[16] and the Washington Post's Richard Cohen was so impressed by the confrontation that he crowned Winfrey "Mensch of the Year."[17]
The incident was later satirized in the South Park episode "A Million Little Fibers" which features the character Towlie attempting to pass himself off as the human Steven McTowelie rather than a towel, to make his memoirs more marketable.
[edit] Oprah's Book Club selections
[edit] References
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ http://us.penguingroup.com/static/html/blogs/oprahs-interactive-webcast-class-erollment-new-earth-surpasses-half-million-four-weeks
- ^ Wyatt, Edward (2004-06-07). "Tolstoy's Translators Experience Oprah's Effect". The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F07E6D81131F934A35755C0A9629C8B63. Retrieved on 2007-10-05.
- ^ http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahsbookclub/road/road_book_synopsis/1
- ^ a b Carr, David (2006-01-30). "How Oprahness Trumped Truthiness". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/30/business/media/30carr.html?ex=1296277200&en=1c0e8843da5b43d6&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss. Retrieved on 2007-10-05.
- ^ Lacayo, Richard (2002-04-07). "Oprah Turns the Page". Time Magazine. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1002228,00.html. Retrieved on 2007-10-05.
- ^ "Why Oprah Opens Readers' Wallet". Business Week. 2005-10-10. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_41/b3954059.htm. Retrieved on 2007-10-05.
- ^ http://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=87978
- ^ "Jonathan Franzen Uncorrected". http://www.powells.com/authors/franzen.html%20Powells.com. Retrieved on 2007-10-05.
- ^ http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20135698,00.html
- ^ http://www.mobylives.com/Oprah_v_Franzen.html
- ^ http://www.mediabistro.com/reading/books/0374100128/
- ^ http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20135698,00.html
- ^ http://www.mediabistro.com/reading/books/0374100128/
- ^ http://www.mobylives.com/Oprah_v_Franzen.html
- ^ http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0705/01/lkl.01.html
- ^ Dowd, Maureen (2006-01-08). "Oprah's Bunk Club". The New York Times. http://homepage.mac.com/imfalse/chapel_annex/oprahs_bunk_club.html. Retrieved on 2007-10-05.
- ^ Poniewozik, James (2006-01-26). "Oprah Clarifies Her Position: Truth, Good. Embarrassing Oprah, Very Bad". Time. http://time-blog.com/tuned_in/2006/01/oprah_clarifies_her_position_t.html. Retrieved on 2007-10-05.
- ^ About The Book page on Oprah.com
[edit] Further reading
- Illouz, Eva (2003). Oprah Winfrey and the Glamour of Misery: An Essay on Popular Culture. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-11813-9.
- Rooney, Kathleen (2005). Reading with Oprah: The Book Club That Changed America. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press. ISBN 1-55728-782-1.
