Oprah's Book Club
Oprah's Book Club is a
book club segment of the
American talk show The Oprah Winfrey Show, highlighting books chosen by host
Oprah Winfrey. Because of the
book club's wide popularity, many obscure titles have become very popular
bestsellers, increasing sales by as many as a million copies at the height of the book club's popularity; this phenomenon is known as the
Oprah effect. Winfrey suspended her book club in
2002, but brought it back in
2003; the format was shifted, the focus on classic works of literature, starting with
East of Eden. In
September 2005, she announced a return to her old practice of choosing new titles, with her selection of
A Million Little Pieces.
Many literature critics have criticized Winfrey's book selections as overly sentimental. The most notable of these criticisms came from
Jonathan Franzen, whose book
The Corrections was selected in 2002. 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." [
1] Oprah suspended the club shortly after Franzen's criticism.
In late 2005 and early
2006 Oprah's Book Club was again in the news. Winfrey selected
James Frey's
A Million Little Pieces for the September 2005 selection.
Pieces is a book billed as a
memoir â€" a true account of Frey's life as an alcoholic, drug addict and criminal. But critics soon questioned the validity of Frey's supposedy true account, especially regarding his treatment while in a
rehabilitation facility and his stories of time spent in
jail. Initially, when Frey admitted to "embellishing" his story, Winfrey defended him citing the value that many readers found in his book. But later, on
January 26,
2006, in a live appearance on
The Oprah Winfrey Show, she confronted Frey and he admitted to making up large portions of the story. She told him he had betrayed her and the readers of the book and essentially distanced herself from both Frey and the book.
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Oprah's Book Club*
Oprah Book Club Archive*
Oprah's Book Club Selections Listed on Amazon.com *
An Analysis of the Success of Oprah's Recent Book Club Picks from The Book Standard
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Okra's Book Club parody
