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What would you choose as Oprah's final book club selection?
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Well I certainly wouldn't choose MY favorite because I don't want anything I love plastered with Oprah. But I must say, I'm quite thrilled that this is the last one. YAY! I had no idea she was going to stop stickering great books.
Oh, come on now. Oprah got people who watch her show to read Faulkner and all sorts of other decent books. She's my girl, even if i don't get to go to Australia.
Meh, she typically picks depressing and dystopian reads - not my preference. I'll leave this to someone else.
I agree with you!I think anything, which increases the number of people who read in our country, is a good thing!
I think she has picked some fantastic books, all of which I read before she chose them. I think if she can get people reading Akpam and discussing genocide in Africa, she has done a wonderful thing. If she gets people reading McCarthy and Marquez that's awesome too. All three of those were perspective-changing books for me.
Much like the Lyric game, I'm sure I would probably pick something that was already on there...
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She does pick great books. I mean, I'm pretty sure she doesn't pick a one of them but her people pick great books. Sadly, I was not fortunate enough to read ALL of them before she picked them and have had to resort to some stickering of my own in order to be able to read them. I recently swapped a book on goodreads that, when I went to send it, I discovered had a big bunny sticker on the cover which I had used to cover "Oprah's book club." I had to pm the person and make sure they were ok with a big bunny sticker. heh.
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I would have told her to pick a Lorie Moore--probably "Anagrams" as that was a very good discussion book for my book group.But, she chose the new Franzen book. Crap.
She did? Is he coming on the show? Will they hug?
I wonder if any authors that have been chosen think, "Oh, god! What the hell am I going to do now? I can't say no to the publicity, but I hate her!" You know, the not already dead ones anyway.
I tell you right now, if I was an author, and Oprah picked my book, I would whore my ass out on that show to the entire crowd of rabid housewives.
Ditto. Anyway, I don't know why an author would hate her. I'd be honored to be in the company of the authors she has chosen. And I think she has good reasons for choosing the books she does, and exposes them to a huge audience they would never have reached otherwise. Given a daytime television constituency she could be choosing romance novels or mainstream thrillers, but she boosts smart and thought-provoking fiction.
Sarah Pi wrote: "Ditto. Anyway, I don't know why an author would hate her. I'd be honored to be in the company of the authors she has chosen. And I think she has good reasons for choosing the books she does, and ex..."Franzen totally dissed her when she picked "The Corrections." Guess she forgave him.
Oprah = Book SalesI agree with RA and the whoring thing.
It's like being in a boy band. You make a crap ton of money and get to take advantage of any skimpily-clad fangirl that you want, all for the low low price of having to sell your soul and suffer through some ridicule from the general public.
Sounds like the plusses outweight the minuses.
(Is skimpily a word? I'm guessing no.)
So, does anyone think SHE actually picks them?
I think she does. She really knows her stuff when it comes to literature and movies.
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Me too. I'll lower my standards to make some dough. I can always raise them again once I have enough to retire on...
I do think it's a little lame to pick Franzen - surely he must be set for life financially at this point, no? Pick someone who has a good book and needs the money. But she wants to go out with a bang, and Franzen is a bang.
Misha wrote: "But she wants to go out with a bang, and Franzen is a bang. Now I'm picturing Oprah banging Franzen. I think I'm scarred for life."
Franzen looks like a gentle lover. He couldn't hang with the fury of The O.
She craftily chose Franzen for the drama of it. After all, it is her last season, and she wants to go out with a, um, bang!
I'm not entirely convinced that the choices are completely commercial. The Akpam book would have lingered in lit fic without her help, but it deserved attention. There was no reason to pick One Hundred Years of Solitude (one of my favorite books since high school). That said, I would have liked her final choice to have been The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Has she ever picked nonfiction?
http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/6-Grou...this is one of the reasons I like Oprah. My daughter graduated from DSST and my nephew currently attends. :)
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09...
If she consulted you on this choice, what would you recommend? Remember, this can't just be your favorite book...you'd be choose a book that should evidence some universality across, say, all of Oprah's potential viewers adn beyond. What do you think?