Her official “book club” may be no more, but Oprah Winfrey still seems to have a penchant for doling out book suggestions.
On her website, Oprah’s team has an entire section dedicated to the former Queen of Talk’s love of reading. Book lists include everything from “The best books of 2011″ to “What’s on Halle Berry’s bookshelf?” (Hint: the Oscar winner’s picks include “The Rumi Collection” and James McBride’s “The Color of Water.”)
Then there are the Top 10 lists, which include a rundown of books that have made a difference to Oprah. It may come as no surprise that Eckhart Tolle’s “A New Earth” made the cut, as did Elie Wiesel’s “Night,” since they were two books that O regularly touted on her talk show.
With no daily talk show forum, Oprah no longer hosts a TV book club– but that hasn’t kept her from giving us a list of the best books of the year. That list includes Eleanor Henderson’s “Ten Thousand Saints” and Tom Perrotta’s “The Leftovers.”
According to Oprah.com, Oprah debuted her book club back in 1996 with the Jacquelyn Mitchard novel “The Deep End of the Ocean.” Her final “official” book club pick was in 2010, when she chose a pair of Charles Dickens classics, “A Tale of Two Cities” and “Great Expectations.”
You check out the complete list of Oprah Book Club selections here.
Of course, during the club’s 14 year run things didn’t always go smoothly.
In the club’s fits major flap, author Jonathan Franzen made an off the cuff diss (or two or three!) when he found out his novel “The Corrections” was chosen as an Oprah’s Book Club selection back in 2001. His remarks to the press resulted in Oprah uninviting him to her book club dinner-and she swiftly moved on to her next book.
Later, author James Frey faced the wrath of Oprah when his book club book, “A Million Little Pieces,” was found to be more fictional than memoir. Oprah buried the hatchet with both authors, even having them on her show during her final season.
Now, Oprah is set for her next chapter-literally. Her latest venture, “Oprah’s Next Chapter” will be as close to her old talk show format as can be without actually going back to a talk show format!
But she will be interviewing people-everyone from “American Idol” judge Steven Tyler to televangelist Joel Osteen will appear on the show. And with that turf may come some book club ops (both Tyler and Osteen published books this year, so at the very least there may be a mention.)
“Oprah’s Next Chapter” premieres on January 1 on OWN.
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