Oprah Saves The World, The World, Unfortunately, Was Watching Another Channel

September 26th, 2005 · No Comments
by Booksquare

For the eight or nine of you who slept through last week, we have breaking news. For the zillion who were paying attention, we are going to revisit an old story. Either way, books have been saved, or something like that. Oprah Winfrey has decided she’s done enough boosting sales for dead people and is refocusing her energy on the living. We suspect this is due to America’s change in priorities since Hurricane Katrina.

As always, Oprah’s logic is pragmatic:

“I wanted to open the door and broaden the field,” Ms. Winfrey said in an interview. “That allows me the opportunity to do what I like to do most, which is sit and talk to authors about their work. It’s kind of hard to do that when they’re dead.”

While the book publishing world rejoices at this chance to actually reach wider audiences (something tells us we’re going to see a rebirth of the Kelly Ripa bookclub), prah says she’s going to broaden the scope of her choices, thereby allowing her to read without guilt. Ah, reading without guilt. She also notes that she was aware of a certain petition, but not so aware of Jonathan Franzen’s snub. As it turns out, Oprah Has A Life. Of course, in Franzen’s defense, it makes perfect sense for Oprah to choose books that appeal mainly to men. They do make up her core audience and all that.

File Under: Books/Mags/Blogs