In The Beginning: Oprah's Book Club
Practically everyone has heard about Oprah's Book Club, but unless you've been properly introduced, it may be confusing to understand exactly what the Oprah Winfrey Book Club is and how can you participate. Here's how it all started and how it grew to become one of the largest forces in publishing history.
History Of Oprah's Book Club
Oprah's Book Club originated as a feature on The Oprah Winfrey Show on September 17, 1996 when Oprah introduced her first book club selection, "The Deep End Of The Ocean" that she invited her viewers to read along with her reading club. She chose fiction titles regularly and invited the author and a few select viewers to join her on-stage for an intimate discussion of the book. In the first years of Oprah's Book Club, there were as many as eleven books covered in one year.
The book club has been cited as the reason why many publishers now create reading guides for books as a method to appeal to book club readers whether the books have been chosen by Oprah or not.
In the fall of 2001, author Johnathan Franzen made a stir when his book "The Corrections" was named as a selection for Oprah's Book Club. In several interviews, he expressed concern about how being selected to the popular mainstream book club may affect his status in the "high-art literary tradition" and that the Oprah logo that would be placed on his book cover could be construed as a "corporate" endorsement. Oprah promptly withdrew the offer, saying she was sorry if Franzen was uncomfortable with the selection.
In April 2002, Oprah decided to put the Oprah Book Club on hold. "It has become harder and harder to find books on a monthly basis that I feel absolutely compelled to share." she said in a statement. " I will continue to feature books on the 'Oprah Winfrey Show' when I feel they merit my heartfelt recommendation.".
Then, in June 2003, Oprah started the Book Club up again with a focus on classic literature. The first title selected was John Steinbeck's East of Eden and as the 47th selection of Oprah's Book Club, East of Eden skyrocketed to the top of bestseller lists everywhere.
With the relaunch in 2003, Oprah set her sights on creating the biggest Book Club in the world, and invited viewers to join Oprah's Book Club online at Oprah.com. Once in the online Book Club, members could access in-depth study guides, expert Q and A and meet other readers from around the world to discuss books with
In 2005, Oprah began including contemporary titles in her Book Club again. The first contemporary title was James Frey's A Million Little Pieces. This selection proved to garner possibly more attention than any of her previous books after it was revealed that the book that purported to be a memoir but the author was outed for embellishing and making up events. Oprah pulled the book from her list and confronted the author and his publisher on The Oprah Winfrey Show to demand an explanation.
The Pulitzer Prize winning Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, the best-selling author of The Virgin Suicides, is the June 2007 selection for Oprah's Book Club. Middlesex is the story of a gene that passes down through three generations of a Greek-American family and flowers in the body of Calliope Stephanides. Begin reading the first chapter of Middlesex.
