Is it a good thing? A bad thing? Is she merely making big publishing companies richer at the expense of smaller publishers and unknown authors, or are you in favor of anything that gets people reading? Does a love of books trickle down? What are your thoughts?

For what it's worth, I thought comparing Oprah to Starbucks was stupid.

-- Anonymous, November 12, 1999

Answers

I don't have a problem with Oprah or her book club. She doens't "tell" anyone what to read, she just gives her own opinion, and I guess for people with no minfs of their own, that seems like she's "telling" them what to read. I am not saying *you* said she does that, but I've heard it a lot in various venues in the past few years.

I've only read three or four of her choices, and they were perhaps not "great literature" but they were good books, much better than the drivel most people read for entertainment - you know, the romance novels, the cheap mystery paperbacks, the Tom Clancy books I see men reading all the time on the bus, cheap pulpy thrillers, that sort of thing.

So I think what she's doing is quite positive, getting people to read something a little better than the trash they usually read, if they read anything at all. And I don't think she generally chooses authors who are already famous - most of them, I never heard of before she chose their books, and I read a lot and have heard of a lot of authors that most people have *not* heard of, so I think for the most part, she chooses relatively unknown writers (with a few exceptions, fo course).

-- Anonymous, November 12, 1999

I agree completely, Judy. And I'll add this: if I were going into the hospital for a long stay and I needed a big stack of books, I might send my boyfriend to the bookstore with instructions to buy anything that said Oprah recommended it. I might get some things I didn't like, but I'd say she's at least as reliable as most book reviewers.

-- Anonymous, November 12, 1999

Let me suggest something a little crazy here: the choice to read for pleasure doesn't necessarily determine the intelligence or imagination or inherent value of a person. Why are we trying to make adults read for entertainment if they don't like it? Why are we trying to make adults read better books, not "trashy" books for pleasure?

I happen to love reading- for information, pleasure, distraction, stimulation, etc. Not everyone does and I don't think that makes them lesser. I've known some very intelligent, creative, well informed people who don't read for pleasure (if they want to know more about a topic they will read about it, but the idea of reading for entertainment doesn't appeal to them). I think we should question the base assumption.

-- Anonymous, November 12, 1999

I think Beth expressed exactly how I feel about the Oprah Club. I haven't read all the books she reccomended, but the ones I did read were very engaging. The type of book I couldn't put down. I think she picks authors who are not so popular and brings them into focus.

There are so many books out there to read and so many that I miss that I would probably love. I think Oprah's doing a good thing. I'm not saying that we have to convert anyone into readers, but if they read one of those books they might just become a reader.

And it's good for people like me, who love to read but don't have a lot of time to do so. If I'm going on a vacation and I need something to read, but don't have a lot of time to research it I know one of her picks would be good for me. It's the kind of reading that I like -- that draws me in and keeps me reading.

If trashy novels is what you like then, by all means, keep reading them. Oprah's books are just another niche of reading that lots of people seem to enjoy.

-- Anonymous, November 12, 1999

Anything that gets people to read is a good thing.

But.

Will the Oprah book club encourage or make people curious enough to pick up some Faulkner or (George) Eliot at some point? I hope so, but I sort of doubt it. While I'm sure the books are okay, none of them have been tempting enough to read. For me, they fall under the category of "chick books" - a great deal of feel-goodism without much of a grounding in the broader women's literary tradition. If I walked up to an Oprah book clubber and handed her _The Ravishing of Lol Stein_ by Margurite Duras, whould she make it all the way through? Or would she be upset that the heroine doesn't have any easy resolution or that the heroine is not particularly likeable? I've got to ask, why not _Their Eyes Were Watching God_, or some poetry by Nikki Giovanni or bell hooks or trying to move out of the past 15 years and going back to _Mrs. Dalloway_? If Oprah doesn't start branching out, then I'll have to conclude that it's all about deals with publishing houses.

-- Anonymous, November 12, 1999

Their Eyes Were Watching God is a fine book. It's not, however, as good as Song of Solomon, which was the second book featured in Oprah's club. (I think I've heard you say that you don't like Toni Morrison, though, Gabby. I do. In fact, I think she's the greatest living American novelist, by a long shot.) I'd put Their Eyes Were Watching God about on par with The Book of Ruth, which has also been featured by Oprah.

I thought Deep End of the Ocean was absolutely terrible, but it had a complicated and mostly unlikeable heroine facing a difficult situation with no easy resolution. For whatever that's worth.

I haven't read the Duras novel mentioned by Gabby, primarily because I read The Lover and found it unbearable.

Moira, that's an interesting perspective, and you're right, of course. For many people, reading is not ever going to be a pleasure, and there's nothing wrong with that. But I also think that many people who would enjoy reading for pleasure, given the right start, have had a love of books drummed out of them by too many boring and poorly taught English courses.

For anyone who's interested, here is Oprah's list of past selections.

-- Anonymous, November 12, 1999

I read a review on the official Book Club page last year and the person said it was the only book she'd ever read. This has got to be a good thing. I've enjoyed the ones I've read (and my reading is usually the trashy mystery novels, by the way. There's more in some of them than you realize.)

Oprah has done more for literacy in this country than any of the public schools. And, unlike the required books in school, her books draw you in. I LIKE the classics, but requiring them is the kiss-o-death.

And I agree with was-it-Moira, why do people HAVE to read the harder books? I'd love it if my CASA kid's foster family had ANY books around. It'd sure make it easier to convince Sam that there's fun in reading.

(I saw the story about the Midtown Creepy Guy, Beth, and thought about you... scary, that. Be careful.)

-- Anonymous, November 12, 1999

I think it's unfortnuate that there are, in people's minds, distinctions like "harder" or "easier" books - I mean, aside from Seuss and such. I find that "harder" is often equated with "longer", and that's an issue of patience, not of intelligence.

As for requiring the classics to be read - kiss of death though it may be (and it may have more to do with the unyielding structure of the public school system than anything else), those books/poems/essays/plays are what give us our shared history and reference points, provide us with the commonality that we need to function as a society. Oedipal and Electra complexes; Freudian slips; references in popular culture to the classics, (Wednesday night on "Roswell", for example, one of the characters quoted a passage from James Joyce's _Ulysses_ - often cited as the "hardest" book of them all) - etc etc ad nauseum: these things endure for a reason: they are part and parcel of the human dialogue - what it means to be alive, what it means to be a man or a woman, to fear death, to fall in love, to feel hatred and anger.

Wally Lamb, Maeve Binchy, Toni Morrison all borrow from and refer to these classics and their eternal themes - what better way to appreciate that than to follow their lead and dig into these tomes on your own?

Viva the harder books, baby!

-- Anonymous, November 12, 1999

"Harder" books are often valuable. Sometimes, however, a basic summary is all you _really_ need to get along well in this world (if you know that Oedipus killed his father and married his mother, you don't _need_ to know more. However, I think many people would want to know why on earth he did that, and might want to read the play). Also, "harder" can mean longer, but often means 'written in an unfamiliar style'. Modern books are much easier to read, because most of them are written in a style similar to how we talk, referring to times we have lived in, and explaining or avoiding references that modern people wouldn't understand. (Imagine people in 500 years reading a novel that refers to Kenneth Star... Do you really think anybody is going to understand it unless they do an exhaustive study of 1990's US History? Or one character asking another if they would like coke... Would they know it could be either a soda or a drug?)

I read a lot. I like some hard books. But some others haven't interested me, so I don't read them. Others I have started to read, but decided I just couldn't get it. Les Miserables was... well... tedious, since I don't know most of the things Hugo was commenting on. I felt like I needed to do an exhaustive study of French history in order to read the book with any enjoyment, so I stopped. And I haven't gotten around to that exhaustive study yet.

Okay, back on topic... As for Oprah, I think it's not so much 'getting people to read anything', as much as getting people to read something that will stick with them for a while, and (more importantly, I think) letting people feel like it is okay to read and talk about what you read. I haven't read anything she's picked (at least not deliberately), but if she's letting people feel like it's okay to read something other than the checkout-stand junk food that is popularly acceptable, and that thinking and talking about a book can be enjoyable, well, she's okay by me.

-- Anonymous, November 12, 1999

Your point, Ashley, that modern books are easier to understand and written in a familiar way was, perhaps, the best point that the anti- Oprah book club essayist made: her book selection is so very limited in time and, thus, perspective - these books are serving as mirrors, rather than microscopes.

I think we've been seduced by the modern to the point that we think it's okay to settle for grand Hollywood adapations of Hamlet or history - our viewpoint is the best viewpoint, we're so advanced, we understand so much now, etc.

And thusly did the Roman Empire crumble.

_The Lifetime Reading Plan_ provides not only brief overviews of the Great Books, but also explanations as to why reading them here and now matters perhaps more than ever. I can't recommend it highly enough.

-- Anonymous, November 12, 1999

First, I haven't read any of the books on Oprah's book club. Second, I really haven't had the time to read a book lately, even though I keep buying them or getting them from friends in publishing. I work in PR, and am innundated with take-home reading for work (magazines, newspapers, newsletters). But that really has nothing to do with my point.

In today's multimedia world, the plain fact is that people don't really have to read much of anything, especially for entertainment. After all, why read the book when you can watch the movie? So I think it's great when people do read, regardless of whether it's a trashy novel or great piece of literature. The point is, people are reading and using their minds to imagine what the characters look like, what the scene smells like... you know, everything television usually fills in for you.

So it bothers me when people get snobbish about what people read. To each his own. Everything's a matter of opinion. Let people make their own without worrying if they're reading something "good" or "bad."

-- Anonymous, November 12, 1999

I work in a bookstore. A Very Large bookstore that only sells used and remainder books. I see 2 kinds of people buying Oprah books: 1) People who only came in 'to get the latest Oprah', but ended up leaving with 1-6 more books that caught their interest, once they were lured past the front door of the shop, though they 'don't read much, really...'; 2) People who read Oprah's recommendations among many other books that they read, ranging from Danielle Steel to William Faulkner to Umberto Eco to Stephen Hawking to Charles Sheffield. Our customers seem to either use her as one of MANY sources for recommendations, or to be branching out. I have yet to see a customer buy Oprah and only Oprah (except occasionally, regular customers who've already been in for other things 4 or 5 times that month). Frankly, outside of the publishing/bookselling industry (where sales are crucial), I fail to see what the brouhaha is about.

-- Anonymous, November 12, 1999

I have a question regarding something gabby said in an earlier post: what's the _lifetime reading plan_? Is this a list of books that everyone *should* read? Just curious.

My point of view on the Oprah book club is pretty similar to most of the other posts: anything that encourages people to read is a good thing. I run a comic store, which is mainly a lonely outpost on the very fringe of literacy. Comics used to be low-brow entertainment, but in the last decade and a half they have worked their way up to being middle-brow simply because there are now so many people who don't read at all.

From time to time, people will bring in piles of recent comics to sell me. There are mainly worthless, so we tend encourage people to keep them & read them, or give them to some kids. Occasionally this suggestion is treated with hostility. One guy said, with some pride, that he hadn't read anything since High School and he wasn't about to start.

How depressing.

If Oprah's book club can introduce even a few people to the joys of reading for pleasure, then more power to her.

My tastes mainly run to trash - adventure & detective novels, but recently I've been reading a lot of Charles Dickens - he really is a very funny writer.

-- Anonymous, November 13, 1999

I do think it is important and valuable to read books from cultures outside our own (both by location and by time), but if you are trying to reach people who don't read at all, it would be much easier to start them with something familiar. From there, they may be inspired to read more unfamiliar works. If people were saying that the books Oprah picks were the Best Literature Ever(tm), I would heartily disagree. But I do think they are in the upper levels of _current_ literature, and much more likely to get someone to want to read different works than the latest Danielle Steele or Tom Clancy paperback. Yes, they are more 'mirror than microscope', but if people never experience enjoyable reading that is more thought-provoking than a parade of sex scenes and explosions, I doubt they will want to read something with a more unfamiliar viewpoint.

I think a good modern work of literature will very likely refer to an older work. If you have read the older work, you will get the reference. If not, you may be curious enough to find out.

Which leads me to comics. I don't believe that comics have worked their way up from 'lowbrow' entertainment just because people don't read much anymore. There is some really excellent writing in recent comics, and I think Neil Gaiman's work on _Sandman_ is just about the best example I can think of for referring to older works. The rise in comics being written as literature with pictures, instead of pictures with words, would be a large part of the slow change in perception of comics.

-- Anonymous, November 13, 1999

I've never entirely gotten behind this concept that reading is better than other medias because you are forced to imagine what things look like. Following this reasoning, wouldn't a book get better when you tore pages out of it? You would then be forced to imagine the events linking, for example, pages 27 through 242 together. By this logic, isn't the best book no book at all?

This argument has always struck me as an illogical justification for showing favoritism for one of a set of valid art forms. People don't want literature to die because they like literature, unless I'm mistaken. We want others to read because we like shared experiences. Because literature has been around longer than most visual media, it is the traditional means of passing stories and information, but it is not the only one, and there is no reason to say that it is the best. Well, no good reason that I've heard.

-- Anonymous, November 14, 1999

Actually, there is a good reason. You need to develop the "pictures in your head" as Sunshyn called it the other day to help develop the ability to think for yourself. If TV is your only source of stories and news, "they" can tell you anything and you'll believe it. Critical thinking doesn't always follow from reading, but it sure doesn't come any easier if you don't read.

A nation of mind-numbed couch potatoes.

And I don't think "uplifting" is so bad, either.

-- Anonymous, November 14, 1999

Well, I think the argument can be made that oral storytelling also allows the listener to develop pictures in his or her head, in a different fashion. Strictly visual mediums allow the viewer to develop the entire story in his or her head. And movies, when they're well made, allow you to see into someone else's head (story, pictures, the works), which I think has value, as well.

In other words, it's all good.

-- Anonymous, November 14, 1999

>>why read the book when you can watch the movie?<<

Movies adapted from books are often not as good as the books were, for one thing, and secondly, reading is a totally different mental exercise and experience from movie-watching.

I love movies, and have seen thousands. I love books, and have read thousands. I don't go to movies to avoid reading books. I enjoy both forms for different reasons.

I even enjoy my share of cheap mystery paperbacks. And even the occasional "graphic novel" (aka comic book).

I'm not given to commenting much on things I know nothing about or haven't tried. True, I have never read a Tom Clancy book and probably never will, and I rarely see movies that are based on those kinds of books. If I didn't already have such a huge backlog of books I know I want to read, I probably would sample one of Clancy's. So many books, so little time, as they say.

BTW, Beth, I saw Dava Sobel at the West Coast Live broadcast last week, and bought her book, "Galileo's Daughter," a few days ago, as well as her previous book, "Longitude." They both sound wonderful... and they will be on top of my to-read pile, but the hubster will probably get to them before I do.

-- Anonymous, November 14, 1999

To answer someone's question above - The Lifetime Reading Plan is a book that's been around for some 40 years, revised recently, listing books which are must-reads for everyone. Going from the Epic of Gilgamesh to Things Fall Apart and all the great books inbetween, LRP not only lists what books to read but why those books matter.

-- Anonymous, November 15, 1999

I'm skeptical about the Lifetime Reading Plan... quite frankly, it sounds like the White Man's Canon to me. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, though... I've not read it, and I've been looking for a good "to read" list.

I've been working my way through that particular canon, and not very enthusiastically. Sometimes I suspect that half of these books are considered "great" out of habit, because I don't get it (someone care to explain Portrait of the Artist to me? I've tried. Lord knows, I've TRIED.) And some of them I "get", I just don't like. I realize that Lord of the Flies is a meditation on the nature of man. I just don't like the book.

I don't see the purpose of being snobby about reading. If you tell someone that in order to be respectably literate, they should be reading boring books by James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway, you run the risk of alienating them forever. You're showing them the drudgery of reading, not the joy of it.

I have been a voracious reader since I was three years old. I'm a huge advocate in reading in general... and I don't care if you read J.K. Rowling or Victor Hugo or Danielle Steel. You have to start somewhere.

-- Anonymous, November 15, 1999

It's not an issue of being snobby. It's an issue of saying that some books have more inherent value than others. Yes, it's good that people read, even if it is fluffy Tom Clancy stuff - but what does Tom Clancy tell you about the world, its history, what it means to be human - where does the context come in?

You say it shouldn't - I say, right. That's escapist literature (I read all the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter books - I've got no mountain to stand on) and praise be to allah for its existence. But literature has always fulfilled a role in man's life: to explain and enlighten and challenge and reveal. To help us be alive and aware. Literature tells the human story in myriad ways.

To eschew the classics or so-called harder books because one fears snobbery is ridiculous - it's only cheating yourself. _Middlemarch_ is an amazing book - it's a rollicking good story and a heartspeeding romance. It's also enormous and there's a good deal of era-specific politics involved in the narrative - but it's a spectacular book. It's an excellent and well told story. Without _Middlemarch_ and its ilk, there would be no Harlequin romance!

These are stories, first and foremost. Read for the story and ignore the weighty mantle of "classic" for the time being. You'll be pleasantly surprised.

(FWIW) - LFP has been revised to include great books by authors like Chinua Achebe, Toni Morrison (cough, hack), Gabriel Garcia Marquez, etc. White Man's Cannon it most certainly is not.

-- Anonymous, November 15, 1999

If we read books for the stories, ignoring whether they are 'classic' or not, there is very little reason to read some of the books which are considered classic. Many of these books are important for the influence they have had, and the references made to them. They may not be that interesting to us now, taken on their own. And there are some books which are officially 'good' and 'classic', that I have read and hated. Personal taste does come into it, even with classics. (Supposedly, _Cry the Beloved Country_ is not, in fact, one of the worst literary atrocities committed upon unsuspecting readers this century. I find that hard to believe.)

This is, of course, ignoring the fact that the main distinction between 'classics' and Oprah's choices is age. In 50 years, some of those books may be considered just as great and influential as, say, James Joyce's work. If we judge books on their stories, rather than the weight given to them by literary scholars, I think that Oprah's list would shine. At least, I get the impression that these books are supposed to resonate and have stories that speak to their audience. And I don't think a book should be expected to do anything more than that, standing on its own. Some of them do, and that is wonderful: but for reading for stories, it is just a nice bonus.

-- Anonymous, November 16, 1999

My intent was, rather, to encourage the possibly "classics squeamish" to approach a book and dig in for the story, rather than concentrating on holding a Great Book in their hands.

If all stories are equal, then all stories are crap. Luckily, that's not the case. I say it again: unless Oprah has the wit to branch out her reading selection - into non-20th century authors, into poetry, nonfiction, non-Western texts - then her purpose (if it is, indeed, to get people to read) is defeated. At this point, the greatest favor she can do her readers is to shove Arundati Roy or Salman Rushdie at them, introduce them to the essays of Audre Lorde or bring over William Faulkner for cocktails. She's proven that she can get people to read - now she needs to give them something - not just of length but of depth - to sink their teeth into.

-- Anonymous, November 16, 1999

Some books are "better" than others, I agree. But you have to start somewhere, and you don't always feel like reading something hard.

I don't watch Oprah so I don't know what's in her club, but I figure anything that gets people reading and talking about books is good.

I am a long time compulsive reader and am the child of parents who read more than they turned on the TV.

-- Anonymous, November 16, 1999

But, don't you see that "hard" is in the eye of the beholder? That the distinctions between "easy" and "hard" continually being made are misleading and false? The only easy books are probably "Pat the Bunny" and such - everything else is up for grabs.

Why argue so passionately for limitations? Why not see that any book is readable by anyone, so long as they're game?

-- Anonymous, November 16, 1999

I think what people are saying is that they do not always see the value in reading a book that they aren't enjoying. The only difference between a hard book and an easy one is how much you're enjoying it. Personally, I keep being exposed to pretty avant-garde things based on or structured around classic works of literature. Most recently Laurie Anderson's "Songs and Stories from Moby Dick", and Jan Svankmajer's "Faust". I'm pretty certain my appreciation of either of these would have doubled had I known more than a general story outline for any of these works.

But then these are books I've been telling myself to read for ages. I took a stab at the Goethe Faust in freshman year of high school, I think, and didn't make it more than a third of the way through. Moby Dick is damned intimidating. I still hope to read it eventually.

-- Anonymous, November 16, 1999

Been off the grid a bit -- Just a couple of comments:

1) I worked in an independent bookstore for years in high school and part of college. Best job I've ever had, by far. :)

2) I have a copy of _The New Lifetime Reading Plan_ and agree with Gabby that it is an excellent resource, and they've tried to incorporate a bit more than just the white man's canon (I was a bit skeptical about that, too) at least in this latest version.

3) Oprah may not have pushed Rushdie or Roy (I loved Roy's _God of Small Things_ and Rushdie's _Midnight's Children_ is also phenomenal), but I find Toni Morrison just as good as either of these author (better than Roy, in fact). Some of Oprah's stuff is mostly fluff (I wasn't too crazy about Ya-Ya Sisterhood, which is one of the 3 or 4 coincidentally Oprah selections I've read), but some of her choices are excellent. As far as non-20th century choices, I *think* (but I'm not sure, since I haven't been following her club that closely) she tries to get the authors on her show. . .

LIM

-- Anonymous, November 23, 1999