Oprah Winfrey to Discontinue Book Club Feature on Talk Show

Wall Street Journal ^ | April 5, 2002 | Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg

[jraven]

Oprah Winfrey to Discontinue Book Club Feature on Talk Show Fri Apr 5,12:55 PM ET

By: Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

NEW YORK -- In a significant blow to the book-publishing business, talk-show hostess Oprah Winfrey is ending Oprah's Book Club, a monthly feature that provided a huge boost in sales to the authors lucky enough to be featured on the show.

"It has become harder and harder to find books on a monthly basis that I feel absolutely compelled to share," Ms. Winfrey said in a statement. "I will continue featuring books on the 'Oprah Winfrey Show' when I feel they merit my heartfelt recommendation."

A spokeswoman for Ms. Winfrey's company, Harpo Inc., Chicago , said Toni Morrison's novel, "Sula," will be featured as the club's last selection. "Sula" was originally published in hardcover in 1974 by Alfred A. Knopf, a unit of Bertelsmann AG (news - web sites)'s Random House Inc. "Sula" will be the fourth title of Ms. Morrison's to be featured on the program.

News of Ms. Winfrey's decision was first reported by e-mail editions of Publishers Weekly, a unit of Reed Elsevier Inc.

-By Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, The Wall Street Journal; 212-274-7961

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[jraven]

As if the Middle East wasn't bad enough! Now how will be KNOW what we should read????

[Bagehot]

She can no longer walk the tightrope of political correctness, and has therefore decided to dismount. The literary community in North America mourns...

[mountaineer]

"Sula" will be the fourth title of Ms. Morrison's to be featured on the program.

It's fair to assume literary brilliance isn't a prerequisite to making the cut on Oprah's show.

[Revolting cat!]

Please join the lively discussion of this very topic here.

[texasbluebell]

As if the Middle East wasn't bad enough! Now how will be KNOW what we should read????

All those poor fools in her audience won't know where to turn now, without Oprie's guidance! Well, maybe Dr. Phil will take up the slack. I can just hear him ordering people around, about which books they should read.

[HockeyPop]

She can no longer walk the tightrope of political correctness, and has therefore decided to dismount.

Well said. A pretty sweet talking face exposed for lack of substance and intellect. She ventured too far out.

[Lizavetta]

"It has become harder and harder to find books on a monthly basis that I feel absolutely compelled to share," Ms. Winfrey said in a statement. "I will continue featuring books on the 'Oprah Winfrey Show' when I feel they merit my heartfelt recommendation."

Hey Oprah, what about Faulkner? Twain? Chaucer? Voltaire? Hemingway? Wharton? DeMaupassant? Balzac? Thackeray? DeFoe? Dumas? Alcott? Swift? Tolstoy? Hawthorne? Dostoevsky? Poe? Cervantes? Melville? The Brontes? Fielding?

Nothing these great writers have done is good enough, or "compels you to share" them, but Toni Morrison's tripe is?

It's clear that the age of the piece doesn't matter to her - at least if it comes from a special friend of Oprah's - why doesn't she introduce CLASSIC LITERATURE from the past to her devoted sheeple instead of politically correct women-are-victim screeds by second-rate liberal suck-ups?

Or is this just her way of helping her buddy make a buck off a book that flopped the first time it came out?

[NYpeanut]

You don't have to assume, you can take it from me. Poor me, who recieved a copy of each one from my well-meaning mom until I had to take a deep breath and ask her to quit. I started every one, never finished any. All I can compare them to is Lifetime TV pap--so bad they make your teeth hurt. The one that pushed me over the edge was called "Cane River."