Abstract

Oprah Learns Her Lesson

This article explores the impact of television hostess Oprah Winfrey's television show "Oprah's Book Club" on the U.S. literary culture. "Oprah's Book Club" is not dissimilar to the kind of secret or surprise divulged in a number of the novels that were her book club picks. The club was never discussed as the rich cultural phenomenon that it really was, but rather, as is typical of so much contemporary cultural commentary, almost exclusively in terms of commerce. In fairness, each and every one of Winfrey's forty-eight selections over the past six years became a bestseller, and in an industry in which only a few novels sell more than 30,000 copies, the fact that those recommended by Winfrey routinely sold a million or more secures the club's status as an undeniable economic marvel. The use of a far-reaching television program, "The Oprah Winfrey Show" charts a domestic audience of an estimated 26 million viewers per week, plus a foreign distribution in 106 countries ranging from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, as a deliberate means to such a flourishing literary end was unheard of before Winfrey.