Reading with Oprah: The Book Club that Changed America [Hardcover]

Kathleen Rooney (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 7, 2005

Adored by its fans, deplored by its critics, the Oprah Book Club has been at the center of arguments about cultural authority and literary taste since its inception in 1996. Virtually everyone seems to have an opinion about this monumental institution with its revolutionary and controversial fusion of the literary, the televisual, and the commercial. Reading with Oprah by Kathleen Rooney is the first in-depth look at the phenomenon that is the OBC.

Rooney combines extensive research with a lively personal voice and engaging narrative style to untangle the myths and presuppositions surrounding the club, to reveal its complex and far-reaching cultural influence, confronting head-on how the club became a crucible for the heated clash between “high” and “low” literary taste. Comprehensive and up-to-date, the book features a wide survey of recent commentary, and describes why the club closed in 2002, as well as why it resumed almost a year later in 2003, with a new focus on “great books.” Rooney also provides the most extensive analysis yet of the Oprah Winfrey–Jonathan Franzen contretemps.



Through her close examination of each of the club’s selected novels, as well as personal interviews and correspondence with OBC authors, Rooney demonstrates that in its tumultuous eight-year history the OBC has occupied a place of prominence unique in the culture that neither its supporters nor detractors have previously given it credit for.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The impact of Oprah Winfrey's television book club is well known to everyone in the book business. Yet many among the literati assumed Oprah's picks were mediocre and resented the star's posturing as a tastemaker. In her lively, information-filled account of the club's history, Rooney, an award-winning poet and a writing instructor at Emerson College, defends Oprah as a genuine "intellectual force" who "promoted the bridging of the high–low chasm" in American literary life. Although Rooney confesses she found many picks unreadable for reasons she eloquently explains she points out the literary worth of selected novels by Toni Morrison, Jonathan Franzen, Rohinton Mistry and others. Rooney relates theoretical ideas on taste, literary value and cultural hierarchy to the social phenomenon of Oprah's club and focuses on every up and down in the face-off between Oprah and Franzen, saying each was disingenuous at times, and both missed an opportunity to look at larger questions of our literary culture. On the negative side, Rooney finds Oprah manipulative and inclined to interpret literary fiction in the reductive terms of autobiography and self-help. Ultimately, Rooney sees Oprah's Book Club (including its latest incarnation) as a positive effort. Although Rooney's sometimes awkward prose can get bogged down in anecdotal evidence and personal asides, she accurately captures the cultural unrest surrounding the Oprah Book Club and raises numerous thoughtful points about its significance.
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Review

“Rooney takes a steady, smart look at a situation that is both fascinating in its own right and deeply revealing about ‘how it is’ in our cultural life these days.”



—Sven Birkerts, author of

The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age



“In her lively, information-filled account of the club’s history, Rooney . . . defends Oprah as a genuine ‘intellectual force.’ . . . Accurately captures the cultural unrest surrounding the Oprah Book Club and raises numerous thoughtful points about its significance.”



—Publishers Weekly



“Rooney’s analysis of the Oprah Book Club is both incisive and sympathetic, both scholarly in its methodology and accessible in its presentation. Anyone interested in the multiple diversities which characterize twenty-first century American culture will find Reading with Oprah provocative and entertaining.”



—Tara Ghoshal Wallace, author of Jane Austen and Narrative Authority

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 248 pages
• Publisher: University of Arkansas Press (February 7, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1557287821
• ISBN-13: 978-1557287823
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,954,632 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Flawed but essential study of the Oprah Book Club, January 1, 2006

By 

Tanya Abramovitch "The Library Girl" (Montreal, QC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Reading with Oprah: The Book Club that Changed America (Hardcover)

Without a doubt this book fills a hole, exploring the Oprah Book Club (OBC) in its near totality. Although Rooney makes insightful points about the Club, including critical and popular reactions to it, unfortunately, she incorporates things that weaken her credibility and detract from the overall quality of her study. For example, many of her statements, though perceptive, are repeated too often, such as how Oprah fails to acknowledge her status as an intellectual, or how the TV host does not engage in the essential discussion over the high-low brow cultural divide.

Another drawback in the text is when Rooney creates a personal stratification of high to low literary quality. The exercise would have been very useful, if not for the lowest rung. In trying to save herself through the use of "it's-my-own-personal-opinion-and-many-will-likely-disagree-with-me", the author's credibility is compromised when she places comics and pornography there. The added statements that there are some good quality comics and `pornography' (I think she meant erotica?), don't remedy the inappropriateness of the choices. Comics (or graphic novels as they are more commonly called), today are not so much the cheap and pulpy mass-produced rags of yore and they've become a well-respected medium, especially in the library world.

In the section of `awful' and `unreadable' Oprah books, Rooney serves up the list of her most hated OBC selections, together with her most loved. While certainly entitled to her opinion, the point of the exercise is lost. Why bother throwing personal and subjective assessments in if they don't add anything to the study? It is unclear whether Rooney set out to write her personal adventures with the OBC, or an objective semi-academic treatise on the OBC phenomenon.

As a librarian, I wanted very badly to read this book and gain a better perspective on the book club that led to mile-long waiting lists and much buzz with my public. On many counts, despite the aforementioned criticisms, I got what I wanted. Rooney explores how television flattens discussion of books; how we can learn what the OBC taught us about taste; how the second configuration of the OBC that relies on classics addresses the criticism hurled at it from the first incarnation; how twitchy Oprah essentially made professional critics; Oprah's impact on authors, publishers and America's reading public; the whole `Franzen affair', and of course, who her readers are. The author clearly did her homework to answer all the questions any students of the Book Club would have.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining, yet analytical, read, August 8, 2006

By 

Andrew Kozma - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Reading with Oprah: The Book Club that Changed America (Hardcover)

not that those things are contradictory, but I really had no idea what to expect when picking up this book. In fact, the cover and the title don't do justice to the content or the writing inside.

Instead of being simple description of the book club, how it works, or a description of Oprah, the book is an analysis of media culture in the late twentieth, early twenty-first century, told through the clear-eyed view of Rooney. And it's not that her account is unbiased but that, as with much of the best non-fiction and critical analysis, she is aware of her biases and let's the audience know and evaluate them as well.

In short, the book is very thoughtful, well-written, researchful, and interessante.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must for anyone interested in how the club has affected the reading habits of America as a whole., August 10, 2008

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Reading with Oprah: The Book Club that Changed America, 2nd Edition (Paperback)

Oprah's Book Club has inspired many people to read in the past several years. "Reading with Oprah: The Book Club That Changed America" is an examination of the book club and those who participate within it. Topics covered include the criticisms lobbied at Oprah's book club, the club's effects on the books it features, and Oprah's turn to contemporary fiction in recent years. The new second edition includes an expanded analysis of the James Frey scandal. "Reading with Oprah" is a must for anyone interested in how the club has affected the reading habits of America as a whole.