Customer Reviews

Reading with Oprah: The Book Club that Changed America, 2nd Edition

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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.

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.

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.

The author Kathleen Rooney worked at Anderson's Bookstore in Naperville. The author's experience of customers flocking into the store for each Oprah Book Club (OBC) selection led to the book's title. Whether you have read some or none of the Oprah's Book Club titles, the author's discussion of this book-selling phenomenon is very interesting. From Rooney's personal experience and her extensive research of the OBC, she explores Oprah's Book Club cultural impact of getting people to buy & read books or even for the first time! Regardless of your opinion of the OBC, you'll like the book for revealing the 21st century impact of the OBC.

Rooney interviewed authors of the OBC selections who gave interesting opinions about the Club. Readers will like Rooney's perspective on the OBC selected books she liked and didn't like.

I definitely recommend Kathleen Rooney's book. What is especially compelling about her approach is how she mirrors the strengths and weaknesses of OBC in her own critique. Like Oprah, she dares to walk the dubious lines between the academy, mass media, and personal commentary, risking scrutiny on all fronts. And also like Oprah, she pulls it off with confidence and humor. I appreciate Rooney's struggle to be an authority and critique authority, which is why it's perfect that she includes a healthy dose of self disclosure and makes room for her own assessments of Oprah's picks. Most importantly, perhaps, Rooney makes the point that OBC is a woman-fronted effort and it's women readers who are changing the what, who, and how America reads.

Kathleen Rooney's _Reading with Oprah_ frames Oprah Winfrey's "Oprah's Book Club" (OBC) within the omnipresent high/low critical dichotomy pervasive throughout the American literary landscape.

Rooney's examination of the first OBC's (Part I) "flattening" of fiction into easily digestible afternoon TV tidbits highlights the challenging translation of high lit criticism into empathic, commercial, "low" literary presentation. OBC Part I's overemphasis on author biography and viewers' emotional responses deadened further investigation of plot and characterization. Oprah's later attempt, OBC Part II, counterbalanced flattening with the "high" criticism of guest scholars and online study helps. OBC II's belated accentuation on literary criticism has only magnified talk show programming's bipolar relationship between serious reflection and TV ratings. Oprah tempers a sincere invitation to delve into her favorite works against her cultivated media persona and corporate capital.

_Reading with Oprah_ treads on sacrosanct assumptions concerning TV's delivery of elite literary culture into the hands of middle America. This wonderful first work forces consideration of new literary spheres of influence far removed from the conventional wisdom of recent years.