Is Oprah good for literature?

Jun 06 2007

Oprah Winfrey’s infamous book club has made lots of headlines, both good and bad. Good because the books she recommends usually shoot to the bestseller list (although those lists aren’t a good judge of bestselling books. Read why that is here: Dirty little secrets). Bad because she has been heavily criticized for her promotion of James Frey’s memoir, that turned out to be mostly fiction. And who can forget the falling out she had with Jonathan Franzen, who snubbed her when she recommended his bestselling book The Corrections (aff link).

Good and bad press aside, Oprah is a polarizing figure. People either love her or they hate her. Whatever side of the line you fall on, it’s hard to doubt she has an enormous influence on pop culture.

But let’s face the facts. Literature as a whole isn’t doing that good. The market is flooded with too many eager authors, there are too many books, too few readers, and the publishing industry is losing money because of a poor business model they’ve been following since the advent of the printing press. So, in my opinion, when anyone can come along and actually get people to read, it’s probably a good thing.

My beef doesn’t really lie with Oprah anyway. My beef is with people who only read these books because Oprah recommends them. If she didn’t make them a part of her book club, many of them would go unnoticed. Maybe I’m not giving these people enough credit, and I readily admit, I can’t speak for them.

But let’s look at the upside. The result of her book club is that people are going out and buying these books. And until recently, many of the books she recommended have been classics that usually get ignored anyway. Maybe the literary world needs someone like Oprah to give it a good hard kick in the butt to get people to read. Or maybe the literary world is just another part of the arts falling prey to the whims of popular culture – as the movie industry did a long time ago.

I’m not a big fan of Oprah. Never have been. But I can’t deny that getting people to read, no matter who’s doing it or for what reason, is generally good. I’m sure that the authors who have been made overnight celebrities by her recommendations of their books aren’t complaining either. Nor are the publishing companies who, undoubtedly, are making some good dough when an author is picked up by Oprah.

Rather than ranting about Oprah’s book club, maybe the literary community at large should focus on the large publishing empires that are increasingly ignoring new authors and focusing on the already-popular writers because they bring in the big bucks. Maybe they’ve forgotten that even Stephen King was an unknown at one point, and a publisher had to take a chance with him.

Read More: Literary News, Publishing News