Dear Oprah

More than 150 authors including 4 Pulitzer Prize winners, 17 National Book Award finalists and winners; 3 MacArthur recipients; and 36 Guggenheim and 18 NEA fellows, as well as winners of American Book Awards, Southern Book Critics Circle Awards, PEN/Malamud and Whiting Prizes, an Orange Prize and a Newbery Medal have signed an open letter today to Oprah Winfrey, asking her to re-instate her book club.

Distinguished contemporary writers from every part of the country added their signatures to the letter which was sent out by Word of Mouth (a writer's organization) and delivered to Oprah Winfrey on April 20, 2005 and lays out a theory that it was the closing of her contemporary bookclub, even more than 9/11, that has affected the face of the literary landscape of our country.

"When you stopped featuring contemporary authors on your program, Book Club members stopped buying new fiction, and this changed the face of American publishing. This phenomenon was a testament to the quality of your programs, the scope of your influence, and the amazing credibility you possess among loyal Book Club readers. "

Among the many distinguished writers who signed are: Francine Prose, AM Homes, Lily Tuck, Maureen Howard, James Alan McPherson, John Casey, Clyde Edgerton,Francisco Goldman, Esmeralda Santiago, Jennifer Egan, Roxana Robinson, Paula Sharp, Ann Beattie, Louise Erdrich, Arthur Golden, Shirley Hazzard, A Oscar Hijuelos, Gish Jen, Jhumpa Lahiri, Sue Miller, Cynthia Ozick, ZZ Packer, and Jane Smiley.

(And yours truly who is very proud to be quoted in the letter itself.)

Comments

[LadyLitBlitzin]

Oooh, this is a good thing. Oprah is definitely an amazing force (let's face it, marketing force) -- her book club was amazing in its power to not only get people to read but also to convince them to read quality stuff. Just the idea that Tolstoy was again on the bestseller list... simply amazing.

[Jozef Imrich]

Not many people can not only rock a but but also the river ... turning couch potatos into readers is akin to a miracle ...

[Jozef Imrich]

Not many people can not only rock the boat but also the river ... turning couch potatos into readers is akin to a miracle ...

[Alex]

How about a link to your research?

[M.J. Rose]

It's all compiled from the numbers that publishers reported and was published in Publishers Weekly. I can't link to them, one must be a subscriber to get to them.

[Frederick Smith]

I hope this open letter effort pays off. The O Book Club definitely got people into bookstores and checking out/buying books they normally wouldn't have.
fs

[Peter L. Winkler]

A few years ago, when Oprah was conducting her book club, I heard or read a story that reported that authors whose books were chosen by Oprah didn't repeat their sales success with their next book.

As my favorite forgotten author, Jack Woodford, would say, this conduces to the conclusion that many, if not most, of Oprah's viewers are habitual nonreaders who buy what Oprah recommends only to discover, when they open the book, that they still don't enjoy reading any more than before.

Of course, for an author or publisher, it's great to have a sales boost, but I suspect that it doesn't elevate book sales across the board. I noticed that a lot of the authors listed tend to be tony faves of the NYLE, whose books are often bought by people seeking to declare their cultural sophistication to their friends or colleagues rather than writers who people seem to really enjoy reading, whose names aren't on the list: King, Grisham, Clancy, etc.

[Katharine Weber]

NYLE?

New York and Lake Erie Railroad?

What a bizarre statement above. "...whose books are often bought by people seeking to declare their cultural sophistication to their friends or colleagues rather than writers who people seem to really enjoy reading..." ??? I can only guess that this is the projection of someone who apparently has a sad relationship with both reading and his friends.

[Peter L. Winkler]

Dear Ms. Weber:

NYLE is an acronym - decades old and well known to many critics, publishers and writers - that stands for New York Literary Establishment. The fact that I am aware of this and you are not speaks well for my "relationship to reading."

[Katharine Weber]

How very humor impaired. And muddled.

[Kristjan Wager]

"The fact that I am aware of this and you are not speaks well for my "relationship to reading.""

Uhm, Katharine, wouldn't you be considered part of the New York Literary Establishment, given your publishing and teaching record? Or am I confusing things?