Oprah Winfrey announced last week that she is ending Oprah's Book Club as it currently exists. "It has become harder and harder to find books on a monthly basis that I feel absolutely compelled to share," Winfrey said in a statement. "I will continue featuring books on the Oprah Winfrey Show when I feel they merit my heartfelt recommendation." By way of a parting gesture, Winfrey saved one of her favorite books of all time as the last monthly pick: Toni Morrison's Sula .
While the book club will not continue as a monthly segment, a spokesperson for Winfrey said books would continue to have a place on the show, but on a sporadic basis. "Whenever she comes across a book she feels that strongly about, she will consider doing a show about it or featuring it on the show in some way," the spokesperson told PW. Rest assured, Oprah has not stopped reading.
Oprah's Book Club has had a six-year run. From the very beginning Winfrey has read and personally picked every selection. "It's 'Oprah's' Book Club," she told PW in an interview shortly after the book club began. "I feel that I have to keep it pure." In six years the club brought attention (and huge sales) to the work of noted writers including, Maya Angelou, Ernest J. Gaines, Barbara Kingsolver, Wally Lamb and Joyce Carol Oates; and has also introduced numerous first novelists, as with Winfrey's first book club selection, Jacquelyn Mitchard's The Deep End of the Ocean.
Reaction from the industry was just filtering in as PW went to press "Holy [bleep]," a top publicist at a New York house said. "I'm speechless with regret and disappointment."
