Reading Oprah: How Oprah's Book Club Changed the Way America Reads

by Cecilia Konchar Farr

Overview

An analysis of how Oprah's Book Club has changed America's reading habits.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780791462577
Publisher:	State University of New York Press
Publication date:	11/11/2004
Pages:	178
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.56(d)

About the Author

Cecilia Konchar Farr is Professor of English and Women’s Studies and Chair of the English Department at the College of St. Catherine.

Table of Contents

Foreword: Elizabeth Long

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Oprah's Reading Revolution

1. Reading Oprah

The Book Club Begins
To Enlighten and Entertain
The Oprah Effect
The Oprah Writers
Oprah's Choices
What Women Want

2. Oprah Reading

The Talking Book
The Way West
The Middlebrow Novel
The Middlebrow Book Club
Reading Lessons

Deep End of the Ocean
Song of Solomon

Talk Reading

Paradise
Song of Solomon

3. Readers Talking

Group Reading
The Talking Life
Oprahfication

Black and Blue
Open House

Oprah's American Story
The Elegant Balance

The Bluest Eye

4. Talking Readers

The Corrections
McLiterature
Claiming Cultural Capital
Learning to Read
The List
Reading for Class
Shifting Standards
Anticipatory Marketing

Conclusion: The Triumph of Cultural Democracy

Cultural Democracy

White Oleander

Appendices

Notes

Works Cited

Index

Editorial Reviews

"By insisting that we take Oprah and her audience of women readers seriously, Farr challenges our resistant assumptions about literary value, and continues the tradition of feminist scholarship that began with feminist writers like Elaine Showalter, Adrienne Rich, Nina Baym, and Jane Tompkins."

From the Publisher