Saturday, October 6, 2007

Should We Do Oprah Book?

I worked late so didn't make it home in time to see yesterday's Oprah announcement of her fall book which is Love in the Time of Cholera by Garbriel Garcia Marquez. I was surprised that my youngest son watched it to let me know what the new book is. I have mixed feelings about whether we should read it as one of our selections in honor of Oprah who helped us meet one another or not. I have read Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude and did not care for it so that makes me wonder if I would like this selection.

Do you think we should try to read the Oprah book selections as part of our reads?

11 comments:

Kailana said...

Oddly enough, the Classics Club is reading this book this month already, and had planned to before the book was even announced.

Bonnie Jacobs said...

I think we should only do one of Oprah's choices if someone happens to like it and suggests it because it is a good book she likes herself.

In my opinion, Oprah let us down. If you look at the URL (address) of our blog, you'll see it is Book Buddies 3 and that THREE is there for a reason. I have been with Oprah since the very first book of her first book club, back in 1996, I believe. That was on AOL, which I consider the first Book Buddies. Then there was Book Buddies on Oprah.com and the MANY variations of that over about four years, which I consider the second Book Buddies. And I think we were kicked off that because we didn't focus all our attention on Oprah's books. You DID notice, didn't you, that she now lists "us" as "Oprah's other books"? Oprah threw us away, even though we stayed loyal through weeks ... then months, and even years ... when she never gave us another book to discuss.

Oprah has provided a place to discuss HER books, and THIS BLOG is a place for us to be friends and discuss books in our own time and in our own way. No, this is not a flat refusal to discuss Oprah's books, but I hope we don't jump when she decides the whole world should jump.

Does anybuddy else feel betrayed by Oprah? I think she should have told us way back in the beginning, if she didn't want us discussing other books on her space.

Margreet said...

Bonnie, I agree with every single word you wrote here. She has shown huge disrespect for us readers, as we, her most faithful members, know all too well.

I am no fan of Marquez, but that's not my main objection. Shirley, it's good you brought this up, because now we can vent, and speak up. I am not interested in Oprah's book choices at all.

Who needs her when we have us?

caboose said...

Bonnie and Margreet have stated my feelings as well about reading the new Oprah pick. I spent hours for days trying to enter Essencia Island after the forum was changed. I sent emails for days asking for help, a reason why I could not sign in, and even contacted technician help with response that did not help me one tiny bite. I was so irritated for days, because I had lost contact with friends. Once I even spent the time sending Dr. Robin Smith an email asking for help with all my frustrations, guess what, no response. Hope everyone recognizes my personal thought on why I am not going to read Oprah’s new book.

Toby said...

I agree with what Bonnie said. I was wondering the same thing when Oprah announced her new selection. I think it's nice, anyway, if someone who has read the book lets us know if they liked it or not whenever Oprah announces a new selection. That said, I am glad that Bonnie told us what happened as I was not aware of everything going on. What happened at Oprah's site is such a dissapointment as I thought she was encouraging all of us to be readers, not just of her book selections.

Margreet said...

Caboose, that's so horrible, that you don't get responses to your emails asking for help! These things aggravate me terribly. So disrespectful. LOL that you even asked Dr. Robin Smith for help..:)

I know her from the Oprah reruns they give us here, sometimes over a year old shows, but still, she is one of my favourites on the shows. If even she can't help out, we're lost..haha.

Shirley said...

Thanks for the background info on Book Buddies. I stayed on AOL for quite awhile because of the Oprah message boards (I left AOL, but am now back on with DSL; their message boards used to be terrific, but the improved ones share the Oprah problems but one is able to use a different setting to get the older version)and was a fan of Book Buddies all of the time.

I wondered what the feelings were about the Oprah selections given that she was the one who did help us get together to start with. I appreciate the thoughtful sharing of the feelings of the buddies. It was because of the Oprah book club that I started reading fiction again. I had read fiction when I first learned to read and then began preferring non-fiction (primarily biographies at first)when I was in upper grade school. The best books I've read in the last few years have not been Oprah books but others that have been selected by message board posters. The Oprah books were improved, however, by the messages and the background information that used to be part of the book club shows and now sometimes are on the web site. I did like the bookmarks that were sometimes part of the web site.

Shirley

Simrit said...

I wasn't aware of all these problems with Oprah's sites. And I am truly shocked, after all I was one her huge fans and still think she is doing great stuff but this just makes her sound egotistical and BAD policy making!!
That being said, Love in the Time of Cholera is a BEAUTIFUL book, but don't read it becuase of Oprah. I really enjoyed it and I read it for my Delhi book club(which unfortunately has also dissolved! :( )
But, lets try to decide the next book. Has anyone read The Boy in the Striped Pajamas? Its sad but anyone intrested? Another suggestion is 'the Memory Keepers Daughter'? I have both of these, so its not a problem.

Gerry said...

Bonnie,
I couldn't agree with you more.
I do not even visit her site anymore. And I was a big follower of hers. I think her clubs are strictly for her recommended books now. I have read Love in the time of Cholera and my other bookclub is reading it for October. I am not reading it again. It was a good book but not enough for a reread.
Gerry
Gerry

Anonymous said...

Bonnie,
I agree with what you've said about Oprah. She doesn't seem to care at all.
That being said, I didn't like Love in Time of Cholera just like I didn't like One Hundred Years of Solitude or Chronicle of a Death Foretold. In my college Spanish classes I had a professor (three times, thus the 3 novels) who absolutely adored GGM and we had to read those 3. To me, his writing is all over the place and hard to follow!

Denise said...

I'm interested in reading Love in the Time of Cholera. I heard from some that read it and One Hundred Years of Solitude that it's not as weird.

I was disappointed in a lot of Oprah's previous choices so I signed off of Book Buddies. I wasn't interested in all of those depressing books even though I respected the messages they were delivering. When this one was announced, I went back to the site looking for all of you and, well, saw the change that was made. Now I can see that it certainly was not handled in a very good way by Oprah's web staff.

Denise