by Malena Lott
LIVING OPRAH: My One-Year Experiment to Walk the Walk of the Queen of Talk by Robyn Okrant
How can we start a new decade and NOT talk about Oprah? Haters step aside, because I love my O. I can’t tell you the number of things I’ve learned from the queen of talk over the years (including the proper shape of poo and how to not be a schlumpadinka), but one author took it a step further, following Ms. O’s advice for a whole year. Robyn Okrant had to make sacrifices, of course and her husband was mostly on board with the whole thing. While Oprah doesn’t intend for each of her viewers to abide by EVERYTHING on her show, what if? That’s the fascinating premise of the book.
The book is set up in monthly installments January – January, with Okrant carefully following the advice on Oprah’s television show, her magazine O and Oprah.com. It was a heady task to say the least. Kudos to Okrant for not just picking the easy ones, either. I recall the Bob Greene Best Life challenge. I probably even went to the web site, but Okrant signed that damn contract and went for it. Okrant is both witty and wise, not one to simply take an outsider’s bit of advice without questioning. Such is the case with participating in the big doozy of all book club picks, A New Earth, by Eckhardt Tolle and its 13-week webinar series.
I loved the way Okrant set up the graph in the book showing the theme of the show, how much it cost for Okrant to pull off each task and the result. In this way, it’s also easy for us as readers to take this advice if we so choose. After all, the author did all this research, why not use it to our benefit, too?
Truth be told, Robyn sounds like she was a pretty great gal with a good life from the get go (clutter bug and all) but it’s fun to journey with Robyn through her escapades. The bigger question is determining what the best life for YOU – a unique individual and not a clone of anyone else – looks like. The real one led by your own truth, which you may or may not discover with self-improvement courses or articles.
An enjoyable, and yes, even enlightening read Oprah fans will love, and maybe even the haters out there.