by Malena Lott

As a book club (and a book club that promotes reading whatever strikes your fancy), Book End Babes is thrilled that Oprah has a book club, period. She has a big voice, a world-wide audience, and she gets people to bookstores. I’d heard mid-last week that Oprah selected another Jonathon Franzen book (her 2001 choice, Franzen’s The Corrections never made it onto her show because he didn’t want her logo on his book. She disinvited him.) This time around, she told her audience on Friday’s show that the author sent her a galley with a personal note, so I’m guessing that was his way of apologizing. I mean, not everyone that sends a galley to Oprah gets it into her hands. He’s a big literary deal, and I really want to be on board and love his books, but I gave up on The Corrections after a page that was one looooong sentence. My daughter talks like that, but she’s a kid and I don’t know what she’s saying half the time. Oprah said of his new book, and her fresh pick, Freedom, that it would be one of our favorite reads of all time. Somebody tell me when it gets to the good stuff, because I’m not feeling anything differently reading it as I did reading the last one. Does it take away his brilliance? Absolutely not. Whoever among us claims to the scion of good literary taste should be drug around back for Tony Soprano to take a whack at you. I’ll let the New York Times drool over Franzen, while I keep my pom-poms high in the air for the stories that do for me what Oprah’s picks do for her.

I don’t even think it’s an issue about literary versus commercial fiction. To me, fiction is fiction, a story a story, and if it works, it works. I suppose Oprah is looking for BIG stories, but I’d just as soon have her select a steampunk novel. How cool if everyone was reading Gail Carriger’s books at the same time. Or, insert some book you thought was fresh and cool that not enough people know about. That’s about 99% of all books out there! The ones who get the big ad budgets and get the attention of the big media (and big voices like O’s) get the sales.

One person’s BEST THING EVER is another’s MEH. As the editor at Book End Babes, I get a lot of books in the mail, though only a tiny fraction compared to my husband’s mail call each day for his site Bookgasm. Combined, I get to peruse at least twenty new titles a week. I give new authors a chance all the time. I love to discover new voices, which is, I suppose, what rubs me a little wrong about Oprah’s choice. She could’ve made someone’s career with her selection, yet she chose a book that’s already had huge buzz, huge best-seller status and I was really hoping for her to help me find someone new to love. Yet, does one actor deserve to win the Academy Award twice? Sure, why not? If she wants to give the same author her coveted seal of approval, it’s her show. I often recommend sophomore and junior efforts here on BEB of authors I think are hitting home runs again and again.

And this is your book club. Sure, we want to be your resource to find out about great books. We list four good reads all month long in the sidebar, and they aren’t all women’s fiction, either. Our Bookettes, our featured bloggers, also introduce our readers to books they have loved. What I care most about is that you find something you connect with and then share that with people in your life. Each of us can light a spark. As always, we welcome authors to discuss their lives here. We genuinely want to get to know readers and authors and share the stories of our lives. Our real estate is yours.

Thank you for reading whatever you choose, as often as you can. If you’re reading FREEDOM, we’d love to hear your thoughts on it. If you were Oprah and could get millions to read a book of your choosing, what would that book be?