The Return of Oprah’s Book Club

By JULIE BOSMAN - The New York Times

Oprah Winfrey, the publishing industry’s unrivaled tastemaker, will revive her popular book club next week after a two-year hiatus, promising the book business some of the sales and publicity it thought had vanished along with her weekday talk show.


The move could also be a boon for her beleaguered cable channel, OWN, which has struggled with low ratings.


Ms. Winfrey is expected to make several book selections each year. And for her first pick, she has chosen “Wild,” by Cheryl Strayed, a nonfiction retelling of the author’s epic hike of the Pacific Crest Trail that was published in March by Knopf.

Alessandra Montalto/The New York Times“Wild,” by Cheryl Strayed, is the first selection of the returning Oprah Book Club.

“I love this book,” Ms. Winfrey writes in the July issue of O, The Oprah Magazine, which will highlight the new book club on its cover and feature an interview with Ms. Strayed. “I want to shout it from the mountaintop. I want to shout it from the Web. In fact, I love this book so much and want to talk about it so much, I knew I had to reinvent my book club.” 


Read the full story, and watch a video clip at The New York Times