Oprah Winfrey is my Nightmare

Oprah Winfrey is power. Her picture should be added to the dictionary.com definition of the word. Now, I’m not a fan of Oprah because the cynic in me does not believe she is wholly authentic AND I’m not convinced she doesn’t mangle kittens when the cameras are off, but one has to admire her ability to influence millions of people (mostly women). This is, of course, as long as you don’t work in a bookstore… because then you just want to kill her.

When Oprah picks a new book for her club, the chances of that book becoming a best seller are pretty damn good. Even if she just features a book on her show as part of a segment, the sales of that book will sharply go up. Her selections are fairly safe: Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth, Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth, Gabriel García Márquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera and Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina – just to name a few. After the James Frey – Million Little Pieces debacle, Oprah appears to be making her choices a little more carefully. The books she picks are apparently well written and interesting (I try not to read anything she tells me to) and would probably do decent sales without her endorsement, but really… she is the ultimate sales tool and an author would be insane to shun her advocacy. She could even turn Billy Genius’ book ‘101 Uses for a Turd’ into a bestseller. Hearing Oprah say turd on national TV would be worth actually watching her show.

If you work in a bookstore, you have a special kind of hate for Oprah Winfrey. If you work in a bookstore you must deal with people possessed by the weight of Lady O and they are unpleasant to deal with if the book they want is not in stock.
“How can you be out of it? It was on Oprah! You’d think you people would order more than one copy.”
“Yes,… and because that bitch had it on her show, every desperate housewife in the area has been in to purchase a copy. Have you people no shame?!”

Late last year Oprah featured Elizabeth Gilbert’s book – Eat, Pray, Love on her show.
It is a true account of the author’s search for everything across Italy (Eat), India (Pray) and Indonesia (Love). I’ve read a few passages and it is appealing, so I’m wavering on whether or not to read the whole thing. Those who’ve read it can’t praise it enough and of course because it was on Oprah it has sold like mad. We could barely keep it in stock over Christmas. I’ve heard so many versions of the title: “Eat something something”, “Love, Playing, Eaten”, “That book that was on Oprah and has a three word title or something like that.”

Just once, just once… I wanted to respond: “Oh yes, I know that book – Eat, Shit and Die. We have plenty of that here."