Oprah’s Book Club

Oprah’s Book Club

I love Oprah Winfrey's Book Club. Her selection of books agrees with me. Her book club was very popular when we started our international one. At least, in the beginning we used to read a lot of her choices. Then we decided it would be time for a book that was NOT on her list, so one of our members suggested a book written by the sister of a friend *. She was a new author and not well known, yet. So, we picked the book and went shopping. Guess what, it had just been selected book of the month by Oprah. So, we gave in, there was no way escaping her, we shared the same taste.

During the years, I have found many good reads on Oprah's list, whether it is her "old" book club or the later "classic reads".

Oprah has also written a lot about books and authors, and a lot of that can be seen on her website Oprah's Book Club 2.0 and you can find any of her books on her archive page.

This the list of her books. It has given me a lot of interesting literature and I enjoy adding a new book from time to time to my list of books I read.

Oprah’s Book Club
1996
September     The Deep End of the Ocean, Jacquelyn Mitchard
October     Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison
November     The Book of Ruth, Jane Hamilton
December     She's Come Undone, Wally Lamb

1997
February     Stones from the River, Ursula Hegi
April         The Rapture of Canaan, Sheri Reynolds
May         The Heart of a Woman, Maya Angelou
June         Songs In Ordinary Time, Mary McGarry Morris
September     The Meanest Thing To Say, Bill Cosby
September     A Lesson Before Dying, Ernest J. Gaines
October     A Virtuous Woman, Kaye Gibbons
October     Ellen Foster, Kaye Gibbons
December     The Treasure Hunt, Bill Cosby
December     The Best Way to Play, Bill Cosby

1998
January     Paradise, Toni Morrison
March         Here on Earth, Alice Hoffman
April         Black and Blue, Anna Quindlen
May         Breath, Eyes, Memory, Edwidge Danticat
June         I Know This Much Is True, Wally Lamb
September     What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day, Pearl Cleage
October     Midwives, Chris Bohjalian
December     Where the Heart Is, Billie Letts

1999
January     Jewel, Bret Lott
February     The Reader, Bernhard Schlink
March         The Pilot's Wife, Anita Shreve
May         White Oleander, Janet Fitch
June         Mother of Pearl, Melinda Haynes
September     Tara Road, Maeve Binchy
October     River, Cross My Heart, Breena Clarke
November     Vinegar Hill, A. Manette Ansay
December     A Map of the World, Jane Hamilton

2000
January     Gap Creek, Robert Morgan
February     Daughter of Fortune, Isabel Allende
March         Back Roads, Tawni O'Dell
April         The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison
May         While I Was Gone, Sue Miller
June         The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
August     Open House, Elizabeth Berg
September     Drowning Ruth, Christina Schwarz
November     House of Sand and Fog, Andre Dubus III

2001
January     We Were the Mulvaneys, Joyce Carol Oates
March         Icy Sparks, Gwyn Hyman Rubio
May         Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail, Malika Oufkir
June         Cane River, Lalita Tademy
September     The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen
November     A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry

2002
January     Fall on Your Knees, Ann-Marie MacDonald
April         Sula, Toni Morrison

2003
June         East of Eden, John Steinbeck
September     Cry, The Beloved Country, Alan Paton

2004
January     One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
April         The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers
May         Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
September     The Good Earth, Pearl S. Buck

2005
June         The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, Light in August, William Faulkner
September     A Million Little Pieces, James Frey

2006
January     Night, Elie Wiesel

2007
January     The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography, Sidney Poitier
March         The Road, Cormac McCarthy
June         Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
October     Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
November     The Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett

2008
January     A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle
September     The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, David Wroblewski

2009
September     Say You're One of Them, Uwem Akpan

2010
September     Freedom, Jonathan Franzen
December     Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens

2011
Discover the Power Within You, Eric Butterworth
The Known World, Edward P. Jones

2012
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, Cheryl Strayed

2013
The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, Ayana Mathis

2014
The Invention of Wings, Sue Monk Kidd
Ruby, Cynthia Bond

2016
The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead
Love Warrior, Glennon Doyle Melton

2017
Behold the Dreamers, Imbolo Mbue

2018
An American Marriage, Tayari Jones
The Sun Does Shine, Anthony Ray Hinton
Becoming, Michelle Obama

2019
The Water Dancer, Ta-Nehisi Coates
Olive, Again, Elizabeth Strout

2020
Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family, by Robert Kolker
Deacon King Kong, James McBride
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, Isabel Wilkerson

2021
Gilead, Home, Lila, Jack, Marilynne Robinson
The Sweetness of Water, Nathan Harris
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
Bewilderment, Richard Powers

2022
The Way of Integrity: Finding the Path to Your True Self , Martha Beck

Finding Me, Viola Davis
Nightcrawling, Leila Mottley
That Bird Has My Wings: The Autobiography of an Innocent Man on Death Row, Jarvis Jay Masters

Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver

2023
Bittersweet, Susan Cain
Hello Beautiful, Ann Napolitano
The Covenant of Water, Abraham Verghese
Wellness, Nathan Hill
Let Us Descend, Jesmyn Ward

2024
The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing, Lara Love Hardin
Long Island, Colm Tóibín
Familiaris, David Wroblewski

*Funnily enough, we later had a member who was a friend of that author and knew the sister, as well. The world is small.