Oprah Winfrey is bringing her Book Club back to her syndicated talk show.
The queen of talk discontinued her club last April to the disappointment of
booksellers, saying it had gotten too difficult for her to read enough books in
order to choose ones she really loved for the show.
But one mention by Oprah and books would become instant best-sellers,
selling between 600,000 and 1.2 million copies, according to published reports.
Winfrey started the club in 1996 and would feature 15 to 20 books per year.
This time around, only three to five classics each year will be featured on
the show.
The segment, tentatively titled "Traveling with the Classics," will be shot
in a location associated with the book, such as the author's birthplace or the
book's setting.
So a look at William Faulkner might take Oprah's viewers to the author's
birthplace in New Albany, Miss., or a day with Ernest Hemingway might be
spent in Paris, Spain or Cuba.
The Oprah Winfrey Show continues to reign in daytime TV, scoring a 7.0
rating/16 share in Nielsen Media Research's weighted metered-market averages during February
sweeps, a 19 percent increase over last year.
That also marks Oprah's best February in five years.
