wine club

Oprah has been kind to books, and books have been kind to Oprah. The godlike talk show host granted a windfall to bookselling with her famous club (and performed something of a miracle, prompting legions of soccer moms and their ilk to rush to bookstores and ask for the works of William Faulkner). Now, her upcoming weight-loss book, according to UsMagazine.com, has commanded the highest advance ever, besting even Bill Clinton’s My Life. Whether or not you find Oprah a worthy arbiter of culture, there’s no arguing that she resuscitated reading for many a jaded TV watcher.

But as Oprah’s club rose to prominence in the late nineties, the Brits watched and saw room for improvement. In 2004, husband-and-wife talk show hosts Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan launched a book club of their own—but they didn’t want to directly emulate Oprah.

The club’s founder and book selector, Amanda Ross, accuses Ms. Winfrey of being “sugary” and “sycophantic” to her authors. Ross takes pride in the Richard and Judy Book Club’s authenticity; she’ll readily admit that she regrets putting Monica Ali’s Brick Lane on the list, a book that neither she, Judy, or Richard liked. And the show also runs celebrity reviews of the selected books, some of which have been largely negative and ended up hurting sales. Ross claims to resist any influence from eager publishers as well, and insists that she takes her responsibility very seriously. One gets the sense that she hopes to establish an open discourse about the books on the list—a far cry from the suffocating intimacy between Oprah and her chosen few. (Witness her emotional rage at the “betrayal” of James Frey and the spurning of Jonathan Franzen.)

Ross—widely acknowledged as the most powerful person in the UK book world—chose a summer reading list that was unveiled on the Richard and Judy program yesterday. The list is comprised mainly of writers at the beginning of their careers. So, if you already powered through A New Earth and are now just waiting, thumbs twiddling, for the next edict from on high, why not check out a few of these?

Of course, there are problems with the whole TV-book-club thing (narrowing of the market, consolidation of tastemaking, the development of a populace dependent on someone to tell them what to read, to name a few) but here are a few reasons I prefer the Richard-and-Judy model to Oprah’s:

• There are more books. While it may be more climactic and exciting to unveil only a few books a year, and the reading-list format of Richard and Judy is decidedly scholastic, the books get more room to breathe in greater numbers. Oprah says, You GOTTA read this!!! Dick and Judy say, Well hello. Here are some books we think are worth taking a look at . . .
  

• The selections are diverse, and usually contemporary. Sure it’s cool to see Steinbeck top the bestseller lists, but, man, he already had his chance! And Ross's choices often allow for elbow-rubbing between the literary and the borderline lowbrow, creating an interesting space for the openminded reader.

• There’s no pressure for readers to like the book. As Ross suggests above, Richard and Judy aren’t beholden to the authors, and there’s not the pressure of a heartfelt sit-down with the author to sway readers' interpretation of the book itself.

Oh, Richard and Judy also have a wine club. This makes discussing the books significantly more pleasant.