Top 10 Best Selling Books - Oprah's Book Club

Top 10 Best Selling Books - Oprah's Book Club

How Oprah Winfrey Influenced What People Chose To Read

There can be no denying the influence Oprah Winfrey's Book Club had on the sales figures of the following 10 books.

They represent the top 10 bestselling books from the 70 books selected for her book club.

Would they have sold so many copies without her influence? Who can say.

If, like me, you often buy books because of word of mouth recommendation then it would be easy to see that a recommendation by someone considered 'influential' might possibly be acted upon.

Now multiply that 'word of mouth' influence by the number of people she recommended it to (not to 2 or 3 friends over coffee but to over an estimated 6 million (and as many as 16 million at the show's height) and you can see that an author of one of her selections might be smiling from ear to ear for the rest of their lives.

The top 10 bestsellers are an eclectic mix; probably showing Oprah's own diverse tastes. Some are non-fiction, some are contemporary novels, one is a classic from the last century. Oprah cast her nets wide for her selections and if the worst we can accuse her of is a sort of reader narcissism, then we can at least congratulate her for getting more people to read.

One of the authors of her Book Club Books, Jonathan Franzen was very derogatory about her choices for the club and about the selection of his own novel but I bet he didn't give her the money back or offer it up to charity? His criticism was of her credentials as a so called 'critic' but surely, we're all within our rights to become critics once we've read any book?

Oprah Winfrey Book Club 1996-2011

Oprah started the Book Club in 1996 as a regular feature on her talk show.

She started the club in September 1996, choosing one a month for the rest of the year. 1997 saw her choose 10 books and in 1998 through 2000 she chose 8 or more books.

The club was reduced to 3 or 4 books a year after 2000, Winfrey suggesting that it had actually stopped her reading contemporary novels for her own pleasure.

What is undeniable is the influence the Oprah Winfrey Book Club had over book sales.

It also led to Richard and Judy (in the UK) starting a similar bookclub. They were also very influential, especially when the club was supported by the UK's leading newsagent, W.H. Smiths.

#10. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski

Sales: 770,000 copies sold

Overall star rating on Amazon.Com (based on reviews by readers of the novel) = 3 stars

#9. Icy Sparks by Gwyn Hyman-Rubio

Sales: 794,000

Overall star rating  (based on reviews by readers of the novel) on Amazon.Com = 3½ stars.

#8. Love In The Time Of Cholera

Sales: 817,000 copies

Overall star rating (based on reviews by readers of the novel) on Amazon.Com = 4 stars

#7. The Pillars of The Earth - Ken Follett

Sales: 1.10 millions

Overall star rating (based on reviews by readers of the novel) = 4½ stars.

#6. East Of Eden by John Steinbeck

Sales: 1.31 millions

Overall star rating (based on reviews by readers of the novel) on Amazon.Com = 4½ stars.

#5. We Were The Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates

Sales = 1.35 millions

Overall star rating (based on reviews by readers of the novel) on Amazon.Com = 3 stars.

Jonathan Franzen reflecting on Upsetting Oprah

I'm not sure he says very much in this interview. His original comments came after he discovered his book, 'The Corrections' has been chosen as Oprah Winfrey's Book Club choice.

He was quoted as saying he 'cringed' when he heard it had been chosen and that some of her other selections had been 'schmaltzy'and that 'that crowd won't get it'.

Oprah held her nerve and told viewers she had cancelled his appearance on the show to ' spare his embarrassment'.

He described himself on the radio show, Fresh Air as an author in ' the high-art literary tradition' but not unsurprisingly, his comments were seen as elitist.(source:Bitchmagazine.org)

He did eventually back pedal and finally appeared on Oprah's show when she chose another of his novels, 'Freedom'. No harm was done, 'The Corrections' won the James Tait Prize for Literature and Frantzen's novel sold well anyway.

#4. The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Sales = 1.38 millions.

Overall star rating (based on reviews by readers of the novel) on Amazon.Com = 4 stars.

#3. Night by Elie Wiesel

Sales = 2.02 millions.

Overall star rating (based on reviews by readers of the novel) on Amazon.Com = 4½ stars.

#2. A Million Little Pieces by James Frey

Sales = 2.69 millions.

Overall star rating (based on reviews by readers of the novel) on Amazon.Com =3½ stars

#1. A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle

Sales = 3.37 millions.

Overall star rating (based on reviews by readers of the novel) on Amazon.Com = 4 stars.

The Future of Book Reviews

In spite of Jonathan Frantzen's misgivings, we are living in an amazing age when it comes to the role of book reviews.

In the past, book reviews were seen as rather highbrow, usually the New York Times Book Review in the US and the Times Literary Supplement in the UK were considered the 'correct' publications for serious book reviews.

Well it's 2011 and the digital age is allowing us all to be book reviewers.

You can download an e-book to your Kindle almost instantaneously and you can review it online (where you bought it) after you've read it and people like me will come along and read six or seven reviews and yes, your review might make me buy the book.

Am I interested in how literary it is? 'No'.

Am I interested in whether it uses a lot of six and seven syllable words? 'No.'

Am I interested in whether it's got a good story, a good pace, that it's a page turner? 'Yes please.'

And who better to enlighten me on those things than someone who read it and enjoyed it.

You could be 'SusieQ' from Iowa or DebbieS from London; I really don't mind. I trust your opinion.

Book reviews online are part of our cultural experience and we can either be part of it (and do our own) or we can be part of it by reading other people's reviews. Oprah Winfrey made a contribution to this by using another type of mass media, TV. We should salute her efforts and hope that now that her show has finished, other shows carry the torch going forward.

For more on the role of book reviews, go to this article on thedailybeast.com