Fucking Oprah
I don’t think it will be any shock to know that I am quite an avid reader. I like to read all sorts of genres. Today, I’d like to yammer a bit about my readings. Sit back and enjoy.
I just finished a book called “Bright Flows the River”. It was writtern by Taylor Caldwell. This was one of the best books I have ever read. Seriously. If you ever have a free moment, look for this book and read it. It’s not exactly an easy read, but it was very moving. Try Amazon.com to find it. I didn’t get it in a book store, I got it from my grandmother’s stack of books after she died. It was odd to find that she was a bit of an intellectual. Amid the hundreds (seriously) of romance novels was a peppering of really deep and wonderful books brimming with different philosophies and views. I miss her like you wouldn’t believe, even though she died nearly 11 years ago.
Speaking of “not an easy read” books, when Jessie and I first started dating almost six years ago, he told me that he wouldn’t consider a serious relationship with me unless I read “The Hobbit” and the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. First of all, I thought he was a bit of an ass for forcing the books on me, but I didn’t think much of it since I love to read. I was completely unaware that Tolkien was a long winded old fart who takes 100 pages to explain a tree. Seriously, that was painful reading, and this was before the movies came out! I knew then why there was such a huge nerd following concerning Tolkien, and when I mean “nerd” I mean the creepy kind that spend numerous hours playing “RPG’s” and avoiding a human social life at all costs unless it is to play D&D. But I digress. It turns out that I am a nerd among nerds because, even though I found the Trilogy to be quite a painful read, I loved the “Silmarillion”. Again, this was before the movies, so I got to this before a lot of you nerds out there. It’s really good actually. I liked it much more than the Trilogy.
And now to explain the header to this blog entry. I read “The Grapes of Wrath” many years ago and really loved the story. I really liked Steinbeck’s style of writing. So, naturally, I sought another book by the same author and came upon “East of Eden”. Again, a really good book. So I was at work one day and I was telling a girl that I worked with about the book I had just finished because she found it necessary to tell me about her stupid Nicholas Sparks book. So I am telling her about all the characters and she asks the name of the book, and the conversation went something like this:
“Oh, it’s called East of Eden.” I say.
“By Oprah?” She inquires.
I stare at her for a moment and then reply, “Um, no. John Steinbeck.”
“Oh, no I meant from Oprah’s book club. Are you in her book club? Because that book is in her book club.”
“W-what?!?!” I yell.
“Yeah, Oprah totally endorsed that book and said it was a great read.”
“Fucking Oprah.”
I swear that My version of the book did not come with the accursed “OPRAH BOOK CLUB” sticker on it, and since I have absolutely no interest in reading anything from that stupid book club, I was horrified that a book that I really enjoyed was also being read by bored Middle American housewives amid the thunder of screaming children and “Dora the Explorer”. Kinda takes the beauty out of the story for me. I also have a sick feeling about that book club because I seriously doubt Oprah reads all, if any, of the books she endorses. She probably has a huge staff of people researching and reading these things for her. Either way, I wish Oprah would stay out of the Classics and let me read with a clean soul.
