Tuesday, May 15, 2007

"O"

While I am no regular viewer of Oprah Winfrey's TV show - "Oprah" - I must say I am very intrigued by the influence of her book club so I had to check out the website today --

www.oprah.com/bookclub

Several immediate observations came to mind during my scan of this website:

  • It does not appear to have any visitor feedback/interactivity -- why not replicate the "book club" experience of friends gathering in a living room by at least having a blog/bulletin board where readers/website visitors can "discuss" a book with each other?
  • The chosen books for this book club lack any selections from the fields of - history, economics, global politics, entrepreneurship, etc. - unless I simply missed them since I did not recognize all of the titles. I would love to see her book club select a book like "The Mystery of Capital" by Hernando de Soto to get more people to appreciate the value of property rights.
  • I would love to see Oprah take racism and censorship/book bans head on by selecting "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain. I mention this book because it has been challenged by activist parents who find its use of the "n-word" for blacks offensive although Mr. Twain wrote the book to insult the racists.

I plan to book mark Oprah's website so I can at least monitor her book selections -- given her enormous influence all book lovers should take an interest in this vehicle for literacy.

Todd

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