Influence
In Reading with Oprah: The Book Club That Changed America, Kathleen Rooney describes Winfrey as "a serious American intellectual who pioneered the use of electronic media, specifically television and the Internet, to take reading—a decidedly non-technological and highly individual act—and highlight its social elements and uses in such a way to motivate millions of erstwhile non-readers to pick up books."
Business Week stated:
Perhaps the most astonishing aspect of the Oprah phenomenon is how outsized her power is compared with that of other market movers. Some observers suggest that Jon Stewart of Comedy Central's The Daily Show could be No. 2. Other proven arm-twisters include Fox News's Sean Hannity, National Public Radio's Terry Gross, radio personality Don Imus, and CBS' 60 Minutes. But no one comes close to Oprah's clout: Publishers estimate that her power to sell a book is anywhere from 20 to 100 times that of any other media personality.
In 2009 it was reported that the influence of Winfrey's book club had even spread to Brazil with picks like A New Earth dominating Brazil's best-seller list.
The club generated so much success for some books that they went on to be adapted into films. This subset includes The Deep End of the Ocean and The Reader.
At the shows conclusion in May 2011, Nielsen BookScan created a list of the top-10 bestsellers from the Clubs final 10 years (prior data was unavailable). The top four with sales figures as of May 2011:
- Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth (2005), 3,370,000 copies
- James Frey, A Million Little Pieces, 2,695,500 copies
- Elie Wiesel, Night, 2,021,000 copies
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road, 1,385,000 copies
Read more about this topic: Oprah's Book Club
Famous quotes containing the word influence:
“A bestial and violent man will go so far as to kill because he is under the influence of drink, exasperated, or driven by rage and alcohol. He is paltry. He does not know the pleasure of killing, the charity of bestowing death like a caress, of linking it with the play of the noble wild beasts: every cat, every tiger, embraces its prey and licks it even while it destroys it.”
—Colette [Sidonie Gabrielle Colette] (1873–1954)
“For character too is a process and an unfolding ... among our valued friends is there not someone or other who is a little too self confident and disdainful; whose distinguished mind is a little spotted with commonness; who is a little pinched here and protruberent there with native prejudices; or whose better energies are liable to lapse down the wrong channel under the influence of transient solicitations?”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“Who shall set a limit to the influence of a human being? There are men, who, by their sympathetic attractions, carry nations with them, and lead the activity of the human race. And if there be such a tie, that, wherever the mind of man goes, nature will accompany him, perhaps there are men whose magnetisms are of that force to draw material and elemental powers, and, where they appear, immense instrumentalities organize around them.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)