Oprah books contemporary writers

David Mehegan - The Boston Globe: "The book world heaved a happy sigh yesterday at news that daytime TV doyenne Oprah Winfrey has decided to resume her selections of contemporary books for ''Oprah's Book Club," part of ''The Oprah Winfrey Show."

Winfrey's first choice of a book by a living writer since 2002 is James Frey's 2003 memoir of drug addiction, ''A Million Little Pieces." The selection was announced on the program Thursday. In a trademark dramatic touch, Frey's mother was in the studio audience, but did not know ahead of time that her son was to be chosen.

''It's great news," said Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild, about the return of contemporary writers to the book club. ''She reaches writers in a way that few others have been able to. Her recommendations were incredibly powerful, and she elevated authors whom the greater public had largely not known of."

Between 1996 and 2002, Winfrey picked one book by a contemporary fiction writer per month, encouraged her viewers to read it, and hosted the author on her program. Her endorsement often drove sales of books over the million mark. It became so big that publishers had to be tipped off ahead of time so they could gear up for the demand. While she chose books by famous writers, such as Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, she also named such respected-but-unfamous authors as Mary McGarry Morris, Wally Lamb, Anita Shreve, and Andre Dubus III.

''She doesn't just choose a book," said Harold Augenbraum, executive director of the National Book Foundation, ''she supports it with time and effort and staff and resources. Simply by doing that, she shows that a book is important to her and should be to her audience." In one procedural change starting with the Frey selection, Oprah's picks will now include nonfiction as well as fiction.

After one of her 2001 choices, novelist Jonathan Franzen, publicly disparaged the significance of the Winfrey endorsement, she canceled his selection. The following year, she stopped choosing living writers in favor of classics, such as John Steinbeck's ''East of Eden" and Leo Tolstoy's ''Anna Karenina."

However, while publishers were happy to have the attention to the classics, they found that the public didn't respond to Winfrey's recommendations of books by dead writers as they had when they could see and hear the writers live on the program. And writers sorely missed her patronage. Last April, 160 writers signed an open letter, imploring her to bring back the club as it was. ''The American literary landscape is in distress," they wrote. ''The readers need you. And we, the writers, need you."

Augenbraum applauded the opening of the field to nonfiction. ''I think it's great that she's trying to keep the book club fresh for her audience," he said. ''It keeps people interested, keeps it from getting stale. It shows that she is thinking about what makes a good book club interesting, whether it has 20 members or a million.""