Today was a big day in Oprahland. It was the day that reclusive author Cormac McCarthy confided in Oprah during his first ever television interview.
A man who is barely seen in public, was asked during the interview if he “cared that millions of people were now reading his words” and replied “in all honesty I have to say I really don’t,” was now confiding in Oprah.
It gets better.
The Chicago Reader is running a story by Julie Rickert claiming that one of the books heavily promoted by Oprah in her post-Frey world, The Secret by Rhonda Byrne, “appears to contain at least one fabrication.”
Oprah has devoted two entire shows to the book and has a 15-page feature at oprah.com.
The gist of the book: Your thoughts determine everything in your life, it is the “you cannot ‘catch’ anything unless you think you can” approach to the world.
“That The Secret’s premise is a fantasy is undeniable” Rickert says “If it were true, there would be no hypochondriacs, no one suffering from delusions of grandeur—no mental illness at all.”
The problem:
There is a quote attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson that simply cannot be verified.
The quote: “The secret is the answer to all that has been, all that is, and all that will ever be” It appears on p. 183.
Remember the “I believe that truth matters” spiel she gave her viewers during her face to face with James Frey after his debacle.
And to really spice it up M. J. Rose, at her blog Buzz, Balls & Hype, shares these Oprah numbers with us:
Oprah hasn’t picked a book written by a women for her book club in over 2 years.
Since 2003 12 of the 14 book club books chosen were written by men.
Over 45 million people watch Oprah every week, a vast majority being female.
Oh and what’s Oprah’s next book club pick?
It’s a book about an hermaphrodite with the word sex in the title written by a man.
Wow.