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Oprah Winfrey's Liars Club

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averyreade
12/29/08

In reply to Oprah Winfrey's Liars Club
Don't forget Tom Cruise's enthusiastic love declarations for Katie Holmes...
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BullfightsOnAcid
12/29/08

In reply to Oprah Winfrey's Liars Club
about a young man in a concentration camp who was thrown an apple a day (to keep Dr. Mengele away)

I don't think I've ever laughed so hard at the Holocaust since Hogan's Heroes.
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Hydroceph
12/29/08

@BullfightsOnAcid: Yeah, Richard's totally gonna burn for that one.
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bigleggedwoman
12/29/08

In reply to Oprah Winfrey's Liars Club
There's an Oprah born every minute.
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Andy Matter
12/29/08

In reply to Oprah Winfrey's Liars Club
It's not that hard to fool Oprah. Just ask Stedman.
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BullfightsOnAcid
12/29/08

@Andy Matter: [uk]
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Hydroceph
12/29/08

@Andy Matter: I thought he was the beard.
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IndianSlipper
12/29/08

In reply to Oprah Winfrey's Liars Club
Don't forgot that other liar, Wiesel. Dude totally didn't have it hard in the camps.
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JinxyMcDeath
12/29/08

@IndianSlipper: Not funny.
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Baroness
12/29/08

In reply to Oprah Winfrey's Liars Club
I hesitate to say this, as she might send her Dark Helicopters (of Empathy!) to bedevil my tower, but it's inescapable:

Oprah has horrible, horrible taste in books.

She's a sucker for moving, uplifting tales, weepies that always have to teach some moral lesson. This is pretty much the opposite of any first-rate work of literature or art, or in any case quite beside the point. She has no time for quality of prose, or ambiguity; the books she favors are really TV movies in another form.

She likes the "high-concept" Hollywood pitch of them, but "books" seems to add some sort of classy legitimacy for the outlandish, sentimental, and often false dreck she's peddling.

I don't think it's cynical or intentional, and I'm sure there have been exceptions. But she really needs to wake up to avoid embarrassments like these.
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Hydroceph
12/29/08

@Baroness: Dark Helicopters of Empathy. Love it.
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DesirooForYou
12/29/08

@Baroness: I have to totally disagree with this comment. It is true that she has had some sappy, bad books but she also has had some GREAT ones, like the Heart is a Lonely Hunter (Awesome), As I Lay Dying, and Middlesex. And you forget, putting her stamp on a book actually gets people to READ.
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Zorica
12/29/08

@DesirooForYou: Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections was also an Oprah book, at least for awhile. That's one of my favorite Oprah stories, actually. Franzen apparently agrees with Baroness, and asked that he be de-selected. He didn't want the stickers on his book either, or at least that's what the book store guy told me. Maybe he was just trying to seal the sale, seeing as the copy I was buying DID have the sticker and I have to say, knowing that would piss Franzen off made me that much happier to have that particular copy. That, and I'd already heard the book was funny. Which it was.
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Baroness
12/29/08

@DesirooForYou: Well, I did say there were exceptions, and you nailed them, and I agree with you. And yes, getting people to buy and read books is wonderful. But overwhelmingly, she loooves self-help books disguised as lit.

It'd be great if she went with more like the 3 (wonderful) exceptions you pointed out. Shame only one of the 3 is contemporary, for the author's sake- good for Eugenides.
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CodePink
12/29/08

In reply to Oprah Winfrey's Liars Club
Opes loved my book HOAX: Story of a Fake until she realized it was true.
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m4ximusprim3
12/29/08

In reply to Oprah Winfrey's Liars Club
Does Oprah actually read all of these books, or are they just summarized by aides, CIA style? If so, how do I get that job?
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Hydroceph
12/29/08

@m4ximusprim3: and who vets these people, anyway? the same ones who brought us Sarah Palion? how many times must she be taken before she and the rest of realize that Oprah is not to be trusted with books?
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Claire Buoyant
12/29/08

@Hydroceph: I have a feeling that a large part of her audience also buy into astrology and Rhonda Byrne's "The Secret," so, um, there's no hope for those people.
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Hydroceph
12/29/08

@Claire Buoyant: i realized this morning that one of my coworkers is part of the Secret set. That certainly explains the yawning chasm between her ears. I think you're right. We need to keep in mind that on some level Oprah approves of that shite. OK, whatever, her latest Holocaust gut-wrencher is made up, so what, it's just Oprah.
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Nice Beaver
12/29/08

In reply to Oprah Winfrey's Liars Club
Dear God, it's me, Nard. Please let Oprah call Herman's lies "the worst thing that's ever happened to the Jewish people." Thank you.
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ginger rant
12/29/08

@Nard: I.e., "Worse than Madoff!!!"?
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EleanorRigby
12/29/08

@ginger rant: Translate those things into Yiddish and it's pretty much a verbatim transcription of the conversation my familial elders had at the annual gathering for latkes yesterday. Add in a few sighs and disapproving tut noises, though.
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ginger rant
12/29/08

@EleanorRigby: Funny you should say that: actually, it was at a Hanukah party (my husband is Jewish; I'm a wannabe) last week where I first learned of the shame that Madoff has brought to the Jews, particularly the reinforcing-the-stereotype-about-only-caring-about-money thing. So when I heard about Herman's hubris, I thought, "Uh oh ... not good for the Jews," and then I thought, "Ooh! Lookee me! I'm thinking like a Jew! Wheeeeeeee!" Yes, I'm very easily amused. Why?

Although of course those of us raised by church ladies and such don't go "Bad for the Christians!" whenever Bush, Mel Gibson, or Rod Stewart [aside: why Rod Stewart? Not sure; I just really hate him] open their hideous mouths. (Insert Lani Guineer's speil about the tyranny of the majority here.) Maybe we should start?
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EleanorRigby
12/29/08

@ginger rant: My boss and I were just having this conversation. Her in-laws are embarrassed/ashamed whenever a black person is pilloried in the news for doing something shameful or not smart (her example was Janet Jackson at the Superbowl). Minorities that carry heavy stereotypes and face a lot of stigma hate when the stereotypes are publicly reinforced. The conniving Jew who even steals from his own people is, as they say, a great shande. My grandpa went so far as to proclaim he should be hanged in the town square.
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ginger rant
12/29/08

@EleanorRigby: Very interesting. At risk of saying something impolitic, it sounds a little like self-hatred (an inevitable vestige of being a persecuted people, I'm tempted to say). Perhaps?

Or was that a bad thing to say? Not sure.

Meanwhile, I'm half-WASP and quite enjoy people making fun of WASPs.
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EleanorRigby
12/29/08

@ginger rant: It's a "we have to stick together since everyone else is against us" mentality that my grandparents have from the Holocaust. It does bear the taint of self-hatred as well since they were so persecuted for most of their lives. To them, Jews are a big family with shared morals and values. When a "relative" betrays them, he's cut off and shamed. For the public to know is the equivalent of airing your actual family's dirty laundry to the world.
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ginger rant
12/29/08

@EleanorRigby: It's funny, though: while I "got it" when my (three Jewish female) friends said of the Madoff thing at the Hanukkah party last week, "My first thought was, This is bad for the Jews," the more I think about it, the more I realize that MY first thought was, "But I expect better of the Jews!" Maybe that's part of the bummer for Jews, too: while of course no nationality has a monopoly on morality, traditional Jewish values (as I understand them) include an emphasis on philanthropy and, decidedly un-Madoff-like, doing one's part for the common good--hence the appeal of Judaism to (atheist) me and the appeal of raising my kid as a Jew. Well, that and to spite my mother.
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BookishLookish
12/29/08

@ginger rant: OK, red, you're getting your heart back!
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Pope John Peeps II
12/29/08

In reply to Oprah Winfrey's Liars Club
It would be tragic if we didn't firmly realize that Oprah is illiterate.
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belltolls
12/29/08

In reply to Oprah Winfrey's Liars Club
More Posthumous Oprah Picks: The Painted Bird.
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TedSez
12/29/08

@belltolls:

Jerzy Kosinski may have misled people about his past, but The Painted Bird was published as a work of fiction.
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belltolls
12/29/08

@TedSez: @IndianSlipper: @Queen of the Passive Aggressives: Hey, HEY you guys, I know it was written as a work of fiction (and I liked the book as well) but there was considerable controversey as to WHO actually wrote it.
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i'm a bottle
12/29/08

@belltolls: The difference between Kosinski and the members of Oprah's Pantheon of Tedious Literary Fraudsters: he was an interesting liar.
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TedSez
12/29/08

@belltolls:

The idea that Kosinski's books were plagiarized or largely written by others has been discredited. As a non-native English speaker, he did hire translators to help him with his prose, especially early in his career. But the content, style and themes of all his novels are remarkably consistent, which would have been impossible if different people wrote each one.

Plus, his main characters all tend to be kind of a-holes, just as he apparently was in real life.
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TedSez
12/29/08

@belltolls: But I'm sorry for misconstruing your comment... I hate it when that happens!
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belltolls
12/29/08

@TedSez: I am sorry if I repeated an old libel; the old ones are always the best ones.
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MrInBetween
12/29/08

In reply to Oprah Winfrey's Liars Club
Don't forget Oprah is also quick to embrace authors who are horrific hacks like, well, for starters: Mitch Albom.
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Queen of the Passive Aggressives
12/29/08

@MrInBetween: Thank you for saying that. That stupid 5 People You Meet is a killer. I have friends who eat that stuff up whole.
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MrInBetween
12/29/08

@Queen of the Passive Aggressives: Have you seen The Five People You Meet in Hell? Hilarious.
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bigleggedwoman
12/29/08

@MrInBetween: ... by Rich Pablum!
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