Every year, with mercenary regularity, Oprah Winfrey releases her Book Club Choices: fresh titles she’s a fan of from any kind of genre that instantly receive a huge sales boost from her millions of loyal devotees. Usually, the media mogul’s choices are scintillating works of new fiction; sometimes, they’re pulpy age-turners hat would be perfectly at home in any suburban mom’s bookshelf. This year, however, Winfrey has elected to do something a little bit different. Rather than pointing readers towards new titles, she’s recommending 7 particular titles she’s identified as “The Books That Help Me Through.”
- The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
- The Soul of America by Jon Meacham
- Devotions by Mary Oliver
- Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
- The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
- Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
- When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: a Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry edited by U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo.
Winfrey has selected these social justice-adjacent and self-help associated titles in order to help alleviate the deep anxiety people are feeling in 2020 about politics, policing and basic survival. “In each of these books,” Winfrey said in a statement, “and for various reasons, I find comfort, beauty, inspiration, reassurance. At a time when the ground is shifting beneath us, we need to continue to find ways of living our best lives, and for me, there is no best life without books.”
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Oprah’s most recent choices seem to indicate that there are literal, factual ways to be informed about what’s happening in the world, but there are also spiritual, more conceptual books to be read that can also shine a light in whatever darkness you’re encountering. Oprah is inviting her devoted readers to join her beginning today through November 30 at Oprah’s Book Club Instagram and Facebook pages, where they can all make their way through these books together.
