Yes, all-powerful Oprah announced her book club pick yesterday: Jonathan Franzen's Freedom. It was a suprise to absolutely no one - not even to me, and I gave up on her endorsed books years ago. (I love her magazine but god help me if I don't want to poke my eyes out reading one of her modern-day book-club picks. I see the Oprah Book Club logo and I drop the book and run. Seriously.)So, Jonathan Franzen...really? I don't think Oprah is obligated to pick poor, starving authors but c'mon, the man was just on the cover of Time-frickin'-magazine. If you know how to read, you know about this book. Plus, Franzen was too cool for Oprah school the first time around, when she picked The Corrections in 2001. He's already astronomically famous and apparently ungrateful...so why help him out, again?
Susan Orlean agrees with me. Yesterday she tweeted, under the hash tag #thatsmytwocents, "No bone to pick with Franzen, but Oprah could have anointed someone who actually NEEDED attention."
Um, yeah.
