On Oprah

Ohhh Oprah, you and your book club.

As I've expressed before, one of my goals for 2010 is to read more. It's not that I feel I need to expand my horizons, absorb more culture or make myself smarter (although those are all good things to do). I don't have degree guilt, thinking I should consume more classics before I truly "deserve" my degree in English literature or devour contemporary works to justify the creative writing emphasis. The bottom line is that I am truly head-over-heals in LOVE with books. My "to-read" list grows at nearly the rate I am able to read synopses, and so making a goal to read more is entirely to catch myself up to the volumes upon volumes unread on my shelf.

Enter Oprah, the woman who singlehandedly turned 864 grueling pages of Tolstoy into mainstream literature. Contrary to my tweet, I don't dislike Oprah. Nor do I dislike what she has done for literature and American literacy. I'm not worried about my lit-cred, I'm not keeping score... I am, however, on Oprah's e-mail list. Every few weeks I get e-mails featuring the latest new titles or the classics that have stood the test of time with tatalizing synopses and beautiful covers and now my wishlist looks like this.

Also my to-do list is about four times as long, I have about a hundred personal goals and I am downright ashamed over the quantity of clothing with which I do not wish to part. It's rough, this "live your best life" business. Easy for you, Oprah, with your army of assistants and your record-shattering paychecks, your magazine and TV show...

Oprah, my heart is in the right place. It really is. But at the end of the day I'm going to go watch my second episode of Jersey Shore before I check to see if my antennae will pick up Idol and harvest some virtual crops. I will also watch Planet Earth segments and read Discover magazine before bed. You win some you lose some.