Jennifer Szalai ponders the various iterations of Oprah’s book club. Her parting thoughts:
For literary purists, everything that Winfrey brings—the sales bump, the best-seller status, anything having to do with the word “popular”—no doubt signifies trouble rather than salvation, further proof of the irreconcilable gulf between mass culture and genuine art. This is not to say that such suspicions are necessarily unfounded, but don’t they also treat art as some fragile, defenseless object, prone to contamination from simply having too many people experience it, people who might appreciate it (or not) in their own way?
The Dish 