Oprah's Book Club Picks

... Read The Covenant of Water Summary

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1940) is a Southern Gothic novel written by Carson McCullers, one of the most prominent American literary voices of the 20th century. Set in a small unnamed town, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter captures the spiritual isolation and loneliness of five ordinary people in the deep American South in the 1930s. McCullers is known for her contributions to the development of the Southern Gothic subgenre, and her novels... Read The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter Summary

... Read The Heart of a Woman Summary

A historical novel, The Invention of Wings (2014), by Sue Monk Kidd, traces the intersecting lives of the abolitionist sisters, Sarah and Angelina Grimké, and Sarah’s slave, Hetty Handful Grimké. Spanning 35 years and set primarily in Charleston, South Carolina in the 1800s, the novel begins on Sarah’s 11th birthday, when Handful is given to her as a birthday present. It ends when Sarah helps Handful and her sister, Sky, escape slavery, and Sarah fulfills... Read The Invention of Wings Summary

... Read The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois Summary

Welsh writer Ken Follett begins his novel The Pillars of the Earth (1989) with the sinking of the White Ship in 1120 and ends it with the murder of Thomas Beckett in 1170. This is the first book in the Kingsbridge series, followed by World Without End (2007) and A Column of Fire (2017). Follett later released the prequel, The Evening and the Morning, in 2020.The White Ship sinking in the English Channel resulted in... Read The Pillars of the Earth Summary

Introduction Law professor Bernhard Schlink published The Reader (Der Vorleser) in Germany in 1995. Two years later, an English version arrived in the United States, and it became a bestseller and a selection for Oprah's Book Club. The German newspaper Abendzeitung named the book Stern des Jahres (Star of the Year), and it was also awarded the 1998 Hans Fallada Prize, given to works that address social or political issues. Translated editions of The Reader... Read The Reader Summary

The Road is a dystopian fiction novel published in 2006 by American author Cormac McCarthy. McCarthy penned 12 novels, three short stories, and several plays for screen and stage. His works, including Blood Meridian and No Country for Old Men, are known for violence; postapocalyptic, western settings, and a lack of punctuation characteristic of McCarthy's writing. Widely considered one of the greatest novels of the 21st century, The Road won the Pulitzer Prize and the... Read The Road Summary

William Faulkner’s 1929 novel The Sound and the Fury relays the trials and decline of a once-prominent Southern family, the Compsons. The novel grapples with the challenges of a changing cultural landscape as modernity encroaches on the values—and deep-seated prejudices—of the Old South. Told through the perspectives of the three Compson brothers, Benjy, Quentin, and Jason, the novel visits and revisits key events in the family’s past and present. Much of the concern swirls around... Read The Sound and the Fury Summary

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle (2008), American author David Wroblewski’s family epic set in 1970s rural Wisconsin, fuses elements of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet with the story of a gifted boy named Edgar who is mute. Initial critical reaction celebrated the reach of its intricate plot, its massive cast of characters, the audacity of its retelling of Hamlet, and its investigation into the dark dynamics of a dysfunctional family, particularly the complex relationship between feuding brothers... Read The Story of Edgar Sawtelle Summary

The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row, is a 2018 memoir written by Anthony Ray Hinton (with cowriter Lara Love Hardin)—a man who spent nearly three decades on death row in Alabama.  For his book and for subsequent activism to fight the death penalty at large, public figures from Desmond Tutu to Richard Branson praised Hinton's efforts. Hinton is now a renowned speaker on prison reform, forgiveness, and hope... Read The Sun Does Shine Summary

... Read The Sweetness of Water Summary

... Read The Way of Integrity Summary

... Read The Wedding People Summary

... Read Wellness Summary

We Were the Mulvaneys is a novel by American writer Joyce Carol Oates, originally published in the US in 1996. Set largely in the rural Northeastern United States in the 1970s, this story deals with the myth of the ideal American family and the ruinous effects it can have when real-life events threaten the appearance of familial unity. After having been featured as an Oprah Book Club selection in January 2001, the novel became a... Read We Were the Mulvaneys Summary

Where the Heart Is was published in 1995 and is the first novel by award winning American novelist Billie Letts. The novel is set in Letts’s home state of Oklahoma and follows the story of teenager Novalee Nation and her ne’er-do-well boyfriend, Willy Jack Pickens. The novel was chosen as a selection for Oprah’s Book Club in December of 1998. It also won the Walker Percy Award in 1994. The novel was made into a... Read Where the Heart Is Summary

White Oleander was written by Janet Fitch and first published in 1999. It is a young adult realistic fiction novel that functions as a bildungsroman and focuses on the story of a young girl who is separated from her mother and placed in a series of dysfunctional foster homes. The novel was chosen for Oprah’s Book Club in 1999 and achieved national bestseller status afterward. It was also adapted into a 2002 film of the... Read White Oleander Summary

... Read Wild Summary