No, Oprah has definitely recommended some excellent books; I'm commenting more on the fact that "people" need to have those books recommended by someone like Oprah in order to think they are OK to read.
Is this a holdover from school? That only English-class-books are "real" reading? I don't know. I just know that I talk to everyone about what they read, and as a result have developed appreciation for whole genres (historical romance, for example) that I would never have otherwise.
I mean, I threw "The Bluest Eye" across the room the first time I read it...but then, I wasn't used to books making me unhappy and uncomfortable like that.
For some class or other, I read both Bastard Out of Carolina and Ellen Foster. Shortly thereafter, The Book of Ruth. At some point, I stopped being able to get any real meaning out of the books and started experiencing them much like that kind of fanfiction which describes Mulder being tortured by aliens and then rescued by people who spend a week gang-raping him and leave him for dead, after which he is miraculously rescued by people who heal him up and then torture him in the basement for months before he is reabducted by the aliens. In multiple installments totalling 20,000 words.
Alan Rickman reads Sonnet 130
I so want to click that link, but I only have the one pair of panties with me today.
Alas, I think Jen's spoiled that sonnet for me.
Oh, it ain't the words. It's the voice saying the words.
I have that CD. I don't listen to it anywhere near enough.
Oh, I know. I'd happily listen to him read the phone book. But I can't listen to it without a bit of "yeah, but..."
On the other hand, I can't find anything on the Web to give evidence of what Jen was saying, and I can't remember it well enough to repeat it. So never mind...
She had a rant about it in her LJ, didn't she? I remembered it after you mentioned it.
I wasn't sure whether to put this in Literary or Movies, but I am pleased to report that The Seeker, the movie once known as The Dark is Rising (but apparently the title of the book it was based upon was jettisoned along with 90% of the plot and 100% of the characterization), is getting panned.
