Oh, Oprah

As God himself hangs upon the word of Oprah, she names Charles Dickens' classic, A Tale of Two Cities, as her book of the month.

Come on, Oprah.

I'm not saying Charles doesn't deserve his due. He's classic. He's world renowned. But he's no big secret. Oprah had a chance to change an author's life, to take something obscure and brilliant and make it huge. And the chances are running out. And she picks a dead guy who needs no help in getting people to read his book?

Last month it was Jonathan Franzen's Freedom, and he didn't need any help either.

I'm disappointed. It's difficult to find the diamond in the rough, the needle in the haystack, the holy-shit-this-book-is-utterly-fantastic! among all the spines on a bookstore's shelves. And I know there are greatly written, brilliantly wonderful books out there. Oprah can be a compass to help find them.

Oprah didn't need to tell us what we already knew.

If I had my own talk show, I would feature new authors; new authors who wrote a book that I didn't want to finish for fear the characters would leave me. New authors who deserve to be distinguished from the other spines. New authors who want a private jet and an indoor swimming pool and a financial advisor and a walk in closet full of designer clothes and bath salts and a butler and a private chef and a lawyer and a garden and a library and a...