However, I will say that it may be, KF, that it’s not your memory which is to blame—there were throughout last year both Oprah-logo and non-logo editions of the hardcover in circulation, with a perceived demand for the latter by the Culturati apparently prompting a revision to the customary strategy of only producing Oprah-endorsement-bearing covers once the decision was made.

Another tangentially related tidbit: the whole snowballing “morning show book club” thing has now gotten going, with Today picking Stephen L. Carter, big-time “public intellectual”-turned-novelist; and Anne Packer’s The Dive from Clausen’s Pier getting Good Morning America’s nod—both departing from Oprah’s somewhat personal (if ultimately predictable) selection methods to back, instead, favorites of the publishing houses and institutions like the Times book review (Franzen was, it’s true, in that category as well).

Of course, Kelly Ripa—Kathi Lee’s replacement—is picking books too.  She’s smart enough not to pretend to be sophisticated, though, as her most recent pick indicates: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?isbn=0312288115

Make of this what you will…

Like the poor guy hasn’t been beaten up on enough, without my using misinformation to do it.

I’m with you on the issue of Oprah’s mass-branding of cultural objects; her name on a book is the equivalent, on a certain level, of Martha Stewart’s name on a can of paint at K-mart.  But:  whatever the corporate goals of such licensing, I’m not sure I can automatically label its influence as wholly negative.  Any campaign that gets such a significant percentage of otherwise sheltered Americans reading the bulk of Toni Morrison’s work can’t be all bad.  And while yes, the Oprah machine has tyrannized a number of bookstores into fronting her choices and ignoring the unselected preterite, it has, on the other hand, gotten people to actually go into bookstores and buy books.

As to Franzen’s resistance:  don’t get me wrong—I’m not sure I’d be entirely comfortable with the Oprah seal of approval either.  But it strikes me as a teeny bit hypocritical to be okay with the big FSG logo on the spine but not the Oprah logo on the front.

Vast square footages of retail space in big box bookstores are given over to the oprah sticker.  Entire bookracks at the library.  It’s what the Booker Prize or the Nobel Prize stickers mean to me when I’m looking around for a good book to start.

Franzen has claimed that his objection to being Oprahized was not, ultimately, because of her cultural endoresment (whether high or low); it was, he said, because of the logo on the book.  Even if we only take him at face value, it seems beyond television - it’s almost as if the book cover itself becomes an ad, or mimics television. And it’s pretty funny to think about the logo as a correction. 

Basta! i’m rambling. Intersteing post, tho - have fun on your new blog!