You can bet this won't be an Oprah's Book Club selection...
She reaches 7 million viewers a day and is one of the most recognizable women in the world, but what do we really know about Oprah Winfrey? Throughout her 24-year career as host of The Oprah Winfrey Show, Oprah has opened up about challenges she faced in the past, such as extreme poverty and sexual abuse, but she’s kept her current life largely under wraps. Now, in Oprah: a Biography, celebrity biographer Kitty Kelley documents Oprah’s rise to fame by piecing together information from thousands of sources. While Oprah herself declined to be interviewed for the book, Kelley interviewed over 850 Oprah insiders (including Oprah’s father) to collect unknown facts about Winfrey’s life. The result is an often unflattering portrait that critics can’t quite agree on: some say the book is well researched and “alluring,” while others sum it up as mean-spirited secret spilling. All in all, Oprah may not be the next Pulitzer Prize winner, but you can never have too much beach reading.
“[A] well-orchestrated whirlwind of a book that is as fast-paced, cunning and alluring as Winfrey herself.” – Susan Carpenter, Los Angeles Times
“After some hollow authorial claims of respect and admiration, ‘Oprah’ just aims for the jugular. It doesn’t draw blood.” – Janet Maslin, New York Times
“In her own cussed and occluded and occasionally mean-spirited fashion, [Kelley] gives us a way in.” – Louis Bayard, The Washington Post
Check out ShelfLife for more about the book and an interview with author Kitty Kelley.
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