Thursday, September 11, 2008

Please, Oprah, Pick a Short Story Collection!

There's rampant speculation about the next pick for Oprah's Book Club, which will be announced on Sept. 19. If you look at the list of past choices, you'll see that Oprah Winfrey has never picked a book of short stories--to my mind, a glaring omission. So, please, Oprah, pick a story collection! Ron Hogan has gotten my hopes up by speculating in GalleyCat that Edward P. Jones' All Aunt Hagar's Children--which is chock full of exceptional stories--may be the book. That would be good news, indeed. But don't stop there, Oprah. There are a lot of great collections, old and new, to choose from. How about this one?