“Books are my pass to personal freedom. Reading gives you the ability to reach higher ground. And keep climbing.” Oprah Winfrey
Bravo, Oprah, for your passionate love of books! When I saw a copy of the O Quarterly and read that Oprah’s Book Club was celebrating its 100th pick, I knew I had to snap it up from the newsstand. So I did!
Consider how many books and authors Oprah has supported over the years—the number must be mind boggling. What a surge in book sales she’s helped create!
And now, consider this fact, which absolutely delighted me: Of all the 82 novels and 10 memoirs the Oprah Book Club has read, according to its index, the BESTSELLING PICK OF ALL TIME” proved to be pick # 70: A Tale of Two Cities—how amazing is that? A novel written 165 years ago, with a little help from Oprah, has sold 200 million copies!
As an unapologetic Dickens lover, I was delighted to learn that his wonderful novel came out of top, beating out dozens of other classics and contemporary stories. In celebration, I’m sharing my own personal Dickens tale:
I can still remember sitting in a bus in Manhattan in my knee socks as an angsty, lovelorn teenager. It was very early in the morning and I was on the way to school. I should have been studying my math, because, as usual, I wasn’t doing well. Instead, I dipped into my dusty olive-green Harvard book bag and pulled out my copy of a Tale of Two Cities and started reading it.
I came to the passage where a jaded Sydney Carton decides to give up his life for the love of his life—“It is a far far better thing I do than I have ever done…” and I burst into tears. Bleary-eyed and sleepy, everyone on the bus turned and stared at me. Who was this kid who was crying? What had happened?
What happened was this: I was reading a book whose author had written it with heart. And I’ve been a Charles Dickens fan ever since.
Sure, I was a teenager with all the angst that goes with it — it didn’t take much to put me over the edge. But I know that wasn’t it. A Tale of Two Cities touched me. It moved me. In that moment on the bus, the writer’s heart linked with mine.
As wordsmiths, when we write from the heart, time and space disappear. We are one with our readers, whoever and wherever they are. Isn’t that amazing? Truly, a miracle. And now, heartened and emboldened let’s all write on!
