summer hols

It's summer holidays.

You can tell because of the rain.

Raining summers mean lots of reading

and for some reason I'm having an Oprah fest.

I don't mean I'm reading through Oprah's book club list

I mean I'm reading the dirt dishing about Oprah type books.

I like Oprah.

I haven't actually watched her programme for ages and ages but when I was at Uni I did about once a week.

I do read her magazine at Coffee Culture

I'm too cheap to buy a copy

But I like to look a the pretty pictures. 

The articles are a bit airy fairy and I can't be bothered reading them

but pretty pictures!

The first I picked up was "Living Oprah" by Robyn Okrant

I can't remember why but Robyn decided to live 2008 by watching Oprah every weekday,

then take Oprah's advice and actually follow the advice......EVERYDAY!

As a book it was interesting more for how strange it was to watch this
sane, sensible (one assumes) woman become a clone.

Robyn is a yoga instructor who is finishing her master thesis and is married to an incredible patient husband.

Every weekday she watches Oprah and takes a piece of advice that is given by the Oprah herself

and then does it.

Advice is things like get tailored clothes, spend an hour in bed reading, 10 must haves for your wardrobe, living abundantly, be your best self things like that.

The thing I got from the book was that it is very hard to live up to others expectations including Oprah's and that Oprah, dare I say it, is a bit of a hypocrite in that she talks about simplifying your life but she buys $2500 handbags en masse.  It's not that buying expensive handbags over complicates your life, it's that your average Oprah viewer hasn't a hope in hell in being able to buy a $2500 handbag.

And isn't promoting consumerism making life complex and full of junk??

The second Oprah book I read was Kitty Kelley's Oprah.

A good summer book.

It wasn't like a massive dish of dirt on the Oprah

though it is a rather hefty book.

Most of the stuff in the book you already know.

The only things that were aha! moments were the secrecy aspect of Oprah's life, business etc etc.

She is a bit protective of her image, her programme etc etc and she does sound like a self serving bitch

but you don't get to the top by not controlling everything.

Oprah actually strikes me as naive in her efforts to do good works.

It's like she doesn't think through the impact her efforts might have further down the line.

She sure does know her power and influence.

Obama wouldn't have got elected if it wasn't for Miss Winfrey that's for sure.

At the end of the day I feel sorry for Oprah.

She wants to be liked and is basically over compensating for her need to be liked.

I bet if she relaxed and stopped being so needy she'd be really great.

Speaking of coups my next book is about a Saffa mercenary who staged a coup in Liberia.