Oprah Winfrey, a billionaire, media magnate, and supporter, is well-known for hosting her highly acclaimed international talk program from 1986 until 2011 when she launched her network.
Although her brand is vast, few people are aware of the emotional and physical abuse she suffered as a teenager. Reading was one of her ways of navigating through the world. She is a fantastic reader and believes that reading is one of the most incredible things in life.
Today we present 16 books Oprah Winfrey believes everyone should read.
1. A Tale of Two Cities
This novel “ **A Tale of Two Cities**” was written by Charles Dickens and published in both book and serial form in 1859. The novel brings back the memory of the 18th century, an era of the French Revolution.
The complex plot revolves around the death of Sydney Carton and his fellow friends Charles Darnay’ and ‘Lucie Manette.’ Dickens is not just referring to political events but also slams Noble Tyranny and the revolutionary excessiveness. The book’s opening lines are my favorite: “It wasn’t the best of times, but it wasn’t the worst.” Dickens says his last public address in which he remarked on Darnay being substituted in prison by his replacement: “It is far, far more rewarding than I have ever done and far better than I have ever known.” This is very interesting and informative for those suffering from those problems.
Checkout This Book On Amazon
2. Gap Creek
The novel was composed by American novelist Robert Morgan and was selected by Oprah as her Book Club selection in January 2000. One of the paperback editions of the novel was released in the United States by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill on the 21st of August, 2012. Gap Creek can be described as an update to Morgan’s previous novel, ‘The Truest Pleasure.’ Gap Creek tells the tale of a girl trying to understand the challenging events of her life, marriage, childhood, and motherhood aren’t affecting her view of life.
Julie Harmon works “hard as a man,” they claim, and so hard that she’s unsure whether she’s in a position to stop. People rely on her to kill animals and care for the sick. They are weak, and there’s a lot to do. At 17 years old, she’s married and moves to the valley known as Gap Creek, where perhaps things will go better.
However, Julie and Hank’s new lifestyle in the valley during the latter days of the 19th century was much more complex. It’s often difficult to distinguish between the most fearful floods and fires or the blood-sucking grifters. They need to determine if love can keep chaos and mania to stay alive. Their battles with nature, work, changing times, failures, and triumphs of their marriage describe this timeless story of a love affair.
Checkout This Book On Amazon
3. The Invention of Wings
This is a fictionalized biographical story of the Grimke sisters, who became pioneers in the movement for abolishing slavery along with early leaders of the struggle for women’s rights.
The story is set in the early Civil War era and begins on a plantation located in Charleston. In the beginning, Sarah and Handful are more like siblings and playmates as they establish a social relationship. As the story develops, Sarah leaves Charleston to be with her brave and adventurous Sister, Angelina, in the north as pioneers early in the fight for abolishment and women’s equality. We follow Hetty and Sarah’s journey for over 35 years as they both try to create an independent life and manage a tight and complicated relationship.
**The Invention of Wings** has been a star story for a long time and is currently on the all-time top 10 list of favorites and always at the top of my recommended list. If you’ve missed this or are searching for an outstanding book for your book club, I strongly recommend this tale.
Checkout This Book On Amazon
4. East of Eden
The novel **’East of Eden**’ is a classic American story written by John Steinbeck. A contemporary fiction, the novel became an instant hit when it was published in 1952 and quickly rose into the upper echelons of bestsellers in fiction lists.
In the dense landscape of California’s Salinas Valley, this sprawling and sometimes violent novel tells the intertwined tales of two families: the Trasks and the Hamiltons. Their generations revisit the tragic events of the tale of Adam and Eve and the dangerous conflict between Cain and Abel. In the novel, Steinbeck created many of his famous characters and dealt with many of the most well-known themes in his writing, like the mystery of identity, love, and the dangers of a lack of love. This book is the most difficult to write a summary of and seems like a genuine book that is a page-turner. I am genuinely embarrassed if someone asks me to explain what this story is all about. It’s about two families that recreate the stories of Adam and Eve. But, it’s more than just the story itself. Steinbeck’s commitment helps establish the scene because the author puts everything he owned into the story.
Checkout This Book On Amazon
5. The Sun Does Shine
**The Sun Does Shine** (2018) is the shocking, tragic, and ultimately uplifting tale of an innocent man’s struggle for freedom. He was indicted for two murders he didn’t do. Anthony Ray Hinton spent more than three decades on execution row. Then again, he didn’t let up on hope, but He found a way to live, make friends and gain freedom.
It takes you back to Hinton’s childhood in rural Alabama, where he was in a slum and was black. However, he is confronted with the legacy of racism and has minimal opportunities for his future due to his status in the economy. Ray, however, follows his mother’s teachings. He is kind to everyone and respects them regardless of how they treat him. In his 20s and in desperate need of a car to secure a decent job, but with little money to purchase the one he wanted, Ray uncharacteristically takes a vehicle for a test drive, then steals it off the road. Devastated by guilt, he admits to the crime and is arrested two years later, deciding not to violate the law again.
Ray ends his book by listing the names of all those who were still on death row as of November 2018. He claims that statistics show that one in 10 is innocent. He claims that the death penalty should be in the break until criminal justice systems can ensure fair treatment for everyone. This fantastic story characterizes the law of justice.
Checkout This Book On Amazon
6. Night By Elie Wiesel
The story was written by Eliezer Wiesel, a noted Orthodox Jewish teenager living in Hungary during the 1940s. He is then sent to Auschwitz, which was a concentration camp. While in Auschwitz, Eliezer struggles to remain faithful and bears witness to the prisoners as their faith and humanity strike them. Prisoners suffer from hunger, succumb to diseases, and are abused by guards. The Nazi doctors often conduct screenings to determine who is unfit to perform their duties and, consequently, are executed. Eliezer is determined to care for his father and their improbable survival, which often hurts his chances of survival to save his father. Eliezer’s father isn’t alive to witness the liberation of the camp. Eliezer remains as an unrecognizable shell of the man he once was. This story tells us that our first responsibility is to take care of our parents. Those who gave priority to their parents will always get fame in their coming lives.
Checkout This Book On Amazon
7. Light in august
The story takes place at the time of South America in the 1930s, which was a time that was characterized by Prohibition along with Jim Crow laws that allowed discrimination based on race in the South. The book starts with the story of Lena Grove, a young white woman who is pregnant and is from Doane’s Mill, Alabama, and is searching for Lucas Burch, the father of her son.
According to Michael Millgate, though, it isn’t often regarded as the most remarkable novel written by Faulkner. **Light in August** was considered “an important text, essential to any analysis or understanding of his work.” Millgate argues that a lot of the first American critics, the majority of urban Northerners, received the South as reactionary, backward, and focused on the novel’s technological innovations when it came to narration but did not consider the regional details and the interconnectedness in the character and settings with other works of the author. Some critics viewed Faulkner’s narrative techniques as not revolutionary but as mistakes, giving Faulkner suggestions to improve his writing style and criticizing him for using European Modernist “tricks.” Some critics were dissatisfied by the brutality depicted throughout the story, calling the novel “gothic fantasy,” although lynching was a fact within the South. Despite these criticisms, the novel was eventually considered a success due to its brutality and dark themes, which were opposite to the romantic, romantic Southern literature of the period.
Checkout This Book On Amazon
8. An American Marriage
Does American writer Tayari Jones write an unpublished novel? It was her 4th novel. This Amazing book was published in the United States by Algonquin Books on the 6th of February 2018. In February of 2018, the novel was picked to be featured on The Book Club of Oprah 2.0. The novel also received the year 2019 Women’s Prize for Fiction.
The story centers on the union of two middle-class African-American couples, Celestial and Roy, in Atlanta, Georgia. Their lives are destroyed when Roy is found guilty of a rape he didn’t do.
Wedlock’s Celestial and Roy are the perfect incarnations resulting from the American Dream and the New South. They are young executives, and she’s an artist on the verge of an exciting career. However, as they get settled into their routine life, they’re broken by challenging circumstances they would have never imagined. Roy was detained and sentenced to 12 years in jail for the crime Celestial realizes he didn’t commit. Although fiercely independent, Celestial is left feeling empty and unmoored. She finds the comfort of Andre, her childhood friend and her best man at their wedding. As the time of Roy’s imprisonment expires, she’s no longer able to maintain the love in her heart. After five years of imprisonment, Roy’s conviction is thrown out, and he is released to Atlanta, eager to begin their new relationship.
This heart-warming love story offers an incredibly insightful look into the minds and hearts of three individuals who are simultaneously at a crossroads and separated from forces beyond their control.
Checkout This Book On Amazon
9. New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
Most likely, you’ve heard of Eckhart Tolle as the author of the Power of Now; therefore, I’m sure you’ll be amazed to know that **The New Earth** sold out almost twice the number of copies of his previous book. It could be due to Oprah picking it to be part of the book group she was in. It resulted in an entire series of webinars featuring her and Tolle with 35 million people (around 10 percent of them bought The Power of Now at that time).
However, this book outlines some of the most pressing issues humanity faces today and offers people like me and you the opportunity to change this.
Three lessons from The New Earth to help you create better by creating a more positive mind space:
– The religion of the world won’t help us save the world because it is always some sort of blame.
– Don’t think about things too much.
– Accepting oneself leads to pleasure and happiness, which can be the only way to live a more enlightened lifestyle.
Checkout This Book On Amazon
10. Great Expectations
**Great Expectation** is a story that follows Pip’s early and teenage years as a blacksmith’s apprentice living in a rural village. He is suddenly rewarded with the richest of fortunes (his big hopes) by a mysterious donor and is transferred to London to join the prestigious society. He believes in the source of the money, but he is entirely wrong. It also follows Pip’s interactions with Estella, the young lady he loves but cannot repay his affection.
The Great Expectations is a work that works on a variety of levels. It is a review of Victorian society and explores memories and the process of writing. It is much more crucial to discover the true identity. Pip realizes how his “great hopes” of financial status and social standing are not as important as loyalty throughout the novel. The novel ‘Great Expectations’ was also praised for its mixture of humor and tragedy, mystery, and humor. In the novel’s original ending, Pip and Estella were not united. However, Dickens was convinced to pen a happy ending.
The novel became a huge success following its publication in the 1850s. George Bernard Shaw was among those who praised the novel in the Dickensian sense as his “most compactly perfect book.”
Checkout This Book On Amazon
11. The Heart Of A Woman
**The Heart of a Woman** (1981)was written by Maya Angelou and is the fourth novel in her autobiography collection that comprises a total of seven novels she had written at that time. The Heart of a Woman tells the story of Angelou leaving the business for the better part of her life and migrating to New York to become a writer and become a member of The Harlem Writers’ guild while trying to be politically active to raise their son Guy.
In the book, we’re guided through the journey of Angelou when she is confronted with obstacles and discrimination based on race, gender, and the challenges of motherhood. We also learn the lessons she learns from these experiences. Heart of a Woman Heart of a Woman received praise and was selected by Oprah for her Book Club selection in 1997.
Checkout This Book On Amazon
12. Freedom
**Freedom** novel was written in 2010 by American author Jonathan Franzen. The book was published through Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. All reviewers praised freedom, which was named among the best novels in 2010 by various magazines and was dubbed by certain critics as “The Great American Novel.”
Comically and tragically, the film conveys the pitfalls and burdens of liberty. It is a story about the thrills of teenage lust, the shaky middle-aged compromises, the costs of sprawling suburbs, and the hefty burden of empire. A profound and unforgettable portrayal of the present.
The story explores how love works and focuses on our fragile connection to nature. When Walter struggles to save the habitat of an endangered animal, the complicated relationship between Patty, Richard, and himself could damage the plan and his beliefs about reality and deceit.
Checkout This Book On Amazon
13. Love In The Time Of Cholera
Over the past fifty years, Florentino has been waiting for the chance to revive his love affair with Fermina. Since her husband is gone, is Fermina able to accept his declaration of love that is unending?
Literary critic Michiko Kakutani has written the novel with praise in a piece published in The New York Times. According to Katukani, “Instead of using myths and stories to reveal the imagination of a community as he’s often done in the past, Garcia Marquez has revealed how to contain the extraordinary events within the everyday. It’s a rich and large-scale novel that is as powerful in its narrative as its awe-inspiring imagination. The author Thomas Pynchon was also a contributor to this book in The New York Times, stating in the same review that “This book is groundbreaking in its attempt to propose vows. And this made a story for loving that may be created with the thought of eternal young stupidity to some or maybe honored in life when we should be aware, regardless of the undisputed”. I’ve seen nothing like this fantastic finale, symphonic, particular in its dynamics and tempo, moving as a riverboat to the top of its game. It creates work that could even bring our souls that have been drained to us. One of them is Love in the Time of Cholera, this heartbreaking and beautiful novel.
Checkout This Book On Amazon
14. Behold the Dreamers
**Behold the Dreamers** follows the Jonga family as they struggle to adapt to the new life in America and explores the difficulties of adjusting. They were faced with issues with their documentation, ultimately, and displacement. They also are in poverty because Jende cannot find a decent job and deal with feeling out of place as a black person in America, both as an immigrant and a black person. They eventually return to Cameroon, which symbolizes that the experience of immigrants is not easy and usually results in sadness.
The central theme of this novel focuses on the subject matter of life and death, with its plots that revolve around a central point of sorrow and confusion. The novel paints a picture of the human condition that requires an enlightened approach to life, and the dreamer might be ahead in this respect. The characters have to face the daily pressures of life as they try to escape from the frustration of being denied their rights. The death of the child who is not yet born and Cindy cause the community to be frustrated with thoughts of meaningless insanity. However, the emergence of a new baby is causing this community to question whether the world is more meaningful than it appears to be. This novel shows that every person has problems that never end in their whole life. Everyone should struggle hard to achieve their goals in life.
Checkout This Book On Amazon
15. The Pillars of the Earth
**The Pillar of the Earth** is an understanding of the battle to construct the largest Gothic cathedral that the world has ever seen. a battle between evil and goodness that could transform the church into a state institution and turn a brother against brother.
With his thrillers of spying and conspiracy, Ken Follett had long been seen as one of the most popular top bestseller lists. The Pillars of the Earth is an epic storytelling novel that its reader immediately praises critics and as his most awaited accomplishment.
In 12th century England, the construction of a massive Gothic cathedral marked the beginning of a new century. This magnificent creation will unite the kings and clergy, knights and peasants in a tale of struggle in faith, ambition, and rivalry. A thrilling story of the turbulent middle age, The Pillars of the Earth is an absolute masterpiece by one of the world’s most extraordinary writers.
Checkout This Book On Amazon
16. What I know for sure
**What I know for sure** encourages you to build your ideal life by striving for excellence, focusing on gratitude, and taking advantage of the lessons of your mistakes to strengthen you.
Everyone knows Oprah Winfrey as she hosted and produced significant television programs throughout American history. Her creativity brought a revolutionary TV format through self-improvement, book clubs, segments, and appeals for philanthropic initiatives.
And perhaps most importantly, Oprah has been a leader in shaping her own identity.
She faced a lot of hardship throughout her life. However, she made it an opportunity to build confidence and self-sufficiency as she grew older. In “What I know for sure,” she encourages you to take on the responsibility of your own life too.
In the author’s opinion, it’s about doing your best to achieve those goals. But it is also essential to enjoy the small and large pleasures you discover along the way in your life and then create more of them.
“What can you tell with confidence?” Film reviewer Gene Siskel asked Oprah once during an interview. Oprah launched an infamous month-long column that she published in O magazine in response to the query. The resulting information and insights are included in this publication.
Checkout This Book On Amazon
Here are three lessons you can draw from Oprah’s remarkable life:
– You can overcome challenges, but you can use them to become more resilient and self-sufficient and be happier.
– The road to progress is easier to follow when you let amazing stories and inspirational people motivate you.
– Being thankful for the things you have alters your outlook and helps you create better outcomes in your daily life.
16 Best Books On Happiness
