Oprah Winfrey’s Favorite Books

What are Oprah's favorite books?

‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ by Harper Lee



The Pulitzer Prize winning book has been Winfrey’s favorite book ever since she was a little girl. The classic about a young girl in a sleepy town in the deep south and the racism and crisis of conscience that has engulfed the small community. The book taps into the very essence of human emotion and behavior. In an interview with the Baltimore Sun, she said “I remember reading this book and then going to class and not being able to shut up about it… I was trying to push the book off on other kids.” She recalls the importance of the book in shaping who she would eventually become today.



‘Night’ by Elie Wiesel



Wiesel is a horrific but uplifting autobiographical account of his struggle and survival as a teenager during the Holocaust. More than just illustrating the terrors at the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps, the book addresses and asks many philosophical as well as personal questions necessary when holistically considering the Holocaust and its legacy. Oprah traveled with Wiesel to Auschwitz where he recounts daily life in the camps—sadism, hunger, and betrayal. It was here where he underwent a profound crisis of faith and was one of the first books according to the New York Times, which raised the question: where was God at Auschwitz?



‘Discover the Power Within You’ by Eric Butterworth



In “Discover the Power Within You”, the internationally known spiritual teacher shares one his greatest discoveries: the ability to see the divine within us all. The inspirational classic has guided thousands of readers with many saying the book has been truly a life changer. Butterworth says tapping into this divine dimension in every human being can be a souce of unlimited abundance and that through exploring this exposes our “depth potential”. He outlines ways readers can release the power locked within for greater confidence, better health, success, and how to be an inspiration for others.



‘East of Eden’ by John Steinbeck



“East of Eden” is a novel by Nobel Prize winner John Steinback with the plot playing out in a late 19th-century California’s Salinas Valley and follows the intertwined stories of two farming families, the Trasks and the Hamiltons, and their trials and tribulations. With biblical parallels to the story of Cain and Abel, many themes are explored such as love, the capacity for self-destruction, guilt, freedom, and the battle between good and evil. Winfrey says even if you read the classic in high school, reread it!



‘The Bluest Eye’ by Toni Morrison



The book tells the story of a conflicted black girl who thinks she has to have blue eyes to be beautiful. Set in the author’s hometown in northeastern Ohio, it tells the story of eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove who prays for her eyes to turn blue so that she will be beautiful and loved as all her blond, blue-eyed counterparts across America. Winfrey considers “The Bluest Eye” to be one of the best among Morrison’s many novels.


Image credits: Wikimedia

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