The Quotable Oprah's Book Club: Reactions to 'The Pick'
From Shelf Awareness

"I am really betting that Freedom by Jonathan Franzen will end up being for you, as it is for me, one of the best novels you have ever read. This book is a masterpiece spanning three decades. It is an epic family saga. It has everything. It has sex and love, even rock and roll, and everything you should want in a book."

--Oprah Winfrey on her show last Friday, as reported by Reuters, which noted that "she sent Franzen a note asking for his permission to feature his latest novel 'because we have a little history.' "
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"Also, I’d like to note that, as cynical as we in the media can be about big industries like publishing and television, and as deserving of cynicism as the crasser (financial) motivations of those industries may be, there is a genuineness at the heart of this particular venture that salvages it. Oprah’s viewers genuinely appreciate her guidance, Franzen’s readers genuinely appreciate his writing, and ultimately what her selection of his book means is that many millions of individuals will be spending very pleasant fall evenings in a comfortable chair with a good book."
--Macy Halford in a post on the New Yorker's Book Bench blog
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"Jonathan Franzen is the Lady Gaga of the book world, suddenly everywhere all the time, and even if you're not sure who he is, it gets harder every day to escape his name and the phrase 'The Great American Novel.' "
--Chicago Tribune
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"It's not exactly on the level of peace in the Middle East--maybe a better comparison would be to the day that George Steinbrenner and Yogi Berra buried the hatchet--but in the book world it's a big deal."
--Marjorie Kehe in the Christian Science Monitor