Oprah's Latest Book Club Pick: What the Dickens is She Thinking?

Oprah Winfrey's 25^th and final season has been going out with a bang-she's graced her audience with a lavish trip to Australia, hosted two Favorite Things episodes and nabbed hard-to-get interviews with J.K. Rowling and Michael Jackson's family (including a back yard chat with his kids!). But her latest book club selection has me baffled.

On the heels of Jonathan Franzen's novel, "Freedom", Oprah has decided to assign us the Charles Dickens classics," A Tale of Two Cities" and "Great Expectations".

Nothing against Charles Dickens-- he's one of the greatest writers of all time. It's just, when Oprah gives us old school book club picks that we had to read in high school, she loses me. English class all over again, except this time we don't have to write an essay.

She's done this before and I didn't like it then, either. Serious readers know the classics and don't need Oprah to put her logo on them, repackage them into a combo, and tell us to read them again.

I have no problem re-reading a book- I do that with all of my favorites- but this English-class feel to Oprah's book club has me on the defense. Does O really think her audience hasn't already read these books? Or does she think there's some new insight that only her book club discussion will give us?

I felt the same way when she picked Carson McCullers' "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" and Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird." Great books, all. But been there, done that. In 10^th grade.

Of course, Oprah's biggest book club misstep wasn't a classic book pick, but instead James Frey's supposedly-autobiographical "A Million Little Pieces" back in 2005. The aftermath of that book club discussion took on a life of its own when it became public that Frey embellished a lot of his story.Oprah slammed the author later in a harsh one on one, which was comparable to being called to the principal's office (there's that high school comparison, again).

So between the Frye hoopla and the 2001 Jonathan Franzen scandal (he publically dissed her club and then she uninvited him to dinner), I can see why Oprah shied away from modern-day authors and went to the classics for a while.

Still, I may skip the book club this time around. And if I want to read Dickens this month, it will likely be a reread of "A Christmas Carol."

Indeed, Oprah said she was going "old school" with this book club selection. With "school" being the operative word....