In 2010, talk show host Oprah Winfrey and novelist Jonathan Franzen kissed and made
up after a nine-year feud. In 2001, Franzen was disinvited from appearing on Winfrey’s
TV show to pitch his novel The Corrections after he made it clear that he was unhappy
about the book’s being chosen for the Oprah Book Club. Describing his work as “in the
high-art literary tradition,” Franzen said he didn’t want to be associated with the Club,
which he accused of occasionally choosing “schmaltzy, one-dimensional” novels. But
Winfrey is apparently able to forgive and forget: she chose Franzen’s next novel,
Freedom, for her book club and said of it, “Now you haven’t heard me say this word
often, but this book is a masterpiece.”