Oprah Winfrey has selected Maria Semple’s Go Gentle as the latest pick for her popular book club.
Semple’s novel, published Tuesday by Putnam, follows Adora Hazzard, a divorced Stoic philosopher in New York whose life is changed when she meets a handsome man named Digby in the standby line at the ballet. A critic for Kirkus wrote of the book, “A wild mess of a plot, but a fun wild mess, punctuated by Semple’s signature witty observations and punchlines.”
Winfrey announced the book’s selection on CBS Mornings, saying, “I’m so excited, because everyone who read Where’d You Go, Bernadette loves Maria Semple, and we waited a decade for this book.”
CBS Mornings co-host Gayle King asked Semple, who appeared with Winfrey on the show, what she was doing when she received the telephone call informing her that her book had been selected for the club.
“I was just in my sweats, I was doing the dishes, puttering around the kitchen, and then it’s every author’s dream to get the call from Oprah, but we just don’t think that it’s going to happen to us,” she said.
King asked Winfrey why she picked Semple’s book.
“I picked it because I just loved the character Adora, and what she represents for women of divorce, and being able to have a completely new life after divorce,” she said. “I think for so many women, that change that comes to them, that experience, they feel like life is over, they feel like they’re no longer worthy, and I think what you’ve done for women [is] empowering the idea that you can become whatever not only you imagined but even things that you never imagined.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
