Oprah Winfrey is celebrating three well-read decades.
Oprah’s Book Club turns 30 this year, and she’s celebrating throughout September by recommending new books and revisiting old favorites. From new podcast episodes to curated collections, USA TODAY is exclusively revealing a month’s worth of Oprah’s Book Club programming.
Since 1996, Oprah’s Book Club has been a mainstay in the literary community, recommending books even after “The Oprah Winfrey Show” ended in 2011. Today, her choices coincide with a conversation with the author for her podcast.
“Recommending a book and having other people enjoy it as I do still gives me a little thrill – as does talking to authors, who are rockstars,” Winfrey told USA TODAY in a statement.
How Oprah is celebrating 30 years of her book club
Winfrey is kicking off the anniversary month with “30 Books I Can’t Forget,” a daily social media reveal of a book that still resonates with her. Her first pick is “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, the 35th Oprah’s Book Club pick in April 2000 and a title she comes back to “again and again.” Winfrey has picked several Morrison books over the years, including “Song of Solomon” and “Paradise.”
This book, and other Oprah’s Book Club selections, will be featured on a new Amazon storefront curated collection for the anniversary.
The mogul will also encourage fans to read along with a new challenge with Goodreads. Open from Sept. 15 to Dec. 30, anyone who reads a past Oprah’s Book Club selection will unlock an Oprah’s Book Club Fall Reading Challenge achievement badge on their profile.
Winfrey’s monthlong celebrations will culminate in a special Oprah’s Book Club podcast conversation starting Sept. 29, bringing back previously selected authors like Viola Davis, Barbara Kingsolver, Abraham Verghese, Elizabeth Strout and Ocean Vuong.
Vuong, whose “Emperor of Gladness” was the May 2025 Oprah’s Book Club pick, previously praised Winfrey for making reading “accessible and approachable” for working-class communities.
“In places where higher education was all but a miraculous dream, the act of reading can be intimidating, exclusionary, not to mention unaffordable for people who spend their days working two to three jobs and twelve-hour shifts,” Vuong said in a statement. “And yet, sitting in my mother’s nail salon, I watched women see Oprah featuring an author on her show, which played each day in the salon, and literally rise from their seats with poise and confidence, saying they’re gonna walk to the Barnes and Noble across the street and buy a book, suddenly armed with access to the discourse, and thereby in possession of the cultural center.”
Clare Mulroy is USA TODAY’s Books Reporter, where she covers buzzy releases, chats with authors and dives into the culture of reading. Find her on Instagram, subscribe to our weekly Books newsletter or tell her what you’re reading at cmulroy@usatoday.com.