After interviewing three unnamed booksellers, the AP reported this afternoon Jonathan Franzen’s new novel has been picked for Oprah Winfrey’s book club.
Last night at 5:36 PM EDT, Melville House publisher Dennis Johnson posted a picture of Franzen’s Freedom sporting a book club sticker. The picture is emedded above, via MobyLives. The post also suggested Macmillan will raise the cover price $1. Here’s more: “On Monday we humbly announced that a moment of profound irony cynicism was a mere five days away. We cited having a very good ‘reliable source’ for said moment. Some thought we were merely speculating. So we’ve upped the ante. Boom. Never doubt MobyLives.”
In 2001, Franzen famously mentioned that “I considered turning it down” when he was offered a spot on Winfrey’s show and was un-invited from the show. David R. Godine Publishing weighed in with a funny Tweet: “Yeah but we photograph all our books with an Oprah sticker.”
Correction: An earlier update of this post misstated the original posting time of the MobyLives image. This post has been updated as the story evolved.