Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Declares Oprah's New Book Club Choice 'A Pack of Lies'

Oprah has decided that her next Book Club selection will be Elie Wiesel's Holocaust memoir, Night. I suppose that the most logical thing to do after the A Million Little Pieces scandal was to pick a book with a subject that no civilised person would dare question that was written by a Nobel Peace Prize winner. (Although Hitch did once start an article with the words: 'Is there a more contemptible poseur and windbag than Elie Wiesel?', one suspects she's not going after his audience).

I was a bit surprised at the announcement as I had always kind of thought of Night as one of the books that started the whole 'Oprah's Book Club' thing to begin with. In the early '90s she started interviewing authors who had changed her life or realigned her journey (or whatever terminology Oprah uses) and Elie Wiesel was among them (I remember because it was right in the middle of my Elie Wiesel phase). So although the Book Club proper didn't start until 1996 (what? I looked it up!), it strikes me that Wiesel has already been given the full Oprah treatment. But who am I to question the choices that Oprah makes for her cult club?