{"id":9659,"date":"2019-09-23T18:40:26","date_gmt":"2019-09-23T18:40:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=9659"},"modified":"2019-10-26T17:56:46","modified_gmt":"2019-10-26T17:56:46","slug":"one-of-the-best-books-ive-read-in-my-entire-life-oprah-winfrey-raves-about-the-water-dancer-her-book-club-pick-about-a-slaves-journey-into-the-underground-railroad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2019\/09\/23\/one-of-the-best-books-ive-read-in-my-entire-life-oprah-winfrey-raves-about-the-water-dancer-her-book-club-pick-about-a-slaves-journey-into-the-underground-railroad\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;One of the best books I&#8217;ve read in my entire life&#8217;: Oprah Winfrey RAVES about The Water Dancer &#8211; her book club pick about a slave&#8217;s journey into the Underground Railroad"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul class=\"mol-bullets-with-font\">\n<li class=\"class\"><strong>Oprah Winfrey has chosen Ta-Nehisi Coates&#8217; first novel The Water Dancer as her highly anticipated new book club selection<\/strong><\/li>\n<li class=\"class\"><strong>The book tells the story of a young boy born into slavery on a plantation who joins the Underground Railroad\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li class=\"class\"><strong>&#8216;I was really happy (about the news from Winfrey). But I think the most encouraging part was that she&#8217;s a reader,&#8217; Coates said on his book selection\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li class=\"class\"><strong>Winfrey called the novel &#8216;one of the best books I have ever read in my entire life. Right up there in the Top 5&#8217;<\/strong><\/li>\n<li class=\"class\"><strong>In Winfrey&#8217;s book club partnership with Apple she chooses a new book every other month\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li class=\"class\"><strong>The Water Dancer will be released on September 24\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Oprah Winfrey has chosen\u00a0Ta-Nehisi Coates&#8217; upcoming and first novel The Water Dancer as her highly anticipated new book club selection.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">The book, which will be released on September 24, tells the story of a young boy born into slavery on a plantation only to later discover he has mysterious powers which he uses in the Underground Railroad.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">In writing the book Coates did extensive research, ranging from reading interviews with ex-slaves and consulting a 19th-century Farmer&#8217;s Almanac to numerous and revelatory visits to former plantations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">And then came that call from Oprah Winfrey.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">&#8216;I was just as surprised as anybody. I pretty much write for myself and the only people I think about are my wife and my editor,&#8217; Coates said on discovering she was choosing his book for her club.<\/p>\n<div class=\"artSplitter mol-img-group\">\n<div class=\"splitLeft\">\n<div class=\"mol-img\">\n<div class=\"image-wrap fff-pic\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"i-3c2a4d87c9c851b7\" class=\"blkBorder img-share b-loaded\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2019\/09\/23\/15\/18828958-7494593-image-a-20_1569249936062.jpg\" alt=\"Oprah Winfrey has chosen Ta-Nehisi Coates' first novel The Water Dancer as her highly anticipated new book club selection\" width=\"306\" height=\"324\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"i-5811428553291da1\" class=\"blkBorder img-share b-loaded\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2019\/09\/23\/15\/18828930-7494593-image-m-19_1569249929507.jpg\" alt=\"'I was just as surprised as anybody. I pretty much write for myself and the only people I think about are my wife and my editor,' Coates said. Oprah Winfrey has chosen Ta-Nehisi Coates' first novel The Water Dancer as her highly anticipated new book club selection\" width=\"306\" height=\"324\" \/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"clear\"><\/div>\n<p class=\"imageCaption\">Oprah Winfrey has chosen Ta-Nehisi Coates&#8217; first novel The Water Dancer as her highly anticipated new book club selection<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">&#8216;I was really happy (about the news from Winfrey). But I think the most encouraging part was that she&#8217;s a reader. It was clear from the conversation that she&#8217;s a reader. This is not a marketing ploy. There&#8217;s nothing to be cynical about,&#8217; he added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Winfrey announced Monday that she chose The Water Dancer to formally begin her new book club partnership with Apple, for which she plans a selection every other month.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">She called it &#8216;one of the best books I have ever read in my entire life. Right up there in the Top 5&#8217;.<\/p>\n<div class=\"mol-img-group floatRHS\">\n<div class=\"mol-img\">\n<div class=\"image-wrap fff-pic\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"i-f0ce4e3129c0734b\" class=\"blkBorder img-share b-loaded\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2019\/09\/23\/15\/18828968-7494593-image-a-22_1569249947082.jpg\" alt=\"The Water Dancer tells the story of a young boy born into slavery on a plantation in the U.S. only to later discover he has mysterious powers and joins the Underground Railroad. The book will be released September 24\" width=\"306\" height=\"465\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"overlay-icon mobile-gallery\">\n<div class=\"mobile-gallery-icon\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"imageCaption\">The Water Dancer tells the story of a young boy born into slavery on a plantation in the U.S. only to later discover he has mysterious powers and joins the Underground Railroad. The book will be released September 24<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Coates is an esteemed writer whose moving autobiography Between the World and Me won the 2015 National Book Award. He&#8217;s also acclaimed for his 2014 essay for The Atlantic magazine The Case for Reparations which pushed the cause for issuing payments to descendants of slaves into a national conversation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">In October, Winfrey will interview Coates before a live audience at Apple Carnegie Library in Washington, D.C., a conversation that will air November 1 on Apple TV Plus, the new streaming service.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">While discussing the impact of The Water Dancer, Winfrey was brought to tears.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">&#8216;I have not felt this way about a book since Beloved,&#8217; Winfrey said of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by her friend and literary idol Toni Morrison, who died in August.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">&#8216;I knew early on the book was going to cut me up. I ended up with my soul pierced,&#8217; she added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">The 43-year-old Coates said that he began the novel after completing his first book a memior entitled The Beautiful Struggle, and acting on editor Chris Jackson&#8217;s suggestion that he try fiction.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Jackson said The Beautiful Struggle demonstrated Coates&#8217; &#8216;ability to dive so deeply and imaginatively into a character&#8217;s interior life and invent an idiom to tell the story that was more Joyce-ian than journalistic.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Coates, who had been reading extensively about the Civil War at the time, wanted to open readers to the &#8216;inner lives of enslaved black folks,&#8217; a &#8216;thriller&#8217; that would also dramatize the most profound questions of freedom and identity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">He worked off and on over the next few years on The Water Dancer, while honing a literary voice &#8211; of realism and poetry, outrage and exploration &#8211; that Morrison would liken to James Baldwin&#8217;s.<\/p>\n<div class=\"artSplitter mol-img-group\">\n<div class=\"mol-img\">\n<div class=\"image-wrap fff-pic\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"i-32ca4fea5727b0f6\" class=\"blkBorder img-share b-loaded\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2019\/09\/23\/15\/18828934-7494593-image-a-23_1569249951018.jpg\" alt=\"'I was just as surprised as anybody. I pretty much write for myself and the only people I think about are my wife and my editor,' Coates said on learning Winfrey chose his book for her new book club partnership with Apple\" width=\"634\" height=\"423\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"overlay-icon mobile-gallery\">\n<div class=\"mobile-gallery-icon\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"imageCaption\">&#8216;I was just as surprised as anybody. I pretty much write for myself and the only people I think about are my wife and my editor,&#8217; Coates said on learning Winfrey chose his book for her new book club partnership with Apple<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">&#8216;It wasn&#8217;t really that difficult,&#8217; he said of finding time for his novel. &#8216;I really liked writing The Water Dancer. It was like I get to go play again.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Winfrey&#8217;s original book club was started in 1996. She has since helped turn dozens of books into best-sellers, from novels by William Faulkner to a memoir by Sidney Poitier. For The Water Dancer and her upcoming choices, Apple has pledged that for each copy purchased through Apple Books, it will make a contribution to the American Library Association to support local libraries.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Winfrey said she was wary at first of The Water Dancer, if only because she found Coates such a &#8216;beautiful essayist&#8217; and wondered if he could move beyond the factual world.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Speaking on his process of writing The Water Dancer, which follows protagonist Hiram Walker&#8217;s journey into the Underground railroad he said: &#8221;I really liked his story, and I said, &#8220;This is it.&#8221;&#8216;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Oprah Winfrey has chosen Ta-Nehisi Coates&#8217; first novel The Water Dancer as her highly anticipated new book club selection The book tells the story of a young boy born into slavery on a plantation who joins the Underground Railroad\u00a0 &#8216;I was really happy (about the news from Winfrey). But I think the most encouraging part [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":9660,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[80],"tags":[3504,6573,7960,2356,10327,8590,5262,2355,5241,4028,2702,11493,7356,9336,11973,2352,8353,6353,2351,5516,2353,5251,2354,8869,3954,36,594,12347,5140],"class_list":["post-9659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-apple","tag-black","tag-case","tag-chris-jacksons","tag-civil-war","tag-conversation","tag-cut","tag-d-c","tag-died","tag-freedom","tag-identity","tag-interview","tag-jackson","tag-memoir","tag-one","tag-oprah-winfrey","tag-outrage","tag-slavery","tag-ta-nehisi-coates-first-novel-the-water-dancer","tag-toni","tag-underground-railroad","tag-war","tag-washington","tag-water","tag-will","tag-world","tag-who","tag-writer","tag-young"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}