Robyn Okrant, Living Oprah

Living Oprah

Robyn Okrant

Center Street, Jan 4 2010, $24.99

ISBN: 9781599952390

This gimmicky memoir is exactly like the title proclaims as thirtyish Robin Okrant lived one year in accordance with Oprah's advice. Ms. Okrant obviously admires Oprah, but also scorned that anyone even Oprah could adhere to her advice over a period of time. Testing her hypothesis, she tries keeping score along way and criticizing Oprah when she deemed sit worthy such as the talk show host's obsession over female looks. Although the memoir has many tedious entries as Ms. Okrant chose honesty over entertainment. Still this critique leads to a fascinating odyssey in which the author concludes to live real life to the fullest and forget this best life as described by anyone except you and your loved ones, and not proscribed by an outsider even a famous successful TV guru. Not for everyone as this modern day search for the Holy Grail, "My One-Year Experiment to Walk the Walk of the Queen of Talk", seems a bit beyond even reality TV, yet many of the "Oprahized" entries are insightful and fascinating albeit expensive.

Harriet Klausner