She appears in shadow on the cover, but you can still make out the sparkly frock and earrings, the curve of her extra-long eyelashes, the familiar profile.
“The Oprah Winfrey Show: Reflections on an American Legacy” — a new coffee-table book with a price tag ($50) to match its über-serious title — remembers 25 years of the queen of talk. Contributors to this tome are a lot like the show’s guests: the cream of the celebrity crop.
Here’s what a few have to say:
Bono: “If you want to speak to America, speak to Oprah. As I perhaps too often repeat, America is not just a country, it’s an idea. … It’s a vertical world. We look up and down at people. Oprah’s genius is that she looks across.”
Julia Roberts: “I think she is pretty damn close to perfect. And I don’t mean boring, run-of-the-mill perfect. I mean fabulous, shining, margarita-drinking perfect.”
Henry Louis Gates Jr.: “Predictions are always risky matters, of course, but I believe that when the history of our era is written and the list of those geniuses who sensed the zeitgeist, along with the names of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg will stand the name of Oprah Winfrey.”
Dr. Mehmet Oz: “She taught me one of the most valuable lessons I have ever learned: People don’t change based on what they know, they change based on how they feel. After all my years of school and time in the operating room, that insight hit me like a bolt of lightning.”
