In case you’re lining up your fall watchlist, we have the perfect new show for you.
Variety reports that Oprah’s Book Club has partnered with Apple to bring a new series to Apple TV Plus and the first featured author is none other than the incomparable Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Coates is a celebrated author who rose to prominence as a national correspondent for The Atlantic. His 2014 article, “The Case for Reparations” and his 2015 autobiography, “Between the World and Me” helped to cement his place in a long patheon of revered Black artists.
His latest book, “The Water Dancer,” was chosen by Oprah as the first selection of books for her new Apple TV Plus series. The book is a fantasy novel about a boy named Hiram, born into slavery, who harnesses magical powers to teleport people to freedom.
Since 1996, Oprah’s Book Club has been bringing readers of all walks together. Winfrey hand picks each book herself and then invites her readers into a discussion about the book. This new partnership with Apple is another iteration in the media mogul’s book club phenomenon.
Winfrey spoke about the significance of her new partnership saying, “I am who I am today because of the experience of learning to read at an early age. Reading opened up a whole world for me beyond the red dirt road and my grandmother’s porch in Mississippi. I want to do that for everybody. And the opportunity to do this with Apple, to speak to people all over the world about the pleasures, the excitement, the tension, the drama that a good book can bring you… I don’t know what’s better than that.”
Readers will have a chance to read along and engage in discussion via Winfrey’s new Instagram page @OprahsBookClub. The new series features interviews with the authors. Coates will sit down with Winfrey in front of a live audience at Apple Carnegie Library in Washington, DC to tape the first show.
Last year, Winfrey inked a multi-year content partnership with Apple that would allow her the freedom to produce original programming. This is the first of that partnership which includes a documentary about mental health and another about workplace harassment.
Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke on Winfrey’s Book Club merger saying, “Few people in the world can bring us together like Oprah, whose compassion and grace celebrating the power of books are unmatched.”
For every book selection sold under the Oprah Book Club banner, Apple will donate a portion of the proceeds to the American Library Association to support local libraries.
Oprah’s Book Club can be found on the Apple Books app at apple.co/OprahsBookClub and her new Apple TV Plus series featuring Ta-Nehisi Coates will air November 1st.
Photo Courtesy of Whitney Matewe