I'll cover you?

Firstly, I haven't read it, this now nefarious "A Million Little Pieces" by James Frey. I confess I have read a few Oprah picks and I have found them all to be fairly sappy. And they all seem to have the same story. I'd heard about this one, and it sounded like it might be different, but it's still far from the top of my list. At least it was, maybe not that far any more.

So even though I don't agree with her book club choices, I think Oprah has done a great service to the American people in promoting the concept of *reading*, and sadly, most of them seem to rather desperately need egging on in this regard.

But it would now appear that James Frey lied. His "memoir" is somewhere between personal recollections, exaggerates truths and outright fabrication, depending on who you listen to. Here's the thing...we all know that Mordecai Richler was writing about his life and the lives of those he knew. He just changed the names. Oh, and one more thing, he called it *fiction*. I don't understand why it would somehow work better to call it *nonfiction*. I mean I like memoirs too, but that wouldn't make me change my mind and buy it if I wasn't already inclined to do so.

But so what if he lied, at least in this scenario. It was a good story right? Granted his publisher might have legal recourse or something, but for the average reader, does the knowledge that a story wasn't true (or totally true) after all make you enjoy the book any less in hindsight?

I think the truth is that Oprah can only get so far with most Americans. Maybe the book was good, but money is always the bottom line. And if there's a refund available....why not?

For the record, I did buy a Milli Vanilli cassette and no, I did not return it for a refund when the truth was revealed. They lied, but, at least at the time, I still like the music.