It incorporates the use of various social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter) and e-readers that allow for the quoting and uploading of passages and notes for discussion, among other features.

[2] Critics at the time pointed out that her online audience was not as large as it was previously with network television, and the new club would be a test if she still had the "Oprah Effect" with the reading public to create hits as before.

[5] On January 21, 2020, Oprah announced her next book club selection would be American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins.

[42] The novel, about a Mexican woman fleeing to America after being targeted by a drug cartel, came under scrutiny as Cummins was a white woman with no connection to Mexico and marketing for the book claimed she had a special connection to the material because her husband had at one point been an undocumented immigrant without ever revealing he was a white Irishman.

142 authors including R. O. Kwon, Tommy Orange and Valeria Luiselli penned an open letter asking Oprah to rescind her endorsement of the book.