Oprah's Book Club Just Got A Major Upgrade — And Announced A New Book

Oprah's Book Club is back! For its first following a partnership with Apple, Oprah's Book Club is reading The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates. The first novel from Between the World and Me author Coates, In a Twitter post announcing the book club selection, Oprah called The Water Dancer "as beautiful as it is tragic." The Water Dancer is out on Tuesday, and is available for pre-order now.

Since 1996, Oprah's Book Club has been generating conversations among readers and guaranteeing increased book sales for new authors. Books featured in Oprah's Book Club are subject to the so-called Oprah effect, wherein they attain massive success following endorsement from the former talk-show host. Oprah's last book-club pick, Becoming by Michelle Obama, became the best-selling book of 2018, due in part to Oprah Winfrey's influence.

The Water Dancer is the first Oprah's Book Club pick Winfrey has made since she partnered with Apple. In addition to producing two docuseries on the new Apple TV+, Winfrey also hosts a new Oprah's Book Club TV show, which premieres with an interview with Coates on Nov. 1. New episodes of Oprah's Book Club will air every two months on Apple TV+, and, in the meantime, you can follow along on the Oprah's Book Club Instagram account.

Ta-Nehisi Coates' The Water Dancer is a fantasy novel like nothing you've ever read before. The book centers on Hiram, an enslaved young man whose mysterious power of Conduction allows him safe passage across bodies of water. After escaping bondage in Virginia and journeying to Pennsylvania, Hiram makes plans to travel back to the South to liberate the loved ones he was forced to leave behind. The novel is a first for Coates, who previously published three award-winning works of nonfiction — The Beautiful Struggle, Between the World and Me, and We Were Eight Years in Power — as well as the Marvel Comics series Black Panther and Captain America.

By being selected for Oprah's Book Club, Coates joins an elite club of great writers, which includes the late greats Gabriel García Márquez and Toni Morrison. The Water Dancer follows recent Oprah's Book Club selections Becoming by Michelle Obama, The Sun Does Shine by Anthony Ray Hinton, An American Marriage by Tayari Jones, and Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue.

Ta-Nehisi Coates' The Water Dancer is out on Sep. 24 and is available for pre-order now. For every purchase of The Water Dancer on Apple Books, Apple will make a donation to the American Library Association.