It’s been a year since the James Frey train wreck drove book pusher extraordinare Oprah to tears. Last Friday, however, she was all smiles when she revived her book club with Sidney Poitier’s The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Biography (HarperSanFrancisco, 2000). Oprah described the book as being about “what makes character, what makes you who you are”—and while our reviewer (the very well-read celeb hound Rosellen Brewer) might agree, she seemed underwhelmed by the actor’s meditations on his past and pat ending: “We’re all imperfect, and life is simply a perpetual unending struggle against those imperfections.” She also points out that Poitier pads a good deal of Man with material from his first memoir, This Life (1980). Only his takes on acting elicited Brewer’s enthusiasm.

In any case, Oprah’s word is gospel, and not even a week after her announcement, Man is on top of the Amazon chart. We in the Bookroom will be charting its course on LJ’s Best Sellers List.