Bidding (an early) adieu to the book club queen.(One of a Kind)(Oprah Winfrey)

She got housewives to read William Faulkner, turned Cormac McCarthy into a household name, shamed James Frey on camera, got dissed by Jonathan Franzen, and turned 63 books into bestsellers. When Oprah Winfrey started her book club on September 17, 1996, she said her goal was to get people reading. She did ... and then some. Oprah's Book Club--online it has two million members--has remained the single greatest publicity tool the business has ever seen. Selection to the club could ignite backlist stalwarts to the top of the charts (see John Steinbeck's East of Eden in 2003 and Elie Wiesel's Night in 2006); push bestsellers ever further up the charts (see Ken Follett's The Pillars of the …