Oprah's Book Club has always been regarded as somewhat of a cult feature on a program typically aimed at suburban housewives. But does Winfrey really expected anyone who whiles away the days watching her program to tackle the 973-page behemoth The Pillars of the Earth? Has she lost her touch?

Jonathan Franzen was one of the first lit-hot types to come out against lady O, calling her book club a haven for "schmaltzy" and "one-dimensional" books. Franzen and Oprah eventually made nice, but five years later Oprah dealt with another controversy when James Frey, author of "memoir" A Million Little Pieces, was revealed to be a big fat liar and excoriated in front of millions and millions of household products-purchasing O-devotees. Frey has never sold better.

These incidents led to a series of non-memoir, non-schmaltzy books—a category into which Ken Follet's 20 year-old novel Pillars fit nicely. Or at least, it would if it weren't so damn long. On the November episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show where Pillars was introduced, Oprah claimed that she wasn't entirely into the subject matter herself but soon found she was unable to put the book down. Oprah insisted that her audience would feel the way. Do they?

One Oprah devotee visiting a Manhattan Barnes & Noble last week arrived looking for Pillars in particular, only to be dismayed by the length of the book when a bookseller handed it to her. "This is way too long," the customer complained. "I don't have time to read this." Several other visitors to the bookstore expressed the same concerns and opted to purchase a shorter, easier read. In a recent issue, Entertainment Weekly showed results of a poll asking readers whether or not they planned on purchasing Pillars and a resounding 79 percent said hell-to-the-no, O.