Eckhart Tolle "struck-it-Oprah." After being selected for Oprah's Book Club in January, Tolle's A New Earth (Plume/Penguin, $15.50) zoomed to number one on the New York Times Bestseller list in the paperback advice category, prompting his 1998 bestseller The Power of Now to resurface at number two.

Both titles simultaneously rose above Martha Stewart's Cookies and a vegan diet book called Skinny Bitch.

All 61 previous selections for Oprah's Book Club became bestsellers but, according to the bookselling chain Barnes & Noble, A New Earth was the fastest-selling pick of them all.

Selections for Oprah's Book Club had been limited to classics and novels, but the talk-show host was so taken by Tolle's anti-ego, pro-consciousness message that she reconsidered her rules, saying, "I started thinking, 'Why can't I choose it? It's my book club. I can choose what I want.' Duh!"

Oprah took her support further by collaborating with Tolle for a ten-week, interactive, web-based class, discussing A New Earth one chapter at a time. According to USA Today, the day before the first online class began in March, more than 700,000 people had signed up as participants.

Born in Germany, Eckhart Tolle reportedly underwent a major spiritual rebirth in 1977--finding inexplicable bliss to replace suicidal despair--while studying at Cambridge University in England.

Tolle, aged 60, provides an advice column for Joseph Roberts' Vancouver-based Common Ground magazine. To mark the 25th anniversary of that publication, Tolle lectured at the Vancouver Convention Centre on November 30, 2007 to a sold-out audience. Common Ground was the first publication to review Tolle's breakthrough book, The Power of Now.

Also in November, Oprah and Tolle recorded three programs for Oprah's Soul Series, a weekly radio program on her own channel, Oprah & Friends, on XM Satellite Radio. By the beginning of March, Tolle's publisher said more than 3.5 million copies of A New Earth, had been shipped. It was first self-published in 2005.

0452289963

BOOKS:

THE POWER OF NOW
A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

A NEW EARTH
Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

PRACTICING THE POWER OF NOW
Essential Teachings, Meditations, and Exercises from The Power of Now.

STILLNESS SPEAKS

STILLNESS AMIDST THE WORLD
Findhorn Retreat

[BCBW 2007]