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Hal Niedzviecki’s Peep Diaries gets Oprah endorsement – sort of

The world’s most influential reader has given a boost to homegrown writer Hal Niedzviecki, by naming his new book – The Peep Diaries – one of “25 Books You Can’t Put Down.” The 2009 Summer Reading List, which appears on Oprah.com and in the July 2009 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine, features everything from Colm McCann’s new novel to Hemingway’s classic memoir A Moveable Feast. And sitting at number 12 is Niedzviecki’s investigation into the cult of voyeurism and exhibitionism in our digital world.

The blurb, which was not written by Oprah herself but by one Cathleen Medwick, reads:

“You need to know. You need to be known.” That is the compulsion fueling what cultural critic Hal Niedzviecki calls “peep culture, the bastard love child of gossip” – our mass addiction to twittering, tweeting, snooping, spying, blogging, gawking at reality TV and YouTube, spilling our secrets on Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Ping … the list goes on. “Call it surveillance with benefits,” he writes of our consuming need for human connection in The Peep Diaries (City Lights), a virtual descent into the loneliest of worlds.

While this might not be the brass ring of an Oprah endorsement on her television show, the reflected glory of appearing on this list is sure to give Niedzviecki’s book – which has no Canadian publisher (it’s published by the San Francisco-based City Lights) – a leg up at the cash register.