Oprah Winfrey announced Tuesday that she has selected Robinsons acclaimed quartet of Gilead narratives for her next book club selection. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)NEW YORK – Besides working on her newsmaking interview with Meghan and Prince Harry, Oprah Winfrey has been busy with the novels of Marilynne Robinson. Winfrey announced Tuesday that she has selected Robinson's acclaimed quartet of “Gilead” narratives for her next book club selection. I am looking forward to going on this journey with our Book Club community over the coming months," Winfrey said in a statement. Apple customers wishing to learn more about why Winfrey chose Robinson's books can now do so by asking Siri “What’s Oprah reading?” and hearing a recording of Winfrey.

NEW YORK – When she learned that Ethan Hawke was working on a special audio edition of her acclaimed novel “Gilead,” Marilynne Robinson's response was to get a better idea of who he was. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 2005, ”Gilead” is the first of four Robinson novels set in a rural Iowa community in the 1950s. Hawke has recorded an abridged narrative of “Gilead” that was commissioned by Manhattan's 92nd Street Y and can he heard Oct. 19-29 via www.92y.org/gilead. “In ‘Gilead,’ the Reverend John Ames contemplates ‘grace as a sort of ecstatic fire that takes things down to essentials,'" he said. ‘Gilead' is a great American novel, and Ethan Hawke is a great American actor."