Books That Made a Difference to Téa Leoni

'American Dreamers'
American Dreamers: The Wallaces and Reader's Digest, an Insider's Story
By Peter Canning

I was so taken with this history of the couple who started Reader's Digest and became two of the country's wealthiest individuals. DeWitt and Lila Acheson Wallace began the company with altruistic and patriotic intentions. They wanted to make knowledge more accessible to people. Eventually, the U.S. government used the magazine—the foreign editions especially—for its own political agenda, pushing propaganda through it. For me, this book is eerily relevant. It's not just some ex-employee talking about the king and queen getting old and how Parliament came in and ruined everything. Canning shows where the Wallaces should be held accountable and how they became so vulnerable. I think this story is a modern American tragedy.

Related Resource
  • Téa Leoni appears in the film Ghost Town in theaters September 19.

From the September 2008 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine