Oprah's Amazing Partnership

Wed., Mar. 28, 2007 8:56 AM PDT by Gina Serpe

Oprah Winfrey is attaching one more superlative to her name: amazing.

The Queen of Daytime has partnered up with Amazing Race creators Bert Van Munster and Elise Doganieri for her reality show debut, Oprah Winfrey's The Big Give.

Lisa Halliday, the vice president of communications for Winfrey's Harpo Productions, told Variety that the company is "delighted to be teaming up" with the critically lauded duo. The twosome's globe-trotting reality show has reigned as the Emmy winner in its genre for the past four years.

Now Van Munster and Doganieri will try and bring some of their reality credibility to The Big Give, the first reality competition show they will have produced since Amazing Race debuted in 2001.

The show will also be one of the first projects from the TV development group formed by Harpo last September, along with the equally charitable Your Money or Your Life. When Winfrey first announced the series, she confirmed that she would appear in one of them, though it's unclear which one and in which capacity.

For The Big Give, 10 contestants will be given a lump sum of money and a smattering of resources from which they must each come up with a creative way to increase their finances and in turn use the cash they make to help others.

One contestant will be voted off each week of the show's eight-episode run, and, in true Winfrey style, the last contestant standing, i.e. the one that's made the biggest impact on those less fortunate, will be rewarded handsomely, with Winfrey and her crack team agreeing to do everything in their power to grant the winner's wildest wish.

ABC will air the series, and while no start date has been set for the production, the altruistic series is expected to debut later this year.

Meanwhile, Winfrey is doing her part not only for the TV world, but the literary one as well.

The talk-show host announced her newest book club selection on air Wednesday, opting for Cormac McCarthy's apocalyptic novel The Road.

"It's so extraordinary," Winfrey said. "I promise you, you'll be thinking about it long after you finish the final page."

The sure-to-be blockbuster novel has already made a name for itself as a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle prize and a promising contender for the Pulitzer Prize.

McCarthy, 73, previously penned All the Pretty Horses.