NEW YORK – Better set some time aside for Oprah Winfrey's latest book club pick.
Because the copyright has long expired on the 19th-century novels, they are available through a variety of publishers and even directly from retailers. "Great Expectations" can be downloaded for free on Amazon.com's Kindle reader. "A Tale of Two Cities" costs 99 cents on Barnes & Noble's e-book device, the Nook.
Winfrey is to announce her selection Monday, when her long-awaited reconciliation with Jonathan Franzen will air.
Winfrey picked Franzen's "Freedom" nine years after his ambivalence over her selection of his novel "The Corrections" led her to withdraw his invitation to appear on her show. Franzen has written enviously of Dickens' time, when a new literary release "was anticipated with the kind of fever that a late-December film release inspires today."
On Sunday, The Associated Press purchased a copy of the new Dickens volume, which has the book club logo on the cover.
Messages left for Winfrey's Harpo Productions in Chicago weren't immediately returned.
Winfrey has chosen older works before, including Leo Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina" and John Steinbeck's "East of Eden." Her website recommends Dickens' "David Copperfield," noting it was a favorite of Tolstoy's.
2 comments:
You forgot the main PR on the story. Oprah is going to take her entire audience on an all expense paid trip to the 19th century! She's bought them all their own SUV's to get there - (no fossil fuel issues back then).
Yay Oprah!
I think it's easier to appreciate the newer books when you've read the old, so good work Oprah. I don't, however, understand why she has to "reconcile" with Franzen... so he wasn't excited to be on the show? He's still a great author, which should be the reason he's invited on anyway.
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