Amazon.com is making news with a December 6, 2010 press release saying that "Oprah's New Book Club Selections A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations Are Free on Kindle," which is true. The Kindle store has free copies of public domain works, and Charles Dicken's classics are among them. However, Project Gutenberg and Google Books also has free ebooks of Oprah's Book Club books.
Download Oprah's Books from Project Gutenberg
Both of Oprah's Book Club selections are in the public domain, so they are free ebooks to download and put on any handheld ebook reader or to read online. To get them from Project Gutenberg, you need to learn what format ebook your ereader uses. The Amazon Kindle uses .azw, and the Barnes and Noble Nook and the Sony Reader (and virtually every other portable ereader) uses EPUB. You can learn more about downloading free ebooks for Kindles by reading about where to find free Kindle books.
You can download A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens directly from Project Gutenberg for any ereader. The ebook file was put onto Project Gutenberg on January 1, 1994. There is also an mp3 Tale of Two Cities audiobook that can be downloaded from Project Gutenberg for free. Charles Dickens wrote A Tale of Two Cities in 1859, so it is in the public domain.
Oprah's book recommendations also includes Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. Great Expectations is a year newer than A Tales of Two Cities, but it is still a public domain ebook because Dickens wrote it in 1860. The ebook of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens was added to Project Gutenberg in July, 1998, and it can be downloaded for any ereader. The Great Expectations audiobook has been available on Gutenberg since 2005, and it can be downloaded as free mp3 files.
Download Oprah's Book Club Selections from Google eBooks
Since the Google eBookstore opened for business on December 6 2010, why not try downloading Oprah's newest book club selections for free from Google Books? Both files are available, and Google Books has a web-based reader, an android platform, and an iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad app to get free ebooks. You can learn more about Google's new eBookstore by reading about the millions of books in Google eBooks.
If you do use the Google eBookstore to find free ebooks by Charles Dickens, be sure to filter the books by clicking on "free" in the top left corner of the book search result page. There are plenty of editions A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations that are available for purchase, but it is not necessary. Amazon has formatted Oprah's latest book choices for the Amazon Kindle in the Kindle store. The Nook can get Google Books easily, the iPad as the iBook store collection, and the Sony Reader has access to the Sony Reader store. Thanks to Project Gutenberg, anyone can grab a copy of Charles Dickens and start reading or listening to some brilliant literature.
Sources:
Amazon released "Oprah's New Book Club Selections A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations Are Free on Kindle" in a media email on December 6, 2010.
Google posted about their Google news blog, "Discover More than 3 million Google eBooks from your Choice of Booksellers and Devices" was posted on December 6, 2010.
Alex Sharp - Alex Sharp is a teacher who has been keeping Suite101 readers up to date with the latest in audio- and e-book gadgetry since 2008.
