Minutes After the Kindle Gets Rushed At The End of Oprah's Show, Amazon Announces Her $7.99 eBook's 2 Dicken's Titles Are Also Available As Freebies in the Kindle Store

Oprah's New Book Club Selections "A Tale of Two Cities" and "Great Expectations" Are Free on Kindle That's the headline topping the press release posted by Amazon a few minutes after Oprah squeezed the Kindle, and her giveaway of Kindles to her audience, into the final seconds of her show today. Well, a suspicious mind might speculate that Amazon.com may have been miffed at having their Kindle plugged by Oprah as a seeming afterthought in the last moments of today's show. But we at Planet iPad aren't that suspicious, and see the launch of the press statement minutes after Oprah went off the air today as good old “full disclosure” by a reputable bookseller. Died-in-the wool ebooks fans might still want to buy the eBook from Oprah at $7.99 for their own reasons; a lot of folks just plain old like Oprah, and that's reason enough. For those analog types among us in this digital age, we may want a printed copy of the Oprah release of these two great novels.  They make a great gift to tuck under the tree, especially if the giver has special memories concerning their own reading of the novels.  It's a scene from Christmas past to inscribe a note about those memories for a lucky reader receiving the books for the first time. We respectfully suggest that if you are giving Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations to a special someone, you would be wise to consider paying the freight for either the eBook or the print book. You cannot give away a free Kindle Book using Amazon's Gift program.   Click on the cover images for the classics A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations for the free editions. As for hidden meanings in the issuing of the press statement, seeming to undercut sales of the Oprah-backed edition published by Penguin, we leave those for readers to discern, impute or imagine.  Here's the release: Oprah's New Book Club Selections "A Tale of Two Cities" and "Great Expectations" Are Free on Kindle The works of Charles Dickens and millions of other out-of-copyright works are available on Kindle for free SEATTLE, Dec 06, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- The 65th Oprah Book Club pick is a Charles Dickens double-header. The selections are "A Tale of Two Cities" and "Great Expectations," and Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced that both are available on Kindle for free, along with millions of other out-of-copyright works. These free Kindle books can be read on the bestselling $139 Kindle (www.amazon.com/kindle) with new, high-contrast Pearl e-ink or on iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, BlackBerry, Android-based devices, PC, and Mac using free Kindle reading apps (www.amazon.com/kindleapps). "We've found that customers love to discover--or rediscover--classic books on Kindle and we're sure these Dickens books will find new readers as an Oprah's Book Club selection," said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President of Kindle Content. "Millions of free, out-of-copyright books are available to read on Kindle, including these two classic Dickens books." There is also a Penguin edition available in the Kindle store for $7.99. The Penguin edition includes illustrations of 18th century fashion and culture in Dickens' Victorian world, information about the early reception for both "A Tale of Two Cities" and "Great Expectations," a filmography of Dickens' novels, further reading about the author as well as what informed the thematic elements of these classic novels.