It's the best of times! Oprah sat down with Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist and Charles Dickens expert Jane Smiley to discuss her Oprah's Book Club picks, A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations.

Watch the complete Oprah's Book Club webcast now!





Don't have time to watch the full webcast? Watch a quick Q&A clip with from Oprah's conversation

• Jane Smiley on reading (and rereading) Dickens
• Was Dickens the first modern day celebrity?
• An introduction to A Tale of Two Cities
• The extremes of Dickens' female characters in A Tale of Two Cities
• The religious beliefs of Charles Dickens
• How Dickens used his writings as a vehicle for social change
• The lessons that can be learned from reading Dickens
• The important role that dialect plays in his writings
• Are there any modern day heros like Sydney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities?
• Why Madame Defarge in A Tale of Two Cities is portrayed so unsympathetically
• Why Great Expectations is an ultimate example of Dickens' writings
• How Dickens' own life was an inspiration for his work
• The secrets of Dickens that drove the plot of Great Expectations
• Authors and their connections to their characters
• Which modern day authors readers might be studying 200 years from now
• Why two endings were written for Great Expectations
• Jane Smiley on her own writing process

Why Oprah chose A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations by Charles Dickens for Oprah's Book Club






More on A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Read the excerpts, print the character guides and discuss your questions with other Dickens readers