An Oprah's Book Club Dickens Discussion Webcast

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- 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

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