Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Happy Birthday, Charles Dickens: Some Free Books

Today is the 200th birthday of my favorite writer, Charles Dickens. My favorite is David Copperfield, with A Christmas Carol (which I try to read each holiday season, though I didn't this year), Great Expectations and Oliver Twist following closely behind, but I've read almost all of his books, most of them more than once. I was introduced to him as a junior high student and I remember being the only one in my class that really loved the book. I want to say it was Oliver Twist, but I'm not sure. Though he was a product of his time and I've found some of his themes problematic and troubling over the years, there is something rich, sublimely engaging and frequently gutting about his writing that still makes me want to reread at least one of his works almost every year.

A couple of years ago, when the Disney version of A Christmas Carol came out (it was the most faithful animated adaptation that has ever been made, IMHO), Disney sent out a traveling exhibit of Dickens memorabilia, such as his letters, desk and personal effects, which I also went to see. I'll have to dig up some of those pictures - they were pretty awesome.

Anyway, if you have an eReader or a Kindle, here are a bunch of free downloads of his books for you. They're free as of this writing and in the US; they may not be free when you read this or outside of the US (though the majority of these usually are free). Most of these are also available from Project Gutenberg and other sources, but these are specially formatted for the Kindle and some of them are very nicely so. It's not an exhaustive list, but it's pretty close. Enjoy!

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