Oprah Winfrey

Once again, Oprah Winfrey has made the daring decision to do some good for literacy and the book business by cutting a secret deal that throws some support to, er, the biggest publisher in the world.

As Hillel Italie reports in an Associated Press wire story, Winfrey has once again selected a public domain title for her Oprah’s Book Club, or actually two titles, both by Charles Dickens. But in a move that was clearly secretly in the works for months, the titles she’s chosen are being issued, for the first time, in a single volume by Penguin. She’ll be throwing her support behind that edition despite the numerous other version of it available already — no secret deals necessary — from other publishers.

As the AP story notes, “The talk show host has selected a pair of Dickens classics, ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ and ‘Great Expectations.’ The two novels are being issued in a single bound Penguin paperback edition, around 800 pages, with a list price of $20. The electronic version, also from Penguin, sells for $7.99.”

Winfrey will be making the announcement today, says the report, on a show in which she also interviews Jonathan Franzen, another struggling writer, from another struggling press that needed her assistance.