C a r o l y n D a u g h t e r s

A Dickens Dream, Robert William Buss

It’s the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens’ birth, people. He was born at midnight on February 7, 1812.

In a recent Time article, Radhika Jones says when Dickens, “began writing his first novel—in 1836, the year before Victoria took the throne—the literacy rate in England was less than 50 percent. By the end of her reign, in 1901, it was 97 percent. … Dickens helped close that gap. He did it by publishing stories that … Continue Reading

“Dream a Little Dream: Bill McKibben on Reforming Our Supersized Society,”
Alexis Adams Interview with Bill McKibben, The Sun, October 2006

“[In the Laura Ingalls Wilder books,] there are poignant descriptions of [children] trying to decide whether to eat [their single stick of candy] all at once or stretch it out for months. In that kind of world, it’s easy to see why people wanted more.

I was in China last summer and spent a day in a factory where young people were making shower curtains. It was not Dickensian; most of the workers I talked to thought of the job as a step … Continue Reading