The Poisonwood Bible is one of my favorite books, as someone who has worked with missionaries and worked in Africa. But when I heard that Charles Dickens inspired her latest book, I knew I had to read it. Not a Christmas goes by that I don’t insist that my children and grandkids watch several versions of “The Christmas Carol”. And I’d read J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy not that long ago—so this made for a literary trifecta. Dickens’ work helped Kingsolver overcome a bad case of writer’s block. She wanted to talk about orphans of an epidemic who became throwaway kids […]