john ramano who wrote the lincoln laura former professor of english at columbia and novelist salman rushdie. he is also a life-long dickens' enthusiast. i am pleased to have all these of guests here and to talk about charles dickens on this 200th anniversary. i begin with you. why dickens? what is it about dickens that makes him continue to... >> for me one of the things was reading dickens before i ever came to the west was that these cities that dickens describes, these great rotting metropolis of dickens felt like the city outside my window. if you grow up in a city like bomb bay or dehli he feels exactly like london. it has exactly that characteristic of corruption and filth and then these huge larger than life characters that populate it. >> in the united statesçó dickes is taken as an american writer. maybe every country has its way of adopting ding ens as a native son. that is curious about dickens because he had such a vehiclessed and painful relationship with the united states but i think great expectation is the ninth most frequently assigned novel in american high schools. it hap

sentence in fatwa and salman rushdie is one of the most i've accept both a. one cannot believe that happened in the last century. and it is that spirit of arrogant intolerance, which has contributed to the need to write because it goes beyond religion and politics and principles of justice and executes justice, who pronounces justice and for what at what cost. i participated to the united nation to new york come to one of these peace conferences, dialogue of cultures, dialogue religions come the salon and so forth, shortly after he felt was made in the united states. and this of course it again led to killings all over the world. everybody backing down their hatches. the question i asked myself, what contributed to this looks? why is it that anyone religion considers that it is so sacrosanct it cannot be common to john either through film or theater in the public domain is subject to public comment tree. for any religion to claim the sacrosanct duty is the same mentality that denigrated other religions in their time, but now has assumed universal and politica

salman rushdie recounts his years in hiding following a fatwa issued in 1989 for mr.ie's authorship of the novel, "the satanic verses." in "roger williams and the creation of the american soul: church, state and the birth of liberty," john barry recounts the life of the theologian and his thoughts on the division of religion and politics. former secretary of state madeleine albright recounts her childhood in czechoslovakia during the nazi invasion in "prague winter." in bill veeck, paul dickson details the life of the advocate for racial equality and players' economic rights. damien ec cols in "life after death." for an extended links of various publications' 2012 notable book