Sublime

Outside it’s started to snow, and fat flakes swirl beyond the window, the kind of snow that’s a delight to walk in. Bianca doesn’t look like a woman who delights in snowflakes. “As you can see, I’m settled in here, and I have a new name,” I tell her. “I’m perfectly safe.” “But Diana may be in trouble.” “Diana in trouble?” I laugh. “Yeah, that’s a g

Perkins spent the twelve years of Roosevelt’s presidency doing more than anyone other than FDR himself to make the New Deal a reality. Everything on her list became law, most notably social security, changing the basic relation of Americans to their government. She also desegregated the Labor Department cafeteria, tried (and failed) to bring large

Here was a woman who taught early-morning aerobics, cut hair by day, waited tables at night, and in her spare time freelanced as a bookkeeper and took courses at a local college. She was putting in more hours than many of the women I interviewed. But in her mind, if she had to work this hard for so little, what would it take to earn more? She could

Camilla Cavendish’s Extra Time and Anna Dixon’s The Age of Ageing Better