Happy Birthday, Cotton Mather! One of the earliest Boston writers was born this day in 1663.

Check out this clip of actor Mark Ruffalo reading a portion of Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” (published in Boston in 1849). It’s interesting to see how much Thoreau’s words ring true today.

The holiday season has finally passed, and I guarantee most of us read or watched some kind of iteration of A Christmas Carol. Could you imagine actually going to hear Charles Dickens do a reading of the novella himself?