Showing results by narrator "Amelie Trufant Dawson" in All Categories

An artist turned naturalist known for her botanical illustrations, Merian was born just 16 years after Galileo proclaimed that the Earth orbited the sun. But at the age of 50, she sailed from Europe to the New World on a solo scientific expedition to study insect metamorphosis—an unheard-of journey for any naturalist at that time, much less a woman.

For more than five decades, Twyla Tharp has been a phenomenon in American dance, a choreographer who not only broke the rules but refused to repeat her own successes. Tharp has made movies, television specials, and nearly one hundred riveting dance works. Her dance show Movin’ Out ran on Broadway for three years and won Tharp a Tony award for Best Choreography.

Aggie May, newly and unhappily retired from teaching, fears dementia when she begins to see visions from the past, like a 1950s-era Super Constellation at JFK airport and World War II soldiers at Grand Central Terminal. Then she gets a recruitment visit from Abe Irving of the American Association of Remarkable Persons (“the other AARP”) who explains she has developed the ability to travel through time.

The Jungle in the Basement is a story in which Alicia hears her parents talking about a crack in the basement where plants could grow, and soon she sees plants growing up. Soon she sees even more and more plants, until they are covering the floor like a carpet. Soon she sees a caterpillar, a lizard, and butterflies as the plants grow higher and higher. She even sees a lion chasing a tiger, and she warns her mother about the jungle in the basement. So what will happen after she warns her mother about what she has seen? The Jungle in the Basement tells her story.

It’s 1999 during the first dot-com boom. America is awash in new companies powered by young founders riding the Hokusai-rendered wave that was the dawn of the world wide web. Valuations are as fat as the revenues thin. But the Early True Believers believe. This is Silicon Valley. Back east, Sloane Richmond, a corporate lawyer, quits New York for the Valley to follow her old flame Tae Kim, now the visionary founder of a start-up revolutionizing NLP. Driven to see “if the future has a future”, she ascends to become the general counsel of the hottest tech company in America.

Open House is about vulnerable, strong, sometimes misguided individuals struggling to adapt to change. It explores the undercurrent of beliefs and privilege that carry the seeds of violence. But at its heart is Margaret, who, armed with a sharp wit and a healthy sense of the ridiculous, navigates the societal chaos around her.

After a threat at her home, retired teacher Aggie May drives through a blizzard to return to the Lodge, the quiet retirement village that serves as a meeting place for a group of senior time travelers who solve mysteries from the past. She reconnects with Lodge director Abe Irving and other friends, and is soon involved in a new mission.

Three college friends from the 50s blaze their own path in love and work, braving the stifling conventions of the age, and anticipating the social thaw that would arrive ten years later. These “wild girls” pay heavy penalties for living against the grain, but, over the years, rebound and re-set their course, drawing strength from their friendship.

People like Feeney Simms don’t die by suicide. Beautiful, charismatic, mother of two, wife to a handsome, successful husband, beloved by her friends—this is not the typical picture of a tortured soul. But one summer night, Feeney drives to the beach and swallows a handful of pills. No note, no explanation, nothing. Like that, she’s gone.

Here is the fabulous life and mysterious fate of America's greatest woman flier, her daredevil exploits, her incredible feats, and her final flight into the unknown with a sensational solution to a world-wide mystery.

-Mary Harris "Mother" Jones (1830-1930) was a fierce and tireless advocate of the labor movement. A trade union organizer, a feminist, and a working class hero, Mother Jones spent years fighting for the labor rights of miners, industrial workers, and children.