Wordy Birds

Brian Burns

August 12, 2011 by lizhumes

Lewis Ginter: Richmond’s Gilded Age Icon

Original air date: August 12, 2011

“As a war hero, philanthropist and entrepreneur, Lewis Ginter was many things to Richmond. Performing integral missions for “Stonewall” Jackson and Robert E. Lee, Ginter was commended for gallantry on the battlefield and became affectionately known as the “Fighting Commissary.” After the war, Ginter was the first major marketer of the hand-rolled cigarette in America. He developed one of America’s first streetcar suburbs and built the magnificent Jefferson Hotel, a symbol of Richmond’s ambition and prosperity. But beyond the well-known history of this River City icon, there are many aspects of his personal and professional life that few know about. Join local writer Brian Burns as he delves into the hidden history of Ginter’s extraordinary life to fill in the gaps between Ginter the man and Ginter the legend.”

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Category Local, Nonfiction | Tags: , architecture, biography, civil war, history, lewis ginter, Richmond, tobacco, Virginia | 1 Comment
Clint Johnson

July 29, 2011 by lizhumes

Touring Virginias and West Virginias Civil War Sites

Original air date: July 29, 2011

History buffs and tourists have been following the signs to famous Civil War sites in Virginia and West Virginia for years. However, many of the sites from the states’ rich Civil War heritage are off the beaten path. “History is all around us,” says author Clint Johnson. “I want to take people to places that they have never been before and tell them the stories of what happened there.”

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Category Nonfiction | Tags: | No Comments
Simon Van Booy

July 15, 2011 by lizhumes

Everything Beautiful Began After

Original air date: July 15, 2011

“Rebecca is young, lost, and beautiful. A gifted artist, she seeks solace and inspiration in the Mediterranean heat of Athens—trying to understand who she is and how she can love without fear.

George has come to Athens to learn ancient languages after growing up in New England boarding schools and Ivy League colleges. He has no close relationships with anyone and spends his days hunched over books or wandering the city in a drunken stupor.

Henry is in Athens to dig. An accomplished young archaeologist, he devotedly uncovers the city’s past as a way to escape his own, which holds a secret that not even his doting parents can talk about.

…And then, with a series of chance meetings, Rebecca, George, and Henry are suddenly in flight, their lives brighter and clearer than ever, as they fall headlong into a summer that will forever define them in the decades to come.”

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Category Fiction | Tags: | No Comments
Marcia Clark

July 1, 2011 by lizhumes

Guilt By Association

Original air date: July 1, 2011

“Brilliant and tenacious, DA Rachel Knight lives and breathes her work and disdains office politics—a combustible combination that often gets her into trouble. She is a stalwart member of the elite Special Trials Unit, a small group of handpicked prosecutors that handles the toughest, most sensitive, and most celebrated cases in the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office. At the end of a typical ten-hour day, Rachel has her sights set on an ice-cold martini at the Biltmore Hotel, where she lives. But on her way she’s sidetracked by the wail of sirens and the commotion of a crime scene. Cops swarm around a seedy motel, where Rachel is surprised to discover that Jake, a dear friend and fellow prosecutor, has been murdered…”

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Category Fiction | Tags: | No Comments
Matt Paxton and Phaedra Hise

June 17, 2011 by lizhumes

The Secret Lives of Hoarders

Original air date: June 17, 2011

“The Secret Lives of Hoarders is much more than harrowing tales of attacking the ugliest, dirtiest, and most shocking hoarding cases in the country. It is a behind-the-scenes look at this hidden epidemic- what it means, how to recognize it before it gets out of hand, and how to deal with it.

Through his work with hundreds of clients in the worst circumstances- from the giant “rat’s nest” that hid more than $13,000 in cash to a vast cache of cartoon pornography to twenty-five years’ worth of unopened mail-Matt Paxton has learned to understand this disorder and his clients’ impulses to collect, to speak the hoarders’ language, and to reach out to them with compassion and concern while avoiding criticism and judgment. Most important, he guides compulsive hoarders successfully through every step of the clean-up and healing process.

The Secret Lives of Hoarders is an engrossing and sometimes unsettling look at extreme clutter but one that helps hoarders, their families, and their friends to find meaning in the chaos..”

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Category Nonfiction | Tags: | No Comments