Though the audio has been a great companion all week (especially through 12 or so hours of driving), and it taught me so much, I feel incapable of providing an apt description of what the heck I have just consumed. Popova is an ultra-capable writer and easily wove together the lives of Rachel Carson, Margaret Fuller, Maria Mitchell and others, showing immense knowledge of these personalities, their successes and contributions to science and literature, even went so far as to describe their love lives, some hundreds of years ago. On top of that she provided intellectual ties to the present/recent history in a way that pretty much blew my mind. This a hefty nonfiction (21 hours on audio!) with a lovely poetic style that kept me interested and engaged throughout. I'd definitely read it again and would pick up pretty much anything else she writes, no matter the topic.