All this week, more of our favorite stories. Today: working. For years, Emma Pender and Rita Perry faced harsh conditions and physical injuries working at a chicken processing plant in North Carolina. But the money was too good to pass up living in a town where the jobs were few.

For more than 25 years, few people have been allowed to enter the 1,600-square-mile Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Writer Henry Shukman tells the story of a family who returned there.

A dreamy trip to Brazil, Argentina and France through the music of Dom la Nena, who studied classical cello and then began to experiment with voice and the music that surrounded her.

Over the years, The Story has relied on listeners to share their stories. Today, Karen Brandt was once a flight attendant for the actress Judy Garland.

This is another in our series of favorite stories, and it comes from our partnership with Salon.com. When Michael Humphrey was growing up, he would sometimes hear his father telling strangers a story about how the Beatles stole the composition for “Lady Madonna” from him. Eventually, he looked into his father’s story himself.

Playing the trumpet helped Jack Tueller get through a rough childhood, get through World War II – and meet his wife.

Here's another in our "Best of The Story" series. Betty Brown was a teenager when she heard distress radio transmissions of the aviator Amelia Earhart. Decades later, what she heard became a key in the search for the famously disappeared pilot.