Holiday Words from Our Director: Curtain Raiser on Upcoming Shows

Over the holidays, On Point will be featuring some of the shows we’ve loved. As one listener recently wrote to us on Facebook, “This makes my drive home enriching, joyful, infuriating, sad, happy, enlightened, depressed, energizing!  Whew!  Thank you!”  That’s why we do what we do to have you listening—and feeling—with us every day.

This season we’re featuring literary conversations with top writers: Nonfiction great John McPhee and The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency’s Alexander McCall Smith.  We’ll also hear from our gang of book critics on the Best Books of 2010. Then we’re globetrotting around the world, from the favelas of Brazil to the great ancient epics—including the Mahabarata—of India.  Next a bit of time travel, as we journey back to hear how the fur trade helped shape the early American economy.  And we hope you’ll be as entertained by William Shatner and "The Daily Show"’s Samantha Bee as we were.

We’ll close out the week with a conversation with the great Aaron Sorkin and stars—Jesse Eisenberg and Armie Hammer—of the year’s critically acclaimed film “The Social Network” about the founding of Facebook.

On the final day of 2010, we’ll be back Friday with a special live show, the Year in Review, with guests Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post, John Harwood of CNBC, and Jack Beatty.  Call in—or chime in online or on Facebook—with your top stories.  As always, thanks for being with us.