In an archive edition, we talk with Nora Ephron about hot flashes, new wrinkles, and her collection of essays on confronting age.

Israeli, Palestinian, and U.S. analysts on what’s next for Gaza — and the Middle East.

We hear the story of one writer’s magnificent obsession with the great American ballad, House of the Rising Sun.

Dominican-American novelist Junot Diaz on his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.”

The New Yorker’s Bill Buford takes us from the cacao plantations of Brazil to the booming high-end market for extreme chocolate.

In an archive edition of On Point, we talk with the Beastie Boys’ Adam Yauch about on music, sports, life, and his new hip-hop fueled, B-ballin’ film, “Gunnin’ For That #1 Spot.”

In an archive edition of On Point, we jam with guitar legend Leo Kottke and Mike Gordon of Phish.

What a year: Obama, bailouts, and the economy in crisis. Russian tanks in Georgia. The Beijing Olympics, and more. Our news roundtable looks back at 2008.

In an archive edition of On Point, we look at Sacred Harp music, a centuries-old American tradition of shape-note singing and its revival around the country today.

Photographer Annie Leibovitz talks about the most important public – and personal – images of her celebrated career.

One of the great pleasures of directing On Point is that I hear just about every show we produce. And around the holidays, I listen back to some of our best shows to rebroadcast while the staff takes a well-deserved break.

The Christmas Revels invade our studio for old Wessex carols, a Somerset Wassail, and Thomas Hardy’s “Under the Greenwood Tree.”

Theologian Martin Marty and physician Jerome Groopman join us for a conversation about hope in turbulent times — where we find it, and how we hold on.

A new look at frontier medicine, and the wildest tonics of the old Wild West.

Caroline Kennedy reaches for Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat. We look at the politics, the history, at Caroline, and the national mythology, all in play.

Jay Parini, Middlebury College professor and jack-of-all-literary trades, makes the case in our second hour today for America’s thirteen “representative” books in his new tome “The Promised Land.” Of course, the idea of a great list or “canon” of hallowed must-reads

From the “Huck Finn” to “The Feminine Mystique,” author and critic Jay Parini talks about the books that really changed America.

Multi-million dollar bonuses for Wall Street executives — even now. We ask what mega-bonuses have meant, and mean, for the US economy.

NFL wives speak out. Are their husbands suffering brain damage from playing in the National Football League?

The Fed flirts with zero, Caroline Kennedy steps up, coup rumors in Baghdad. Our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.