Ron Chernow―prizewinning author of seven books, including the National Book Award winner “The House of Morgan,” the Pulitzer Prize winner “Washington: A Life,” and the George Washington Book Prize winner “Alexander Hamilton”―joins The Culture Show to talk about his new biography “Mark Twain.”

From there we talk to National Geographic Explorer in Residence Tara Roberts. She joins The Culture Show to talk about her book “Written in the Waters: A memoir of History, Home and Belonging.”

Finally, author JM Varese joins The Culture Show to talk about his latest novel, a Victorian Gothic thriller that is rooted in the real-life Victorian scandal when arsenic was used to make decorative wallpaper. JM Varese is Director of Outreach for The Dickens Project at UC Santa Cruz.

The United States has a National Recording Registry— a list of more than 600 recordings that have been deemed culturally, historically or aesthetically significant by the Library of Congress. GBH’s The Culture Show is digging deep, one recording at a time, with our recurring segment SOUND FILES.

In this edition, Keith Lockhart with the acclaimed orchestra Boston Pops waxes operatic about his love of Queen’s 1975 masterpiece “Bohemian Rhapsody.”“Twenty-five years ago, there were all these things that everybody knew how to sing,” Lockhart said. “These days, our audience is fragmented enough — from the younger people to the older people — that there’s only one song I can think of that pretty much everybody in every audience we ever play for knows. And that is ‘Bohemian Rhapsody.’”

In 2022, it was inducted into the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry. In its induction essay, musical artist Don Breithaupt describes it as something of a musical and technological miracle and said, simply, “it is now in a class by itself.”

On its initial release back in 1975, literally millions of people across the globe bought the record. One of those buyers was a gifted 15-year-old clarinetist in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. That, of course, was Keith Lockhart.

“The first rock album I bought — the first LP I bought — was Night at the Opera in the fall of 1975,” Lockhart said. “I’d heard ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ in airplay on the radio, and I thought, ‘How did they do this?’”

Holiday Pops is on through December 24th. To see Keith Lockhart live, learn more here.

In the Victorian era, Charles Dickens was more than a famous author — his public readings of A Christmas Carol turned literature into live spectacle. His great-great-grandson, Gerald Charles Dickens, carries that tradition forward with a one-man performance of the holiday classic. Touring internationally since the early 1990s, he joined The Culture Show to talk about literary inheritance, live storytelling, and decades spent bringing Dickens’ ghosts to life onstage. To learn more about Gerald Charles Dickens go here.

On Christmas Eve, Italian-American tables overflow with seafood for the Feast of the Seven Fishes — a tradition shaped by Catholic practice, regional custom, and availability rather than strict rules. But debates endure: why seven dishes, what counts, and how much tradition should bend? We talked with Domenic Strazzullo and The Boston Guido about how memory, argument, and improvisation have become part of the celebration itself.

Susan Roberts spends the holiday season performing as Mrs. Claus — a role that blends warmth, quick thinking, and emotional awareness. Working public events and private visits, she helps manage high expectations and big feelings that come with the season. She joined The Culture Show to talk about becoming Mrs. Claus, the craft behind effortless cheer, and why the woman in red is stepping into the spotlight. To learn more about Susan Roberts go here.