It’s our favorite time of year: The RadioWest Holiday Books Show! Even if you never know what to buy your people for the holidays, choosing new books is easy thanks to recommendations from our panel of local professionals, Catherine Weller, Ken Sanders and Betsy Burton.

Do you use punctuation when you text? Do you replace words with emojis? Because Internet author Gretchen McCulloch says the Internet is changing the way we use language everywhere we communicate — not just online.

Writer Pico Iyer has lived in Japan for 32 years — on a tourist visa. His new book Autumn Light explores life as an outsider in a country he very much feels is home, exploring along the way what home is and how we can communicate by not speaking at all. 

Judge Memorial Catholic High School recently forfeited a football game due to their high number of injured players. When is the risk too high for young, developing brains? We look at parents’ and coaches’ responsibilities to young kids who want to play tackle football, and what drives America’s continuing love affair with the game.

Activist and podcast host Brittany Packnett says that social justice is her ministry. Packnett spoke about her faith and activism, and how we all can create a more equitable future.

If trees could speak, what might they say? In Richard Powers’ Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Overstory, a tree tells a woman, “Your kind never sees us whole.” Powers joins us to talk about his book and how to see trees as more than “amputations.”

Over the summer, the RadioWest team tossed around a lot of ideas on how to improve the show. When we finally landed on airing RadioWest twice a week, we wanted to make sure one of those hours dealt with local issues. Thus was born what we named RadioWest Friday to distinguish it from the second hour, which generally features an interview with a nationally-known guest. 

Director Aaron Schimberg’s new film Chained for Life examines society’s perceptions of and obsessions with beauty in a sometimes artificial, often funny and always unsentimental way. Schimberg is coming to Salt Lake for a screening of Chained for Life and a Q&A with Doug as part of our Through the Lens series with the Utah Film Center on Wednesday, Nov. 13.

You know who just about everyone loves? Dolly Parton. But journalist Jad Abumrad’s podcast Dolly Parton’s America isn’t just about how amazing Dolly is; it’s a deep exploration of a great American icon “at the crossroads of America’s culture wars.”

In 2012, award-winning essayist John D’Agata and fact checker Jim Fingal released their at-times heated discussion in the book, The Lifespan of a Fact. Now, their debate over truth versus accuracy is on stage, both on Broadway starring Daniel Radcliffe, and in Salt Lake City. Pioneer Theatre Company's production of the new three-person play will run through Nov. 16.