Schedule for Monday, December 29th

Seasons Greetings! The Q crew is off this week on holiday. Guest host Tom Power introduces interviews from the Best of Q.
 

• Why is the internet ablaze over Canadian writer Marian Engel's 1976 novel, Bear? It's not just the retro-racey cover art that has captured the online attention. Fellow novelist and CanLit expert Aritha van Herk talks to guest host Terry O'Reilly about the upsurge in interest, and tells us what the genuinely radical tale -- of one woman's wilderness affair with a bear -- is really all about.
   
• Piya Chattopadhyay talks to This American Life producers Sarah Koenig and Julie Snyder about the show's first spin-off, "Serial," and the popularity today of serial (verses episodic) storytelling. "Serial" is a podcast about the true story of a murder in Baltimore in 1999 that's told over the course of a whole season.
   
• Terry O'Reilly talks to George Takei, previously best known for his role as Sulu on the original Star Trek, on the new documentary "Being Takei" about his life as an actor and late-blooming activist and on-line hero.