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BBC correspondent Alan Johnston, who was abducted in the Gaza Strip earlier this year and held for nearly four months, writes a book about his ordeal. Kidnapped: And Other Dispatches describes his ordeal. He says a radio brought by guards offered a lifeline and psychological boost.

Pakistan's M2 highway, as wide and clean as a freshly minted air strip, has become an unexpected obsession. It has six lanes that carve a path across the plains of the Punjab, from the city of Lahore to the capitol Islamabad and beyond. The M2 is South Asia's first motorway.

Across America, wineries and tasting rooms can be found in converted buildings — a bordello in Arizona, a cotton gin in Texas, a church in Ohio. There's even a tasting room in an Alaska shopping center.

After Pearl Harbor, about 120,000 Japanese Americans were uprooted and forced to live for years in federal camps. Internment changed the traditional Japanese diet and erased the family table.

For years, Michele Norris has wondered what exactly figgy pudding is. To find out more about the Christmas treat that generations of carolers have demanded, she invited baking expert Dorie Greenspan to her kitchen to prepare the dessert.

When radio ruled the airwaves, Nashville station WSM was a broadcasting powerhouse. Started in 1925, it became a cultural force that shaped the future of Nashville, largely because of its signature program, The Grand Ole Opry.

In the Indian state of Gujarat, Chief Minister Narendra Modi and his government are up for re-election. Modi is the face of hardline Hindu nationalism. His administration is believed to have instigated some of the worst communal violence in India since the 1947 partition — the killing of 2,000 Muslims in 2002.

For this week's "Homework" assignment, we ask listeners to perform their own versions of "Deck the Halls." Next week, we'll combine the recordings into a national caroling party.

Correspondent Ray Suarez recommends Mr. Ives' Christmas by Oscar Hijuelos — it honors a beautiful and lost New York, Christmas, and the challenge of a living faith and the redeeming power of love.

Ron Kroenke tunes pianos for a living. But when he stopped by a nursing home to work, he inadvertently made the residents unhappy. That's when a lady named Rose managed to say just the right thing.