Tall tales time; s’mores optional

Storytelling in the long winter nights has been a hot ticket since Paleolithic times. National Public Radio’s raconteur series “Living on Earth” continues the tradition, with a lively mix of Earth news, interviews, stories and commentaries about a broad range of environmental issues.

On last week’s show, writer Judy Blunt read from “Breaking Clean,” a tale of isolation, work and weather in remote Montana, regaling listeners with spare, moving stories of schoolhouse dances, runaway mares and tough rancher fathers demanding their young children “make a hand” at farm chores. Jake Halpern investigated settlers’ roots forged at the bizarre Alaskan high-rise “city” of Whittier, where “everybody’s running from something.” South Africa’s Lyall Watson read tales from his book “Elephantoms: Tracking the Elephants,” recounting his unfettered boyhood vacations spent foraging on Cape Town’s wild beaches.

Tuck in, tune in and enjoy late-night radio storytelling at its best.

-- Susan Dworski