This week on A Prairie Home Companion, it's a special compilation show all about the life of the working man and woman. Gillian Welch and David Rawlings will sing "Red Clay Halo," The Wailin' Jenny's sing "One More Dollar," Butch Thompson will play the "Working Man Blues," and poet Deborah Garrison reads a few of her poems, including "Worked Late On A Tuesday Night." Dusty & Lefty get lucrative job offers, complete with benefits, and we'll hear the story of Bob Anderson who left Lake Wobegon and went to New York to get a job as a dancer.

This week on A Prairie Home Companion, we celebrate summer with another special compilation broadcast. Guy Noir goes undercover at a family picnic, Tom Keith goes cruising on Lake Superior, Bertha's Kitty Boutique offers a special summer camp for cats, and Garrison recalls his days at Camp Scotty. Robin and Linda Williams sing "Green Summertime," Greg Brown sings "Summer Evening" and Maria Jette performs a hot and sultry version of Gershwin's "Summertime" ... It's all coming up on our Dog Days of Summer Show, this weekend.

This week on A Prairie Home Companion, we present a special compilation show featuring books and the people who write them. The dog days of summer are here and we'll cool down with a little reading — contemporary or classic, domestic or foreign, we have 'em all: Frank McCourt, Bill Holm and Calvin Trillin read from their respective books. Plus, we'll pay homage to Kerouac and present a home-grown version of Hans Christian Andersen's fairytale, The Snow Queen. The Minnesota Opera brings arias to the Dust Bowl in "The Grapes of Wrath." Tune in this Saturday for The Prairie Home Book Festival.

This week on A Prairie Home Companion, as our wobbly legs continue to recover from the effects of the North Sea, we offer a very special summertime compilation show featuring all things Norwegian. Special guests include, modern masters of the polska, Frigg. A pair of singing brothers, Trond and Knut Moe from the Norwegian National Opera. Pianist Morten Gunnar Larsen performing Ragtime, and sibling classical duo Mari and HÃ¥kon Samuelsen perform a tribute to their homeland, "Mountain Vision." In Lake Wobegon, Clarence Bunsen's old college pal, Pastor Cliff, resigns to write the great Norwegian-American novel.

This week on A Prairie Home Companion: a special summertime rebroadcast featuring a few shows we did at the Hollywood Bowl in L.A. A great band that has spent a lot of time playing on street corners, The Old Crow Medicine Show, is with us. Our friend Leo Kottke is with us, and Irish songstress Karan Casey sings "The Brown and Yellow Ale." Plus, a whole bunch of big-time Hollywood movie stars: Meryl Streep, Virginia Madsen, John C. Reilly... And in Lake Wobegon, all of the beautiful weather makes ones thoughts turn to death, of course.

This week on A Prairie Home Companion: a special summertime rebroadcast from the Dakotas — the North one and the South one. We take Del McCoury and his band farther north than they've ever been before to meet up with a few of the locals: Becky Schlegel and singer/songwriter/farmer Chuck Suchy. The New Custer Brass Band plays historic instruments from the National Music Museum, and the historic "King" cello makes an appearance. Plus, find out why Guy Noir is skulking around the Lucky Harvester Casino Complex.

This week on A Prairie Home Companion, another summertime rebroadcast featuring a few shows from Town Hall in New York, April 2005. Phil Cunningham and Aly Bain are with us, as is Vince Giordano. Odetta sings a wonderful World War I-era song called "Rich Man," André Watts plays Ravel, and Renée Fleming recalls her high school musical debut in the "Sound of Music". Meanwhile, in Lake Wobegon, the high school play was cancelled under student protest...

This week on A Prairie Home Companion: a special summertime rebroadcast. It's our 4th of July spectacular from Tanglewood, with Gillian Welch & David Rawlings, jazz singer Inga Swearingen, the elusive P.D.Q. Bach (joined by David Dusing), and out from the dim lights of the orchestra's back row come The Existential Bass Quartet. Erica Rhodes is with the Royal Academy of Radio Actors, Calvin Trillin makes a cameo appearance, and Howard Levy is in with the Shoes. Plus, we'll sing the Star Spangled Banner in the Key of G, and the Flying Elvises drop in on Lake Wobegon.

This week on A Prairie Home Companion we'll wrap our summer broadcast season at Tanglewood, in Lenox, Massachusetts. With special guests, the unpretentious superstar James Taylor, conductor and violinist Jaime Laredo with cellist Sharon Robinson, and jazz singer Inga Swearingen. Also with us, the Royal Academy of Radio Acting: Tim Russell, Sue Scott, Fred Newman, and Erica Rhodes, The Guy's All-Star Shoe Band with maestro Richard Dworksy, and The News From Lake Wobegon. Join us this weekend for a spectacular season finale, and thank you for supporting your local public radio station!

This week on A Prairie Home Companion, we'll enter the "Bermuda Triangle" of thunderstorms, lightning, and heatstroke to bring you a live broadcast from the Starlight Theater in Kansas City, Missouri. With this week's special guests, old-time string band, the Carolina Chocolate Drops, humorist Roy Blount, and gospel singer Jearlyn Steele. Also with us, the Royal Academy of Radio Acting: Tim Russell, Sue Scott, and Fred Newman, The Guy's All-Star Shoe Band with the shiny shoe horns: Andy Stein, Dave Brown, Dale Mendenhall, and Jim Fryer, and The News from Lake Wobegon. It's all that, and more, coming up this week on A Prairie Home Companion.