Nerdette WBEZ Chicago

This week, senior Reset producer Meha Ahmad and journalist Araceli Gómez-Aldana join us to unpack the week. We get into friendship breakups over Taylor Swift, a new airline for dogs and Olympic fashion.

Then, Maura Cheeks tells us about her debut novel Acts of Forgiveness. The book imagines a world where the U.S. government awards cash reparations to the descendants of enslaved people.
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This week, our friends Dan Pashman, host of 'The Sporkful' podcast and author of the new cookbook 'Anything’s Pastable,' and Helen Rosner, staff writer at The New Yorker and author of the newsletter 'The Food Scene,' go all in on food in another round of our favorite game: Burden or Delight.

Plus, producer Anna Bauman adventured to Indianapolis this week to see the total solar eclipse. We listen to what it was like to stop and wonder at our sky.
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We are unpacking the week that was with Amory Sivertson, host of the WBUR podcasts Beyond All Repair and Endless Thread, and Kristina Lopez, producer of Glamorous Trash. We discuss the reasons why women need more sleep than men, age gap relationships and “Stick Nation.”

Then, Vulture film critic Alison Wilmore tells us about why women in action movies all seem to be doing the same particular stunt. She dubs it “killer gams.”
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Our April selection is Marie-Helene Bertino’s gorgeous and entrancing novel 'Beautyland.' It’s about Adina, who realizes she is actually an alien disguised as a young girl living in Philadelphia. Her task is to send reports on humanity back to her home planet via fax machine. The novel is tender, full of heart and weird in the best possible way.

Listen to this spoiler-free interview with the author and read along with us! We’ll be back with a spoiler-filled panel discussion on the last Tuesday of the month. You can join the conversation by sending a voice memo to nerdettepodcast@gmail.com.
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We're on Spring Break this week so we're bringing you a podcast that we think you'll love from our friends at The Culture Study Podcast. Get ready for a deep conversation into the world of A Court of Thorns and Roses, and the 'romantasy' genre as a whole!

Our March book club pick is Kaveh Akbar’s debut novel ‘Martyr!’ It’s about Cyrus, who was born in Iran and moved to the midwest as a child after his mom died. She was one of the victims of the real-life event where the United States Navy shot an Iranian passenger-plane out of the sky reportedly by accident. The book picks up when Cyrus is in his 20s in Indiana and he’s struggling in more ways than one.

He finds himself thinking a lot about the idea of martyrdom and what makes life truly worth living. When he learns of an artist in New York whose work explores similar topics, he has to meet her.

We are joined by two expert readers: New York Times Book Review editor MJ Franklin and host of The Stacks podcast Traci Thomas. We discuss the book in detail, including spoilers! So if you have not read the book yet, go back and listen to our spoiler-free chat with author Kaveh Akbar in the feed first.
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