Book Club: 'Members Only'

Nerdette

WBEZ

Tv & Film, Self, Nerd, Books, Technology, Tv, Improvement, Culture, Wbez, Society & Culture, Pop, Nerdette, Nerds

4.7 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 28 August 2020

⏱️ 68 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Welcome to the Nerdette Book Club! Each month, we read a book and chat about it with a rotating group of panelists. This month’s pick is Sameer Pandya’s debut novel Members Only.

It takes place over the course of one very intense week in the life of Raj, a middle-aged Indian-American anthropology professor. When he’s asked to help his tennis club interview potential new members, he’s thrilled by the opportunity to help diversify his tennis partners. But he makes a huge gaffe in front of a Black family, and the rest of his week gets worse from there.

Listen along as Nerdette host Greta Johnsen discusses the book with Jade Chang, author of The Wangs vs. the World, and author Alisha Rai, whose Modern Love series is part of an upswell in romance novels with strong female characters and feminist sensibilities.

And then get ready for next month’s pick: The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This fall, W bez invites you to our upcoming live events.
0:05.0	Join us in person for smart discussions, heartfelt storytelling, and more.
0:09.0	Check out the full calendar now at W be easy.org
0:12.6	slash events.
0:13.6	From W be easy Chicago, I'm Greta Johnson and you are listening to the
0:20.9	Nurdette Book Club. It's just like a normal Book Club except you don't have to share your snacks.
0:26.0	This month we are talking about Samir Pandya's members only.
0:30.0	There's a spoiler free interview with Samir in the feed, so if you haven't read the book yet and you are a spoiler-averse human, that episode is a great place to start.
0:40.0	If you haven't read the book and you're like, I love spoilers, they're the best, then you are totally in the right place because we are going to unpack it all.
0:48.0	I am so excited about our guests this month.
0:52.3	Here to talk about the book we have Jade Chang
0:54.6	author of the delightful life's gone wrong so let's hit the road novel the
0:58.8	wings versus the world hey Jade. Hi thanks for having. I wish I'd thought to bring snacks though.
1:04.3	I should have told you to bring snacks next time next time. We also have
1:08.6	Alicia Rye who writes romance novels with substance most recently the
1:12.4	right swipe and girl
1:13.4	gone viral. Alicia hey hey how's it going thank you so good oh my gosh I'm so
1:18.9	excited to have both of you you're some of my favorites so I think this is
1:21.6	going to be pretty great. And of course we are also going to hear from you.
1:27.6	Let's hear a little preview of some of the voicemails we got.
1:29.7	Hi, Nardette, this is Jane from Florida.
1:32.4	Hi, this is Jane from Florida.
	...

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