I'm Natalie Moore. I fell in love with soap operas when I was just five years old, and I still

watch them. Their television's longest scripted series and have zero reruns. Now let me tell you,

soap operas aren't just some silly art form. They are significant. In this season of making,

Stories Without End from WB EZ Chicago.

Join me as I share how the genre began, their social impact, and why these stories endure.

Listen wherever you get your podcast.

From WBEZ Chicago, I'm Greta Johnson, and this is The Nerdat Book Club.

It's just like a regular book club, except no one has to know if you totally didn't get the book.

Our selection this month is Kazuo Ishiguro's Clara and the Sun.

It's a very strange and compelling book about Clara, who's an artificial friend or, you know, very sophisticated robot.

That's all I'm going to say for now because here is your spoiler warning.

If you haven't read this book and you don't want to hear spoilers, this is not the episode for you.

If you're cool with spoilers or if you've read the book, come on down.

We are very happy to have you.

I'm super excited to introduce you to this month's guests. First up, we have critic Anita Felicelli. She's the author of a short

story collection, Love Songs for Lost Continent, and the novel Chimerica. She wrote about

Clara and the Sun for the Los Angeles Review of Books. Anita, welcome. Hey, thank you for having me.

I'm excited to be here.

We also have with us, Veronica Roth, the novelist who wrote most recently The Chosen Ones. She also

wrote the dystopian sci-fi Divergent Trilogy, which was adapted into movies. Veronica, hey.

Hi, happy to be here. So this is Ishigoro's eighth novel. He has won the Booker Prize. He's won the Nobel Prize for Literature. He is a sir. You know, he's obviously like a very prestigious author. I'm curious if either of you has read his other books. Anita, have you? Yes. I actually for my Los Angeles review of books review, I read the ones that I

hadn't read yet. Oh, wow, you read all of them. That's great. Veronica, what about you? Have you read his other

...