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 WB.EZ Chicago, I'm Greta Johnson, and this is the Nerdette Book Club.

It's just like a regular book club, except you extremely do not have to actually read the book if you don't want to.

This month's pick is Donia Kukovka's Notes on an Execution, which the author calls

crime fiction, which I think still has some strong thriller vibes to it, which I'm sure

we'll get into with this

month's panel. If you listen to Nuredat, you already know this dynamic duo. We have M.J. Franklin,

an editor at the New York Times books. MJ, welcome. Hello, hello. Thank you for having me back.

Thanks for coming back. We also have Tracy Thomas, who hosts the Stacks podcast. Tracy, welcome back.

Yay. Thank you for having me back too.

Okay. So this is time for the spoiler warning. If you have not read this book and you don't want spoilers, this is not the episode for you. Go listen to the spoiler-free author chat that is in the feed. If you haven't read the book and you love spoilers or if you've read the book, welcome. We are glad to have you. I just had so much fun talking to both of you about the

best books of 2021 that I had to get this little band back together. Tracy, when you came on last year,

you talked about how you usually read nonfiction and you like major

bummers. This is obviously fiction, but I feel like it has some bummer elements. Is it a book

that you would have picked up if I had not asked you to read it? Okay. Yes, this book is a book that

was on my radar before you mentioned it. And I had actually started it in December and read like 20 pages.

And then I got distracted with things I had to read for work and I put it down.

...