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 you've got to bring your own snacks.

It is October, and our selection for this month is Celeste Inns Our Missing Hearts.

It's about Noah, also known as Bird, who is in grade school when the novel starts.

He lives in Boston, but it's sort of a post-democratic America where access to information is scarce. Anti-Asian racism is everywhere. His mom, who's a

Chinese-American poet, disappeared a couple of years ago. So now it's just him and his white librarian dad.

That's all I'm going to say for now. Here is your spoiler warning. We are about to

have an extremely spoilery conversation about this book. So if you haven't read it yet and you don't

want to know what happens, you should go listen to our interview with Celeste Ng, which is also in

the feed. If you haven't read it and you want to know what happens, or if you've read it,

you are in the right place. We are so glad to have you. And I am so excited to

introduce you to this month's panel. With us, we have rapper and author and poet Dessa,

whose new poetry collection is excellently called Tits on the Moon and it's out now. Dessa, hey.

Hey, thanks for having me. Oh, thanks for coming on. We also have NPR host at large and author of the

forthcoming book, Flawless, Elise Hugh. Elise, hello. Hey, Greta. Hey, Dessa. It's great to be here.

Yay. Thanks for coming on. Okay, so I'm really excited to talk about this book because I think there

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