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 sometimes you can kick back, put your feet up, and enjoy the television adaptation instead of reading a very long book, if you feel like it.

This month's book club pick is Minjin Lee's Fabulous Pichinko.

It's historical fiction.

It spans most of the 1900s. And it's about four generations of Koreans living in Japan. That's all I'm going to say for now. But before we dive in,

this is your spoiler warning. If you haven't read the book and you don't want to know what

happens, this is not the episode for you. Go listen to some of our other stuff. However,

if you do want to know what happens and you are game, then we are glad to have you.

It's also worth mentioning. As I said, this book was just adapted into a gorgeous series on Apple TV. We're going to talk about that a little bit, of course, too, and maybe try to stay away from some spoilers, but also it's based on the book, so I'm not going to overthink it too hard. I am super excited about this month's panel with us. We have Elise Hugh, host at large for NPR, who also served as

NPR's Bureau Chief in Seoul and has done a lot of reporting on tech as well. Elise, welcome.

Thank you. It's great to be back. I love talking about books and

reading books. So, Aniangayo to all those Korean speakers out there. We also have Angie Kim,

whose book Miracle Creek is fantastic. Angie, welcome to Nuredat. Thank you so much. I'm so

happy to be here. Anianhaseo. Yay. Okay. So I think we should start off with a voicemail we have from one of our

listeners. This is Rachel in Indianapolis. I just keep coming back to the opening line of this book.

History has failed us, but no matter. And just, fuck, that's powerful. I just, like, I can't stop thinking about that line,

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