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 WBEZ 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 Nerdette Book Club.

It's just like a regular book club, except you don't have to share your snacks.

It is the month of August, and our selection this month is Andrew Leland's memoir,

The Country of the Blind.

It's about Andrew's constantly shifting world as his vision deteriorates. And it explores the mythology that

blindness is a binary. It's also about how seeing culture perceives blindness and the history of

blindness in the United States. There is not really a spoiler warning for this one, but I do

recommend listening to the interview with Andrew that is in the feed. He is very funny and great. So you

should go check

that out if you haven't yet. Either way, I'm very glad you were listening today. And I am so excited

to introduce you to our guests this month. With us, we have M. Leona Godin, the performer and

educator who wrote a book in 2021 called Their Plant Eyes, A Personal and cultural history of blindness. Leona, welcome.

Oh, thank you so much, Greta. Thanks for having me here. So full disclosure, you are friends

with Andrew, right? I am friends with Andrew. Yeah. So how did you first become friends? Oh, boy. Well,

you know, it's a small blind world after all.

I believe it was through our mutual friend, Jim Knipfell, otherwise known as Slackjaw, who was a longtime columnist for the New York Press, and then he wrote a memoir called Slackjaw, which is just really great.

So we often refer to him lovingly as like sort of the grandpa of all blind punks.

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