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.

WB.EZ is supported by Chicago Humanities, presenting its spring festival on April 27th in Lakeview

with historians Heather Cox Richardson and Timothy Snyder,

Jonathan Blitzer on Immigration,

University of Chicago Professor Agnes Collard on Socrates,

and documentaries Unblocked Englewood by Chicago's Tanika Lewis Johnson,

and Beyond Closure on the 2013 Chicago Public School closures. Tickets and more conversations on arts,

culture, and current affairs at chicagohumanities.org.

From WVEZ Chicago, this is Nerdette. I'm Greta Johnson. It's the Nerdat Book Club, which is just like a regular

book club, except you don't have to share your snacks. It is the month of October, and our selection

this month is Lauren Groff's novel The Vaster Wilds. It is about a girl in early American

colonial history who runs away from her settlement and has to figure out how

to survive in the woods. That's all I'm going to say for now, but we are about to have an extremely

spoilery conversation. So if you have not read the book and you do not want to know what happens,

go listen to our spoiler-free interview with Lauren Groff. It is in the feed. If you have read

the book or you're totally cool with spoilers either way, we are so glad to have you.

And I am also very excited to introduce you to this month's guests.

With us, we have Long Distance Dog Sletter, Blair Braverman, the author of a couple of books,

...