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Articles by Anna Bauman
‘Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow’ is the next One Book, One Chicago pick
The Chicago Public Library selected Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin as its 2024 One Book, One Chicago pick. Each year, the library picks a citywide read on a resonant theme. Zevin’s novel, a New York Times bestseller, chronicles the story of two kids who meet in a pediatric hospital at age 11 and grow up to become masterful young video game designers with a blockbuster hit. The book explores the impact their business journey has on their relationships.
▶️ Listen Now: Goodbye for now!
URL Copied! Peter Sagal and co-host emeritus Tricia Bobeda play Burden or Delight! May 28, 2024, 3:00am CT As y’all probably know, we’re calling this the “goodbye for now” episode of Nerdette because this is our last episode as a production at WBEZ. So, we thought it was the perfect time to call up Nerdette co-creator Tricia Bobeda and Nerdette Recaps co-host Peter Sagal to play our favorite game, Burden or Delight. Then, we hear from YOU about what Nerdette has meant to you for the past 11 years.
▶️ Listen Now: Nerdette Book Club: More with Amor Towles, LIVE!
URL Copied! We share more of our LIVE Nerdette Book Club event with author Amor Towles. May 24, 2024, 3:00am CT May’s Book Club selection is the fabulous short story collection Table for Two by Amor Towles. It was amazing to get to talk to Amor in front of a LIVE audience in Chicago a few weeks ago.
▶️ Listen Now: A kitchen therapy session with Tamar Adler
URL Copied! The chef and cookbook author counsels listeners on their cooking quandaries. May 10, 2024, 3:00am CT This week, cookbook author and leftovers lover Tamar Adler joins us to answer YOUR questions on cooking, hosting and eating. Tamar is the author of The Everlasting Meal and The Everlasting Meal Cookbook: Leftovers A-Z. She also writes the newsletter “The Kitchen Shrink,” where she regularly gives out culinary advice.
▶️ Listen Now: Nerdette Book Club LIVE with Amor Towles!
URL Copied! The author joined us in front of a live audience to discuss his new collection ‘Table for Two.’ May 7, 2024, 3:00am CT This week, we are bringing you a special LIVE edition of Nerdette Book Club!!! The great Amor Towles, author of A Gentleman in Moscow and The Lincoln Highway, joined us in front of a live audience at the Athenaeum Theater in Chicago to discuss our May Book Club selection, his most recent book Table for Two! It’s a collection of six different short stories set in...
▶️ Listen Now: A joyfully defiant summer playlist
URL Copied! We share some of the best new music out this summer! May 3, 2024, 3:00am CT This week, we’re sharing some of the best new music out this summer! Our friend Kristen Kurtis is the assistant music director and Morning Show host at WXPN in Philadelphia. We asked her to bring us some fun and maybe even a little angry songs to rock out to this summer. You can find this collection of “joyfully defiant” songs below. Want to add to the playlist?
▶️ Listen Now: Nerdette Book Club discusses ‘Beautyland’
URL Copied! Marie-Helene Bertino’s novel about an alien examines the joy – and devastation – of being human. April 30, 2024, 3:00am CT Our April Book Club pick is Marie-Helene Bertino’s second novel Beautyland. It tells the story of Adina, a girl born in Philadelphia in 1977, just as the Voyager I spacecraft launches from Earth in search of extraterrestrial life.
▶️ Listen Now: CORGIS ARE DELIGHTFUL
URL Copied! We listen back to two of our favorite conversations from the past 11 years! April 26, 2024, 3:00am CT This week, we are taking some time to reflect on the past 11 years of Nerdette by listening to two of our all-time favorite interviews. First, Greta and Stephen King (yes, that Stephen King) bond over their shared love of corgis. Then, poet Ross Gay tells us about The Book of Delights, a collection of essays about finding delight everyday.
▶️ Listen Now: Tortured poets and airlines for dogs
URL Copied! Is Taylor Swift causing friendship breakups? What is up with Nike’s new Olympic uniforms? We get into it. April 19, 2024, 3:00am CT This week, senior Reset producer Meha Ahmad and journalist Araceli Gómez-Aldana join us to unpack the week. We get into friendship breakups over Taylor Swift, a new airline for dogs and Olympic fashion. Then, Maura Cheeks tells us about her debut novel .
▶️ Listen Now: Is mayo a burden or a delight? WE FIND OUT.
URL Copied! Dan Pashman and Helen Rosner play our favorite game: Burden or Delight. April 12, 2024, 3:00am CT This week, our friends Dan Pashman, host of The Sporkful podcast and author of the new cookbook Anything’s Pastable, and Helen Rosner, staff writer at The New Yorker and author of the newsletter The Food Scene, go all in on food in another round of our favorite game of Burden or Delight. Plus, producer Anna Bauman adventured to Indianapolis this week to see the total solar eclipse.
Marie-Helene Bertino’s ‘Beautyland’ is one of the best novels of the year
WBEZ brings you fact-based news and information. Sign up for our newsletters to stay up to date on the stories that matter. 🎧 Click on the red listen button to hear Nerdette’s full conversation with Marie-Helene Bertino. Nerdette Book Club’s April selection is Marie-Helene Bertino’s gorgeous and entrancing novel Beautyland.
▶️ Listen Now: Nerdette Book Club discusses ‘Martyr!’
URL Copied! Kaveh Akbar’s debut novel ‘Martyr!’ does not shy away from earnestness. Mar 26, 2024, 3:00am CT Our March book club pick is Kaveh Akbar’s debut novel Martyr! It’s about Cyrus, who was born in Iran and moved to the midwest as a child after his mom died. She was one of the victims of the real-life event where the United States Navy shot an Iranian passenger-plane out of the sky reportedly by accident. The book picks up when Cyrus is in his 20s in Indiana.
▶️ Listen Now: Burden or Delight: Sourdough edition
URL Copied! We play our favorite pop culture news game. Mar 22, 2024, 3:00am CT This week, two of our favorite guests, City Cast Chicago host Jacoby Cochran and Not Sorry Productions faculty member Margaret Willison, stop by to play a game of Burden or Delight. We discuss wide-legged jeans, sourdough starters and a few other unhinged topics.
▶️ Listen Now: The aggressively delightful Noel Fielding
URL Copied! The ‘Bake Off’ host is the star of a new historical comedy series. Mar 15, 2024, 3:00am CT This week, senior correspondent at Vox Alex Abad-Santos and Bridget Todd, host of the podcasts City Cast DC and There Are No Girls on the Internet, spill the tea on Kate Middleton’s photoshop debacle, a proposed TikTok ban and the World Banana Forum. Plus, Noel Fielding stars in the new Apple TV+ comedy series The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin.
▶️ Listen Now: Xochitl Gonzalez on art, belonging and nostalgia
URL Copied! We talk to the author about her sophomore novel. Mar 8, 2024, 3:00am CT We unpack the week with Ronald Young Jr., host of Weight For It, and Arionne Nettles, head of Northwestern’s audio journalism program and author of the upcoming book We Are the Culture: Black Chicago’s Influence on Everything. We chat about the fallacy of airplane mode, tweens at Sephora and the popularity of owl ring bearers. Plus, author Xochitl Gonzalez tells us about her new book .
How the Midwest, poetry and addiction influenced Kaveh Akbar’s ‘Martyr!’
WBEZ brings you fact-based news and information. Sign up for our newsletters to stay up to date on the stories that matter. 🎧 Click on the red listen button to hear Nerdette’s full conversation with Kaveh Akbar. Our Nerdette Book Club selection this month is Martyr!, the first novel from poet Kaveh Akbar. The Nerdette team chose it because it’s vibrant, incisive and the perfect combination of devastating and funny.
▶️ Listen Now: Nerdette Book Club: ‘Come and Get It,’ discussed!
Nerdette Book Club is keeping things moving in 2024 with Kiley Reid’s sophomore novel, Come and Get It. It’s a juicy, messy novel that takes place on a college campus and explores issues around class, ambition and constantly-shifting power dynamics. Millie, a fifth-year senior at the University of Arkansas, is working as an RA on campus when Agatha, a visiting professor, asks her for a strange favor.
▶️ Listen Now: Here’s to mucking about!
URL Copied! We chat about mucking about more in 2024, plus the politics of exclamation points. Feb 23, 2024, 3:00am CT This week, comedian and Fake the Nation host Negin Farsad and Ted Talks Daily host Elise Hu join us to discuss a week’s worth of litigious news. We learn about the guy who’s suing Powerball for posting the incorrect numbers, the dating app users who say the platforms are too addictive, and the proposed “right to disconnect” law protecting workers in Australia.
▶️ Listen Now: Kelly Link’s uncanny novel is “a love letter to romance”
URL Copied! We talk to the MacArthur “Genius Grant” fellow about her first novel. Feb 16, 2024, 3:00am CT This week, Niala Boodhoo, host and editor of the Axios podcast 1 Big Thing, and Aubrey Gordon, subject of the upcoming documentary Your Fat Friend and co-host of Maintenance Phase, stop by to chat about retailers cracking down on frequent returns and the new dating app for people with good credit scores.
▶️ Listen Now: The Tortured Nerdettes Department
URL Copied! Listeners share audio Valentines for their friends! Feb 9, 2024, 3:00am CT This week, Rhaina Cohen, author of The Other Significant Others, and The Stacks host Traci Thomas stop by to talk about the sports game happening this Sunday, whether aging Millennials are becoming culturally obsolete, and why algorithm recommendations might feel kind of … off.
Kiley Reid’s juicy campus novel tackles college students, money and responsibility
WBEZ brings you fact-based news and information. Sign up for our newsletters to stay up to date on the stories that matter. 🎧 Click on the red listen button to hear Nerdette’s full conversation with Kiley Reid. Our February selection is Kiley Reid’s second novel, Come and Get It. Reid’s debut novel, Such a Fun Age, was a salacious, fizzy novel about the messy power dynamics of work and life, and her second book is no different.
▶️ Listen Now: Snacky and tired? Us too.
URL Copied! We cook up some comfort food with Bon Appétit’s Shilpa Uskokovic. Feb 2, 2024, 3:00am CT This week, we are beating the winter blues and leaning into coziness. First, we talk to City Cast Chicago host Jacoby Cochran and WBEZ’s Araceli Gómez-Aldana about ads upending streaming services, a $3,000 train trip and cozy rituals. Then, Bon Appétit food editor Shilpa Uskokovic shares some of her favorite cold weather recipes.
▶️ Listen Now: Nerdette Book Club: ‘Jonathan Abernathy You are Kind,’ discussed!
URL Copied! We chat about Molly McGhee’s surreal debut novel. Jan 30, 2024, 3:00am CT Nerdette Book Club is off to an excellent start with our first selection of 2024, Jonathan Abernathy You are Kind by Molly McGhee! Jonathan, our protagonist, is burdened with hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt and can’t seem to catch a break. When he has the chance to participate in a federal debt forgiveness employment program, he jumps at it.
Nerdette’s picks: The 12 books to read in 2024
WBEZ brings you fact-based news and information. Sign up for our newsletters to stay up to date on the stories that matter. Nerdette is taking advantage of the cold weather to cozy up with 12 of the most exciting new books of 2024. Book Riot’s senior contributing editor Liberty Hardy is always ahead of the curve with her reading – she has already read 58 books from 2024! She joined Nerdette host Greta Johnsen to share some of the titles that they are most excited about this year.
▶️ Listen Now: You are what you eat
URL Copied! We play a foodie round of Burden or Delight. Plus, we rave about 12 books coming out in 2024. Jan 26, 2024, 3:00am CT This week, co-hosts of the Just Between Us podcast, Gabe Dunn and Allison Raskin, stop in to play Burden or Delight. This week’s topics: double dipping, the snow salt chococcino, and gummy vitamins! Then, Greta and Book Riot’s Liberty Hardy rave about some of the buzziest titles coming out this year. Click here or a full list of the books mentioned in the episode.
Chicago’s Silent Book Club fills Dorothy’s in Ukrainian Village: Nerdette
The monthly event turns the Chicago bar Dorothy, a hip hangout, into a hip bookish hangout. BYO book. At Silent Book Club at the Chicago bar Dorothy, readers settle in for a literary night. Attendees include some established groups, such as the Expand the Classroom book swap community. Jan 25, 2024, 6:00am CT The monthly event turns the Chicago bar Dorothy, a hip hangout, into a hip bookish hangout. BYO book. Jan 25, 2024, 6:00am CT WBEZ brings you fact-based news and information.
▶️ Listen Now: Silent Book Club: An introvert’s dream
URL Copied! We head to Chicago lesbian bar Dorothy for a night of reading alone together. Jan 19, 2024, 3:00am CT This week, we are distracting ourselves from the freezing cold weather with a game of Burden or Delight. Our panelists are Adora Namigadde, WBEZ metro reporter and host of the morning episodes of the WBEZ podcast The Rundown, and Erin Allen, host of The Rundown in the afternoons. We discuss the end of certain comedic road signs and the ethics of a husband’s hidden trust fund.
▶️ Listen Now: New year, new Stanley tumbler
URL Copied! We’re talking about New Year’s resolutions and the craze over oversized cups. Jan 12, 2024, 3:00am CT We’re back with our first pop culture panel of 2024! In that spirit, we are talking all about New Year’s resolutions and the myth of fresh starts. Our guests are the host of Vox’s The Weeds podcast Jonquilyn Hill and the host of New Hampshire Public Radio’s The 13th Step podcast Lauren Chooljian.
▶️ Listen Now: Nerdette Book Club: Molly McGhee on ‘Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind’
Nerdette Book Club is kicking off a new year of reading with Molly McGhee’s debut novel Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind. It’s a searing critique of late-stage capitalism that also manages to be funny and tender. Our protagonist, Jonathan, is completely subsumed by debt. He inherited debt from his parents. He has student loans. Rent is tricky, and food is scarce. So when a very strange and mysterious job opportunity arises, he can’t exactly say no.
The 11 best TV shows of 2023
WBEZ brings you fact-based news and information. Sign up for our newsletters to stay up to date on the stories that matter. Despite two historic writers’ and actors’ strikes, there was a lot of TV to watch this year. Nerdette host Greta Johnsen turned to two experts to weigh in on their favorites: The New Yorker TV critic Inkoo Kang, and Kathryn VanArendonk, TV critic for Vulture. In putting together her list, Inkoo says she “looked for shows that pushed the medium,” and Kathryn agrees.
The best podcasts of 2023: Nerdette’s picks
WBEZ brings you fact-based news and information. Sign up for our newsletters to stay up to date on the stories that matter. To find the best podcasts of the year, Nerdette host Greta Johnsen talked to two veritable experts in the form: Leah-Simone Bowen, host of Podcast Playlist from the CBC, and Nick Quah, podcast critic for Vulture. In order to make it on their lists this year, both Leah and Nick said shows had to really push the envelope in format or reporting.
The best books of 2023: Nerdette’s picks
The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff (Riverhead Books) Greta read this book twice, and loved it even more the second time. “The thing that I keep going back to about it is that reverence and appreciation of natural beauty — but the fact that it cannot coexist without also understanding the intense brutality of nature,” Greta says.
▶️ Listen Now: Yes, you are an activist
URL Copied! Omkari Williams empowers everyone to create change, no matter the scale, in her new book ‘Micro Activism.’ Dec 1, 2023, 3:00am CT This week, we are asking the important questions about 2024. Like, what plant will we fall in love with? And what body part will be in style? Those are some of the ponderings included in a recent story on next year’s trends in T: The New York Times Style Magazine. We put the co-hosts of Fanti, Tre’vell Anderson and Jarrett Hill, to the test.
▶️ Listen Now: Nerdette Book Club: ‘Land of Milk and Honey,’ discussed!
URL Copied! We chat about C Pam Zhang’s intoxicating dystopian novel. Nov 28, 2023, 3:00am CT Nerdette Book Club is back to discuss our November selection, Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang! The novel follows an unnamed protagonist, a chef, who gets a job cooking for the uber-wealthy at a research facility in the Alps. The compound also just so happens to be one of the last places on Earth with fresh food due to devastating ecological collapse.
▶️ Listen Now: A sinister summer at ‘Saltburn’
URL Copied! We talk to Academy Award winning director Emerald Fennell about her intoxicating new film. Nov 24, 2023, 3:00am CT Academy Award winning writer, actor, and director Emerald Fennell tells us about her intoxicating new movie Saltburn, which is out this week. Emerald previously directed Promising Young Woman and played Camila Parker Bowles in The Crown.
▶️ Listen Now: Give thanks, eat veggies
URL Copied! Chefs Tanya Holland and Tamar Adler share fresh ideas on what to cook for Thanksgiving and how to revamp your leftovers. Nov 17, 2023, 3:00am CT Thanksgiving is almost upon us, so it’s time to get cooking! First, we ask chef Tanya Holland to share some fun, fresh ideas for the big meal. Tanya is the author of three cookbooks, including most recently the gorgeous California Soul.
▶️ Listen Now: A space show that’s not about space
URL Copied! ‘For All Mankind’ is back for another season remaking history. Nov 10, 2023, 3:00am CT This week, Vocalo host Nudia Hernandez and host of WBEZ’s The Rundown Erin Allen join us to unwind from the week that was. We chat about Barbra Streisand’s extremely long memoir, The Simpsons’ attempts to keep up with the times, and how to cope with shorter days.
▶️ Listen Now: Nerdette Book Club: C Pam Zhang on ‘Land of Milk and Honey’
URL Copied! November’s selection explores the value of art and pleasure in a dying world. Nov 7, 2023, 3:00am CT It is the month of November and our Book Club selection is C Pam Zhang’s Land of Milk and Honey. It takes place in an alarmingly conceivable future where the world is on the brink of ecological collapse. A smog is enveloping the earth, making it difficult for crops to grow. Our narrator is a chef who is straddled with inherited debt and locked out of the United States.
▶️ Listen Now: Your Friday ritual
URL Copied! We talk about the sweetness of oddball rituals. Plus, Sohla El-Waylly tells us about her debut cookbook ‘Start Here.’ Nov 3, 2023, 3:00am CT This week, we chat about long movie intermissions, the business of Taylor Swift, and the delight of keeping oddball rituals.
▶️ Listen Now: Nerdette Book Club: ‘The Vaster Wilds,’ discussed!
URL Copied! We dig into Lauren Groff’s beautiful, harrowing novel about a girl’s escape from the Jamestown colony. Oct 31, 2023, 3:00am CT Nerdette Book Club is back to discuss our October selection, Lauren Groff’s The Vaster Wilds. It’s about a girl in early American colonial history who runs away from the Jamestown settlement during a period of starvation. She then struggles to survive in the woods during freezing cold days and nights, armed with only a pewter cup and leather gloves.
▶️ Listen Now: Disco skeletons and rhinestone pumpkins
URL Copied! We talk to Sam Reece about her TikTok craft club that’s all about embracing imperfection. Oct 27, 2023, 3:00am CT We are leaning into Halloween this week! Taylor Lorenz, Washington Post columnist and author of Extremely Online, and Margaret Willison, culture writer and faculty at Not Sorry Productions, dared to join us to discuss the very tall, very viral Halloween decorations named Skelly and Lewis, along with more Halloween nonsense.
▶️ Listen Now: V.E. Schwab says fantasy is more than swords and dragons
URL Copied! The author calls her 23rd title “a fantasy for people who think they don’t like fantasy.” Oct 20, 2023, 3:00am CT This week, we talk about Netflix’s reinvention of the video store, the right way to board a plane, and the art of advice-giving with Chicago Sun Times’ new advice columnist Ismael Perez and Brandon Pope, who hosts WBEZ’s Making podcast and On the Block from Block Club Chicago and WCIU.
▶️ Listen Now: TGI Friday the 13th
URL Copied! We talk to Chuck Wendig about his apple-flavored horror novel. Oct 13, 2023, 3:00am CT On this cursed October day, we’re talking about Croc’s new cowboy boots and other outrageous stories from the week. Our panelists are Patrick Hinds, co-host of the True Crime Obsessed podcast and author of the new book Failure Is Not Not An Option, and Kristen Meinzer, the co-host of the Daily Fail podcast. Then, author Chuck Wendig tells us about his apple-filled horror novel Black River Orchard.
▶️ Listen Now: Aparna Nancherla’s navel is your navel
URL Copied! The comedian opens up about her struggles with imposter syndrome in her new book ‘Unreliable Narrator.‘ Oct 6, 2023, 3:00am CT This week, we discuss Barbies, bedbugs, and centenarian skydivers with comedian and host of the podcasts In The Cards and Dead Eyes Connor Ratliff and Bridget Todd, host of City Cast DC and There are No Girls on the Internet. Then, comedian Aparna Nancherla opens up about her struggles with imposter syndrome in her new essay collection Unreliable Narrator
▶️ Listen Now: Nerdette Book Club: Lauren Groff on ‘The Vaster Wilds’
URL Copied! Lauren Groff’s latest follows a girl’s escape from a colonial settlement. Oct 3, 2023, 3:00am CT It is the month of October and Nerdette Book Club’s selection is The Vaster Wilds by three-time National Book Award finalist Lauren Groff. This historical novel follows a servant girl who is on the run from her corrupt, smallpox-riddled colonial settlement. She struggles to survive in the unforgiving wilderness. The story is a meditation on mortality and deep, deep isolation.
▶️ Listen Now: A bounty of fall books
This week, R. Eric Thomas, TV writer and author of Congratulations, The Best Is Over!, and Alex Abad-Santos, senior correspondent for Vox, joined us to reflect on the end of the writers’ strike and the 20th anniversary of the pumpkin spice latte. Then, we revel in all of the best new books coming out this fall! We called up some of our favorite readers and writers to find out what they’re most excited to read this fall.
▶️ Listen Now: Nerdette Book Club: ‘Happiness Falls,’ discussed!
URL Copied! Our panel discusses Angie Kim’s propulsive sophomore novel. Sept 26, 2023, 3:00am CT Nerdette Book Club is back to dig into our September pick, Angie Kim’s novel Happiness Falls. During the lockdown era of COVID, college student Mia is stuck at home with her parents and two brothers. Her father, Adam, stays at home to take care of the youngest son Eugene, who has autism and does not speak. One day, Adam and Eugene leave to go on a walk, but only Eugene comes back.
▶️ Listen Now: National Book Award finalist: “I just wanted to go where the fun was”
URL Copied! Tania James let “delight” guide her while writing her historical novel ‘Loot.’ Sept 22, 2023, 3:00am CT This week, comedian and Glamorous Trash host Chelsea Devantez and podcast producer Kristina Lopez stop by to unwind from the week. We chat about the Senate’s new dress code, the slow death of paper checks, and why people on TikTok are talking about the Roman Empire.
▶️ Listen Now: We should all be talking about periods
URL Copied! No one has ever used real blood to test the absorbency of period products – until now. We talk to the lead doctor. Sept 15, 2023, 3:00am CT In today’s episode, we play our favorite game, Burden or Delight, with Meha Ahmad, senior producer at WBEZ’s Reset, and Niala Boodhoo, host of Axios Today! They decide whether a new Apple charger, a flood of wine, and extended birthday celebrations are delightful or burdensome. Then, we talk all about periods.
▶️ Listen Now: How to navigate COVID this fall
URL Copied! We check in with our resident epidemiologist. Plus, a very strange smattering of pop culture news. Sept 8, 2023, 3:00am CT This week, City Cast Chicago host Jacoby Cochran and WBEZ metro reporter Adora Namigadde stop in to talk about Burning Man, a truly horrific accident on a plane, and whether there’s hope for salvaging New Year’s resolutions 9 months into the year. Plus, when should we start masking in public again? How long should we isolate for if we get COVID?
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