Nerdette

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.

Plus, we take a listen to audio Valentines from Nerdette listeners to their friends! You are refurbishing Coach bags and finding tampons on sunrise hikes and making cups of tea and vetting leftovers for each other, and it’s beautiful!!!!!!

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.

Plus, how many exclamation points are too many?!! In her substack newsletter ‘Culture Study,’ Anne Helen Petersen recently unpacked why so many women have been told to use fewer exclamation points in the workplace, while others have been told to use more. At its heart, Anne says, it’s all about “policing women's speech!”

Welcome to the Nerdette Book Club! Where we read a book a month and chat about it with a rotating group of panelists. It’s just like a normal book club except no one shames you when you don't do the reading.

This episode is all about Kiley Reid’s excellent debut novel, Such a Fun Age. It’s an incisive look at race and class in modern America, (and it also happens to be really funny.) Join Nerdette host Greta Johnsen, New York magazine advice columnist Heather Havrilesky and The Morning AMp and Making Beyoncé host Jill Hopkins.

And hey! Next month, we’re reading Anna Wiener’s Uncanny Valley, a memoir about working in the bro-heavy tech industry. Read the book and send us your thoughts by recording your voice with your smartphone, then email the audio file to [email protected]. And tune in for the conversation on Friday, Feb. 28!

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. We also get into two recent trends: the rise of closed captioning and the extra trendy, extra large Stanley tumblers.

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.

Then, we head to a basement bar in Chicago for a Silent Book Club! One Sunday a month, the lesbian bar Dorothy fills up with book lovers reading alone together. We hear from attendees about what makes Silent Book Club nights so special.