Today we’re joined by Greta Johnsen, host and producer of the Nerdette podcast from WBEZ Chicago, at host of HBO’s House of the Dragon recap podcast. We get into Greta’s positive approach to reviewing books and how she currates all things nerd. We also hold a grilled cheese debate and discuss the art of balancing book criticism with never having written a book.

The Stacks Book Club selection for December is True Biz by Sarah Nović. We will discuss the book on December 28th with Greta Johnsen.

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Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes and on Bookshop.org and Amazon.

• Nerdette (WBEZ Chicago)
• House of the Dragon official podcast (HBO Max)
• True Biz by Sara Nović
• The Stacks New Merch
• Tricia Bobeda
• You’ve Got Mail (Nora Ephron, 1998)
• Greta’s Grilled Cheese Tweet
• Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
• Meg Ryan
• Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
• Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
• Nerdette Podcast Facebook group
• The story behind the behind (Nerdette, December 2nd)
• Butts by Heather Radke
• Traci on Nerdette discussing Notes on An Execution
• Blood in the Water by Heather Ann Thompson
• “Ep. 183 Blood in the Water by Heather Ann Thompson — The Stacks Book Club (Derecka Purnell)” (The Stacks)
• Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng
• Oprah’s Book Club
• Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club
• Shit Cassandra Saw by Gwen E Kirby
• Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
• Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson
• Game of Thrones (HBO)
• House of the Dragon (HBO)
• Jason Concepcion
• Peter Sagal
• Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me (NPR)
• Shea Serrano
• Movies and Other Things by Shea Serrano
• Mallory Rubin
• “Ep. 217 Surviving in the Face of Death with David Dennis Jr.” (The Stacks)
• Hopleaf Bar (Chicago, IL)
• Greta’s Grilled Cheese Tweet Followup
• Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
• Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
• The Removed by Brandon Hobson
• Legendborn by Tracy Deonn
• The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan
• Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel
• Sea of Tranquility by Emily St John Mandel
• The Glass Hotel by Emily St John Mandel
• Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
• Kindred (Hulu)
• Now Is Not the Time to Panic by Kevin Wilson
• Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
• Cloud Atlas (Lilly Wachowski, Lana Wachowski and Tom Tykwer, 2012)
• Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell
• Ask the Stacks
• Circe by Madeline Miller
• The Odyssey by Homer
• The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
• Ted Lasso (AppleTV)
• Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
• Trust by Hernan Diaz
• The Survivalists by Kashana Cauley
• I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai
• The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
• The Secret History by Donna Tartt
• Deception by Denise Mina
• Liberty Hardy
• Lupita Reads on Instagram
• Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed
• The Book of Delights by Ross Gay
• Inciting Joy by Ross Gay
• Negin Farsad
• Fake the Nation (Headgum)
• All This Could Be Different by Sarah Thankam Mathews
• Jack Kerouac
• Virginia Woolf
• The Mothers by Brit Bennett
• The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
• Obama’s Best Books of the Year list
• Obama’s best music playlist
• The Allman Brothers Band
• Cat Power
• Tomorrow (Charles Strouse and Martin Charnin, 1977)
• Baby Beluga (Raffi, 1980)
• Bad Bunny
• Renaissance (Beyonce, 2022)
• Dua Lipa
• Kidz Bop

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