Nerdette

From WBEZ Chicago, Nerdette is a podcast hosted by Greta Johnsen and Tricia Bobeda. It's a safe space for nerding out about all the things you're watching, reading, listening to and encountering IRL.

[roxanegay]

My 2016 In Reading

THE BOOKS I LOVED SO MUCH I WANTED TO SEW THEM INTO MY SKIN AKA MY FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson Today I Am a Book by xTx The Three Woes by Casey Hannan A Bestiary by Lily Hoang Queen of the Night by Alexander Chee The Mothers by Brit Bennett Commonwealth by Ann Patchett

THE BOOK THAT OPENED MY EYES AND MIND AND BROKE MY HEART WITH THE PAINFUL REALITY TOO MANY AMERICANS LIVE WITH

Evicted by Matthew Desmond

THE BOOK THAT WAS TOTAL TRASH AND I THINK THE WRITER HATES FAT PEOPLE WHICH IS FINE BECAUSE WE ALL HAVE OUR ISSUES BUT STILL, GIRL, WHAT….

Maestra by L.S. Hilton

THE COMING OF AGE PROSE POETRY THAT MOVED ME IMMEASURABLY

The Pocket Knife Bible by Anis Mojgani

THE BOOK THAT MADE ME THINK HILLARY CLINTON REALLY WAS GOING TO WIN THE PRESIDENCY

All the Single Ladies by Rebecca Traister

THE STRANGE BOOK ABOUT LONELINESS AND THE THINGS WE DO ONLINE THAT I HIGHLY RECOMMEND

Valletta78 by Erin Fitzgerald

THE POETRY BOOK I DIDN’T UNDERSTAND AT ALL THOUGH I COULD TELL THE POEMS WERE SUPER SMART

The House of Lords and Commons by Ishion Hutchinson

THE ACTION THRILLER THAT HAD LOTS OF HYPE BLURBS BUT WAS ONLY SO SO

The Second Life of Nick Mason by Scott Hamilton

THE RETELLING OF A CLASSIC THAT I REALLY ENJOYED, WHICH SURPRISED ME AND ALSO THE AUTHOR WROTE ONE OF MY FAVORITE BOOKS OF ALL TIME, AMERICAN WIFE

Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld

THE BOOK THAT MADE ME CRY BECAUSE IT HELD SO MUCH I COULD RELATE TO AND THEN MADE ME A LITTLE MAD

13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl by Mona Awad

EXCELLENT SMALL PRESS BOOKS YOU SHOULD CHECK OUT

Pink Museum by Caroline Crew The Farmacist by Ashley Farmer The Voyager Record by Anthony Michael Morena Massive Cleansing Fire by Dave Housley

THE BOOK I READ TO LEARN HOW TO WRITE A COMIC BOOK SERIES EVEN THOUGH I WAS WRITING FOR THEIR MAJOR COMPETITOR

The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics by Dennis O’Neil

THE COMIC BOOK I LOVED AND RECOMMEND OFTEN

Saga by Brian Vaughan

THE COMIC BOOK ISSUE I READ AND THOUGHT WAS NOT SO GOOD SO I HAVEN’T READ ANY OTHER ISSUES IN THE SERIES

Wonder Woman Rebirth #1

THE BOOK I WROTE AN INTRODUCTION FOR (OUT IN 2017! FROM BEACON PRESS!)

Like One of the Family by Alice Childress

THE BOOK I REVIEWED FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult

THE BOOK I WANTED TO LOVE THAT HAD GORGEOUS OBSERVATIONS OF WOMEN’S FRIENDSHIPS

Rich and Pretty by Rumaan Alam

THE BOOK ABOUT CHEFS AND THEIR TATTOOS WITH FASCINATING STORIES OF WHY PEOPLE PERMANENTLY INK THEIR SKIN

Knives and Ink by Isaac Fitzgerald and Wendy MacNaughton

THE BOOK I READ BECAUSE I SAW A PREVIEW FOR THE TV SHOW AND LEARNED IT WAS BASED ON A BOOK SO I STARTED WONDERING IF THE BOOK WAS GOOD

Queen of the South by Arturo Perez-Reverte

SOME VERY GOOD BOOKS YOU SHOULD CHECK OUT BECAUSE THE STORIES ARE WARM AND/OR INTELLIGENT AND/OR STRANGE AND/OR GRIPPING AND/OR INTENSE

Turner House by Angela Flournoy LaRose by Louise Erdrich The Wangs vs the World by Jade Chang The Story of My Teeth by Valerie Luiselli You Will Know Me by Megan Abbott

THE HEARTBREAKING BOOK ABOUT BEING GAY IN THE MIDDLE EAST DURING THESE TUMULTUOUS TIMES FROM A WRITER WITH A LOT OF POTENTIAL

Guapa by Saleem Haddad

GORGEOUS BOOKS OF POETRY I REALLY LOVED

Night Sky With Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong L’Heure Bleue by Elisa Gabbert The New Testament by Jericho Brown Look by Solmaz Sharif There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé by Morgan Parker

THE EXCELLENT BOOK I CHOSE AS MY SELECTION FOR BOOK OF THE MONTH CLUB

The Veins of the Ocean by Patricia Engel

THE BOOK I READ BASICALLY TO IMPRESS A GIRL AND IT WAS A PRETTY GOOD BOOK ALSO AND I HOPE THE GIRL WAS IMPRESSED BY MY DEDICATION BECAUSE THE BOOK WAS VERY LONG

The Fireman by Joe Hill

THE BOOK WITH AN AMAZING TITLE,  SOME REALLY GOOD STORIES INCLUDING A RIFF ON ANTIQUES ROADSHOW AND ALSO SOME STORIES I LIKED LESS

American Housewife by Helen Ellis

THE BOOK THAT WAS EXCEPTIONALLY WRITTEN BUT I WANTED THE ACTUAL RAILROAD PART TO BE MORE FULLY REALIZED

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

FUN BOOKS THAT WERE FUN

The Assistants by Camille Perri China Rich Girlfriend by Kevin Kwan

THE BOOK ABOUT BEING SINGLE TOWARD THE MIDDLE OF YOUR LIFE THAT PRETTY MUCH EVERYONE IS GOING TO LOVE WHEN IT COMES OUT

All Grown Up by Jami Attenberg

THE EXCELLENT SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS COMING OUT AROUND THE SAME TIME AS DIFFICULT WOMEN THAT MADE ME JEALOUS AND ALSO SCARED OF THE COMPETITION

Homesick for Another World by Ottessa Moshfegh Always Happy Hour by Mary Miller

THE BOOK THAT WAS NOT MY CUP OF TEA BUT IT’S ME NOT THE BOOK

300 Arguments by Sarah Manguso

THE BOOKS I BLURBED (AND THEREFORE REALLY ENJOYED)

You’re the  Most Beautiful Thing That Happened by Arisa White In the Not Quite Dark by Dana Johnson I Almost Forgot About You by Terry McMillan Feminist Baby by Loryn Brantz Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy by Tressie McMillan Cottom Bruja by Wendy C. Ortiz Sing For Your Life by Daniel Bergner Made for Love by Alissa Nutting

[npr]

In Egypt, Saturday nights are for staying in — the workweek starts on Sunday. But for the members of CaiRollers, Egypt’s first all-female roller derby team, it’s for skating.

The team’s 20 members meet for three hours every week, at the Cairo International Stadium’s outdoor handball courts, to practice. It’s an aggressive game, requiring full body contact like hip and shoulder checks. But that’s why players like Lina El-Gohary, 27, love it.

“It makes you believe that you’re still able to learn at any age. It empowers you,” she says.

Two American women, Shaneikiah Bickham and Angie Malone-Kaster, brought the sport to Egypt in 2012. They were working in Cairo as teachers and had previous experience playing roller derby in the U.S. They had a hunch their Egyptian girlfriends would dig the game, so they organized a team and started practicing in the school’s parking lot.

The American women were right: Roller derby was a hit. While the game is not commonly known in Egypt — more than half the world’s amateur roller derby teams are from the U.S. — the CaiRollers managed to keep running even after the two co-founders left the country in 2014.

Egypt’s All-Woman Roller Derby Team Is Skating Past Stereotypes

Photos: Marwa Sameer Morgan for NPR

[npr]

'Good Girls Revolt' Takes On Gender Bias In The Newsroom

Amazon's new series Good Girls Revolt, set in 1969, was inspired by a landmark gender bias case at Newsweek. Showrunners hired women at every level of the cast and crew — a Hollywood rarity.

[guardian]

The secret of power napping

Try it for yourself — but have a coffee beforehand. Seriously.

Photo: Shizuo Kambayashi/AP

[nerdettepodcast]

We can drink espresso AND take a nap for optimal power up? Yesss.

[micdotcom]

‘Jessica Jones’ season 2 will be directed entirely by women

When it comes to Netflix original series Jessica Jones, the titular character isn’t the only female hero kicking ass and getting shit done.

On Friday, the show’s executive producer, Melissa Rosenberg, announced that all 13 episodes scheduled for season 2 will be directed by women.

Here’s why that’s completely fantastic.

[nerdettepodcast]

Probably the oddest of the Oddities and Curiosities the Museum of Science and Industry dug out its vault for us last night. The very giant, slightly terrifying Paul Bunyan head.

[sciencefriday]

Did you know your lip prints are as unique as your fingerprints?

Notice any differences between the lips on the left and on the right?

Every single person sports a pattern of lines on their kisser. They’re laid down early in development and stay essentially unchanged throughout life.

“Lip prints are very much like fingerprints,” says Mary L. Marazita, a professor in the Department of Oral Biology at the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Dental Medicine. “They’re unique to a person.”

Still, lip patterns can be broken down into several broad categories. There’s “straight and vertical,” like the photos at above left. Branching patterns, meanwhile, entail grooves that give way to more grooves, like limbs growing from a tree trunk. Some people’s lip lines crisscross like mesh. And others’ form circular patterns called whorls, like what you see in the photos on the right.

While they may seem incidental, prints on the lower lip are of particular interest to Marazita and her colleagues. They’re studying the etiology of clefts of the lip and of the palate, which are some of the most common birth defects in the world, affecting one in 700-1,000 babies worldwide. As part of their research, they’re investigating subtle physical traits that seem to occur in both people with cleft and in their unaffected relatives, and which could reveal deeper insights into the genetic underpinnings of cleft.

[Images courtesy of the University of Pittsburgh]

[nerdettepodcast]

👄

[laughingsquid]

LEGO Is Releasing New Beatles Yellow Submarine Set Featuring Fab Four Minifigs

[nerdettepodcast]

Oooooh

[theslaybymic]

“If someone told me that I was stupid or that I wasn’t a leader, or that I wasn’t witty or quick or perceptive, I’d be devastated,” @mindykaling said in 2015. “If someone told me that I had a gross body, I’d say, ‘Well, it’s bringing me a lot of happiness.’ Having my priorities aligned like that has helped me have a happier life.“ ✨💕👑 #queen

[popculturebrain]

Wonder Woman Creator Biopic Enlists Luke Evans, Rebecca Hall and Bella Heathcote

Luke Evans, Rebecca Hall and Bella Heathcote are starring in Professor Marston & The Wonder Women, the story behind the creator of Wonder Woman and his unusual relationships that inspired the iconic super heroine.

[popculturebrain]

All-Female ‘Ocean’s 8’ Gets Summer 2018 Release

The 'Ocean’s Eleven’ spinoff stars Sandra Bullock, Anne Hathaway, Cate Blanchett, Sarah Paulson, Mindy Kaling, Rihanna and Helena Bonham Carter. Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow Pictures’ all-female Ocean’s 8 film is getting a summer release of June 8, 2018.

[nerdettepodcast]

Come to our live show on May 11 in Chicago! We'd love to see you there!

[rejectedprincesses]

Maia Dua, Winner of Marvel’s STEM Challenge for Girls, Shows Off Her “Seeing Eye” Robot

High school student Maia Dua has won the top prize in Marvel Studio's Girls Reforming the Future Challenge. Let's have a look at the robot she built!

For the launch of Captain America: Civil War, Marvel had a contest for girls in STEM to show off their inventions. And they just announced the winners.

Maia Dua won with her prototype “seeing eye” robot, which provides cost-effective help for the vision-impaired for whom options like seeing eye dogs are not viable.

The other finalists included Holly Riepling from Colorado Springs, Colo.; Janie Kim from San Diego, Calif.; Margaret Fleck from Emmanus, Pa.; and Vivian Qiang from Marlboro, N.J.

They got to walk the red carpet and attend the Civil War premiere. And they all seem like pretty damn cool people.

[humansofnewyork]

“I want to be a scientist so I can invent a potion to turn Pokemon cards into real Pokemons.”

[nerdettepodcast]

Somebody get this kid some beakers!

[nerdettepodcast]

We’re back! Subscribe on iTunes to hear our prologue episode. We make predictions for the impending season and Peter casts the presidential candidates as their counterparts in the Seven Kingdoms.

[nerdettepodcast]

Author Amy Tan tells us how she finds creativity, what can go wrong when one must give a TED talk, and about the unusual the instrument she plays in a band with Stephen King and Dave Barry. Plus, we visit a Rube Goldberg Machine competition, which is just as delightfully nerdy as it sounds.

Nerdette is on: iTunes | Stitcher | SoundCloud

[nerdettepodcast]

Kim Barker on being Tina Fey in Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

Kim Barker's true-life story about being a war correspondent in Afghanistan is now the subject of a new movie starring Tina Fey. We talk to her about the good, the bad and the absurd experiences she had overseas and with Hollywood. Plus, some whiskey-themed homework from Amy Stewart.

Nerdette is on: iTunes | Stitcher | SoundCloud