The big night was Friday night-I'd watch my parents play "Russian Bank, " a two-handed card game, while listening to One Man's Family, the radio soap opera.

CNN: CIA wife tells life story in 'My Spy'

This hybrid of family saga, crime thriller, soap opera, and Western adventure is a cinematic sugar rush.

NEWYORKER: Tears of the Black Tiger

Until it was popularized in 1990 by a Brazilian soap opera loosely based on the Rondon family, the region was rarely visited, even by Brazilians.

FORBES: Journey: Painful pleasure

After the overly hyped A Suitable Boy, the lengthy four-family saga that some critics derided as a literary soap opera, Vikram Seth has come back strongly.

CNN: ASIANOW - TIME Asia

Like that other great Florentine family, the Medicis, the Guccis produced great beauty and great soap opera.

ECONOMIST: Non-fiction