As a reader, you cannot get upset if you read a book called "Bad Summer People" and it's filled with terrible people and all the stuff that they do to each other over the course of One Fateful Summer. You are allowed, of course, to get upset if you summered in the same place as the author and you recognize the town and all the people in it and also…

The secret Union organization Elle Burns spies for swears by the four Ls: Loyalty. Legacy. Life. Lincoln. But what about…Love? Enter Malcolm MacCall, a brash but lovable Scot posing as a Confederate soldier. And the rest, as they say, is historical fiction. Also it’s a pretty successful romance novel! Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis. …

We've all heard this story before—giant fish man escapes secret laboratory, giant fish man takes up with unfulfilled housewife, fish man and housewife have deeply meaningful affair, lots of people die. Tale as old as time! Suffice it to say the characters in Mrs. Caliban have a very different reaction to a giant fish than the characters in Jaws. Th…

The first blockbuster movie started with a blockbuster book about a fish busting up blocks in a small seaside town. Anyone familiar with Steven Spielberg's movie will recognize the basic plot of Benchley's original novel Jaws -- there's just a lot more chum in the water. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice …

You know how sometimes you just want to bro out with your cool hot dad? How sometimes you just need to concoct a scheme where you encourage your casual boyfriend and your dad's casual ex-girlfriend to pretend to be in a relationship together, so that your dad gets jealous, so that he leaves his current more-serious girlfriend, who is really harshin…

He is Franz Kafka! Franz Kafka! He wrote The Trial. It’s a book about byzantine bureaucracy bearing down on lil old Josef K. Less of it takes place in a courtroom than you’d think. This episode is sponsored by Squarespace. Go to squarespace.com/overdue for 10% of your first purchase of a website or domain. Our theme music was composed by Nick Leran…

We have convened a club whose charter is to learn about The Baby-Sitters Club. Join us as we met the Club's founding members and learn about Kristy's mortal enemy: her mom's new boyfriend. These episodes posted first for our Patreon supporters! If you want to hear the rest of them ahead of time (and a bunch of other stuff besides), visit Patreon.co…

Gay anti-fascist librarians roam a speculative future version of the western United States in this week's novella. It's pretty close to as cool as it sounds, though the book will probably leave you wanting more in the end. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/overdue and get on your way to being your …

For this new show-within-a-show, Craig and Andrew will be learning about the world of Middle-Earth! We're going to read J.R.R. Tolkien's posthumously published legendarium THE SILMARILLION. In this episode, you'll hear us discuss the creation of this epic fantasy, including the work done Christopher Tolkien to wrestle his father's work into a form …

The late Edmund White’s breakthrough 1982 novel is the first in a trilogy of autobiographical novels that depict key eras in his life as a gay man. A Boy’s Own Story is, as you might expect, about a boy - a boy whose longing for the men in his life leads to powerful (though perhaps not entirely positive) self-understanding. This episode is sponsore…

Good grief! It's time to talk about Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, Lucy - the whole gang. To give ourselves a solid cross-section of Charles Schulz's work on Peanuts, we read Volume 1 (1950-52) and Volume 10 (1969-70) of the Complete Peanuts collection. So we're able to track the evolution of Charlie Brown's pumpkin noggin, as well as Snoopy's abili…

We’re joined by Sammy and Emily of the TOO SCARY, DIDN’T WATCH horror movie podcast this week to talk about Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho. None of us had an amazing time with this read, partly because the book seems to revel in its extreme violence and misogyny. But be sure to tune in to TSDW later this week to hear what we all thought about t…

Leslie Feinberg’s debut novel is an intersectional bildungsroman about Jess Goldberg, a butch lesbian navigating the constellation of oppression that was the United States in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. It’s an overtly political novel, and it argues that a certain level of bleak hope may be necessary for survival. This cold comfort is balanced, however,…

James isn't so much a retelling or corrective of Huck Finn as it is an expansion, a conversation with, a delving -- or so says Pulitzer Prize winner Percival Everett. Tune in to find out what happens when an authors read Huck Finn 15 times and then starts putting pen to paper. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at be…

A dying preacher writes a (rather) long letter to his son. Another dying preacher’s son returns home, seeking…something. Salvation? Forgiveness? A balm? Robinson’s novel is a deeply considered portrait of a family of ministers, wrestling with the powers and limitations of their faith and fatherhood. This episode is sponsored by Squarespace. Go to s…

This is another one of those historical books that could have resulted from a Wikipedia dive, this one's arguably based on a real historical event but with a non-real non-historical protagonist . Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis. Follow @overduepod on Instagram and Bluesky Advertise on Overdue See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/pr…

Did you know the towering career of Joan Didion included several novels, many of which were driven by the same acerbic wit and insight that helped to anoint her as an essential voice in the New Journalism movement? Her second novel, Play It As It Lays, traffics in much of the same Hollywood/Los Angeles social destruction that powered her essays, bu…

Booth Tarkington is one of only four authors to have won a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction twice, and he’s the only one of those four authors who nobody has ever heard of. His aggressively old-fashioned views and his stories’ general fluffiness have helped keep him from enduring fame, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a spark of something here. This epi…

Everyone get into two lines, break your bread, brush your teeth, get into bed, and listen to our episode about Ludwig Bemelmans’ original series of Madeline stories. We talk about the art’s blend of sketchy and beautiful, the rise of Pepito, and the voice acting in 90s educational CD-ROM games. This episode is sponsored by Squarespace. Go to square…

We have to go back. Back to FORKS! To celebrate 700 episodes of our show, we decided to celebrate the tenth anniversary of a companion novel celebrating the tenth anniversary of Twilight. Meet Beaufort and Edythe, who very much resemble Bella and Edward, and the rest of the genderswapped cast who inhabit this novel that is definitely not all differ…

This collection of short stories runs the gamut from biblical fiction to sci-fi mockumentary to "short story that inspired a very successful film named Arrival." Recurring themes include Creation, Thought, and Perception. Pretty heavy stuff! But Chiang tackles it all with creativity and flair. This episode is sponsored by Squarespace. Go to squares…

Have podcast, will (time) travel! This is the time travel book-slash-romance novel you write when you’re enamored with a hot old-timey boat guy and his doomed Arctic exploration. It’s got a whole lot going on, for better or worse! Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis. Follow @overduepod on Instagram and Bluesky Advertise on Overdue See Pri…

This is a podcast, recorded by two nincompoops, full of the novel The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner, signifying...something? a recording in which we discuss the Modernism the italics the three sons the Mother the golf course the South and is Craig sick who knows this consciousness won't stream itself you know This episode is sponsored by S…

The Hunger Games are back, and so are we! Remember Haymitch Abernathy, the occasionally sympathetic drunk from the original Hunger Games trilogy? Well, here he is as a young man, being ground into dust by his authoritarian government and its media apparatus. Collins really wants to make sure that you Get It This Time. Our theme music was composed b…

We're up on the International Space Station this week, floating around with our coworkers/friends, looking at the earth as it speeds by multiple times a day. We're not really "doing" anything in like, a "narrative" sense. But it's a vibe, man. Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis. Follow @overduepod on Instagram and Bluesky Advertise on Ov…