Overdue

Friday Black, a debut collection of short stories by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, deftly employs hyperbole to make the reader notice horrors of American life that have become less-noticeable through repetition. It’s also going to resonate with anyone who has spent any amount of time working retail on the day after Thanksgiving. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy No...

We had a blast processing this novelization of the hit film Sonic the Hedgehog! Did you know it's based on a video game?! Gotta read fast! Special thanks to the Patreon supporters who joined us in the live chat. For more info on how to participate in bonus episode recordings, head to patreon.com/overduepod . See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://a...

This week’s episode is our recent live show crossover event with Appointment Television at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. The Appointment Television and Overdue crews gather together to discuss the recent TV adaptation and compare it to the book from which it (and the film, and the ill-starred musical) sprung. Whether we figure out the relative superiority of books or TV as competing artistic fo...

In this challenging novel, award-winning author Toni Morrison explores how utopias are defined (and perhaps undermined) by their boundaries. The all-black town of Ruby, Oklahoma survived for decades by cordoning itself off from the outside world. But what happens when the outside world starts gnawing at the people inside? See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notic...

This week's book is a cozy mystery, but for kids! Author Kate Racculia joins us for a discussion of The Westing Game, which was a major inspiration for her own work (and is a completely wild read, besides). See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

What better way to celebrate a milestone episode than to make a bunch of teenagers fight each other to the death? Join us as we discuss the first entry in Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games trilogy, taking particular delight in its worldbuilding and its protagonist Katniss Everdeen. We also get into some of the film-informed Discourse that has surrounded the series since its release, and of course we t...

Welcome to Febuwary! This week’s episode is a follow-up of sorts to Episode 291 , in which Andrew read Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With The Wind. The Wind Done Gone is labeled a “parody” for legal reasons but it feels somewhere in between a sequel and a critique, acknowledging the strong characters of the original but tearing down its rose-tinted nostalgia for the antebellum American South.  See...

Welcome to another installment of HELLBOYS, a Divine Comedy podcast from the boys here at Overdue! We're continuing our journey through Robert and Jean Hollander's translation of Dante's Divine Comedy a few cantos at a time. Some Patreon supporters get these episodes monthly, but every two months we combine them for general consumption. This combo episode carries us to the top of Mt. Purgatory (Pu...

In the future, all of mankind will be confined to an underground silo, wondering when and if the world outside will ever be habitable again. But if things aren't as bad as they seem? And what if everyone in the silo isn't as alone as they think? That's the premise of Hugh Howey's Wool , a collection of stories woven together into a novel about secrets, duties, and revolution. Time to talk about cl...

The Adventures of the Bailey School Kids commence with a new teacher who just MIGHT be a vampire! It's time to get to the undead bottom of this...or is it? We recorded this week's show with Alli from the SSR Podcast , a great show you should check out if you want a trip down memory lane to your middle school library. We were really honored to be included in SSR's "Manuary" lineup this year, and we...

To put it mildly, a lot of stuff has happened since we released our episode on The Handmaid's Tale back in 2014 . Among that stuff is the release of The Testaments, the 2019 sequel to the original book and a companion piece of sorts to the Hulu television series. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

It is better to be feared than loved. The ends justify the means. King Louis sucked. These are the (clearly) famous quotes from Machiavelli's classic yet innovative work of political science. It's time to talk power, political satire, and the wonderful translation by Tim Parks. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my...

Inspired by the raunchy humor and biblical events of Christopher Moore's take on Jesus, we recorded a rowdy bonus episode with our rollicking Patreon chat.  Want to join us for the next bonus recording? Head to patreon.com/overduepod to find out how. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

The Mists of Avalon is a seminal work of fantasy fiction that centers the women of Arthurian legend such as Morgan Le Fay. Its author was a terrible person. We talk about the terrible stuff first, and then we try to unpack why the book has entertained and resonated with so many. Also - don't spend any money on this book! Donate to www.rainn.org instead. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/priv...

Book one in the one-book Sexy Sylvie series isn’t about a sexy Hanukkah miracle where one night’s worth of personal lubricant lasts for eight nights, but we had fun with it anyway. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

The Eyre Affair is the book that you would get if Ready Player One were about literature instead of the 1980s, and also if Ready Player One was more engaging or half as clever as it thought it was. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

George Selden wrote a charming story about a charming cricket named Chester who just charms the pants right off everyone living in New York City - including a cat and a mouse. And the illustrations by Garth Williams are also charming! You know what's not so charming? Liverwurst. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-m...

Andrew's got the week off so Craig's wife Laura joins the show again to talk about Kate Grenville's award-winning novel The Secret River. The story is an an attempt to tell more truthfully the British settlement of Australia, as through the eyes of one man sent to the penal colony that would ultimately become the country we know today. The violence he witnesses - and participates in - against Abor...

Welcome to another installment of HELLBOYS, a Divine Comedy podcast from the boys here at Overdue! We're continuing our journey through Robert and Jean Hollander's translation of Dante's Divine Comedy a few cantos at a time. Some Patreon supporters get these episodes monthly, but every two months we combine them for general consumption. This combo episode carries us through the first two thirds of...

Elements of Ayn Rand's Objectivist worldview hold a lot of sway in conservative American politics, so we go back to one of Rand's most significant works to see what all the fuss is about. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

This week, we're joined once again by Gwen and Frank from the New York Public Library's The Librarian Is In podcast, this time to talk about Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (and the movie of the same name). It's a discussion of narrator reliability, "boy books," and the long and fruitful career of Louise Fletcher. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy N...

What's up, daddio? Dig this, you cool cats: a podcast, burning with the soul of American individualism and the poetry of the open highway. Kerouac's legendary novel defined the Beat Generation, and it's chock-a-block with hallmarks of the era. Join us for a road trip back to the late 1940s -- an era of sweaty jazz, discarded marriages, and Benzedrine. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privac...

James Henry Trotter has a hard life. He's suffered loss. He's been mistreated. But things start looking up when a giant peach and a menagerie of bug friends come into his life! Roald Dahl's classic story of a typically-sized boy and his atypically-sized fruit is a real crowd-pleaser, even if there's a bunch of stuff we didn't remember from our childhoods. Natasha from the UNSpoiled! Show joins us...

This is Halloween. This is Halloween! Halloween. Halloween. Join us for a bonus episode that includes a frightening chat, horrifying drawings, and a spooky spelunk through the world of Tim Burton's (children's book?) The Nightmare Before Christmas. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

Stop me if you've heard this one: a strange man who runs a motel with his mom (maybe) commits several murders before people get wise to him. At least one of them is in a shower. It's very creepy. Were you thinking of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho? Well we're not talking about it! This is a book podcast, silly! Actually we do talk a bit about what the movie lifted from the book, but we also dive into t...