Overdue

This week's penultimate Spooktober entry is Anne Rice's Interview With The Vampire, a first-person vampire story that has spawned nearly two dozen sequels, spin-offs, and connected stories. The actual interview gimmick doesn't add much, but that doesn't mean the book doesn't have interesting things to say about the nature of morality and immortality.  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/p...

This week, Natasha of the Unspoiled Book Club podcast joins us to hash out Stephen King’s Bag of Bones, a book about being a middlebrow fiction writer, small towns, and ghosts. So, you know, most Stephen King novels. This week’s show brought to you by Squarespace and Hello Fresh. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-...

Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves is out to get you. It is an antagonistic book that's larger on the inside than it appears on the outside. It's also a book about a book about a film about a house that may or may not be a portal to a hellish labyrinth. Confused yet? Join the club. Join us for a discussion of metatexts, evil Zillow listings, and FOOTNOTES OH GOD THE FOOTNOTES. See Privacy Polic...

This week we take a double-dip into Edgar Allan Poe's spooky catalogue—Craig reads about the Murders in the Rue Morgue, and Andrew sips from the Cask of Amontillado. Both are sort of spooky in their way, but they're also deeply strange horror stories that raise questions like "what animal would be the most likely to kill you" and "what would someone have to do to you for you to wall them up in a c...

This episode we dive back into the mailbag! We didn't read a book but we did read a bunch of great questions from you about how we make the show, how we program it, and what we eat while we're reading. As always, thanks to our Patreon supporters for making these bonus episodes possible! Head to patreon.com/overduepod to join our movement. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and Califor...

Are you ready to get SPOOKY??? It's the first week of our 2017 Spooktober spectacular, and we're here to talk about R.L. Stine's teen horror series 99 Fear Street . This entry, The First Horror , is the story of Cally and her family, who move into the most clearly haunted house that you could ever imagine. Needless to say...things go poorly for the Frasiers. Additional talking points include haunt...

Books read 1, alcohol units 4 (bad), chuckles 179 (excellent). This week we tackle Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary, a book that's carried a long way by its narrator's voice; we also talk about Livejournals we may or may not have had, feminism, neuroses, and how we know basically nothing about dating in the modern era. This episode brought to you by Squarespace. See Privacy Policy at https:/...

How Weird do you like your fiction? Do you dig bogeymen who eat ghosts? Narrators who repeat themselves all the time? How about soul-crushing nihilism that implicates the reader in the demise of civilization? Well then Michael Cisco's The Traitor might be the book for you! Other discussion topics include new iPhones, Magic Eye books, and the Thong Song. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/priv...

Sara Nović's Girl at War has all the confidence and impact of a firsthand account, despite the fact that it was written almost entirely from secondhand accounts. Detailing one girl's experience in the early 90s Croatian War of Independence and her life in America afterward, it's a compelling account of internal and external conflict from a character who has two homes and doesn't quite belong in ei...

This week, four conventionally-sized young women approach adulthood in Louisa May Alcott's seminal novel Little Women. It's time to wonder who will marry Laurie, who will sell their novel, and who will frustrate us with their moral lessons. Also: what's the deal with the limes?! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-m...

You might know George R. R. Martin from an obscure little HBO series called “Game of Thrones.” This week, we go back to his very first (and pre-ASOIAF) novel, the science fiction/romance story Dying of the Light. This book showcases Martin’s gift for organic, engrossing world building, but the material is let down a bit by its characters and its protagonist in particular. All in all, a good first...

We’re enjoying a summertime break this week, so we hope YOU enjoy our Philly Podcast Festival show about Anne of Green Gables from last month! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

Ben Lerner's novel 10:04 is about a man named Ben trying to write a novel. Yes, it's meta. Yes, it can get navel-gazey. But there's an underlying humanity and economy that keeps the book afloat. Discussion topics include gatekeeping, listening, dinosaurs, and superstorms. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info...

Ranking on multiple Saddest Books Ever lists, Katherine Paterson's Bridge to Terabithia is a classic young adult novel. A young boy makes a new friend, and their friendship blossoms despite the daily grind of middle school. Then someone dies. Weep along with us as we swap sibling stories, chat about teacher feelings, and make at least *two* Will Smith references. This episode is brought to you in...

The Talented Mr. Ripley is a book about apprehension and grifting and murder, which makes it feel like a great selection for this, the Year Of Our Lord 2017. You never like Tom Ripley, exactly, but he’s a fascinating character to inhabit for a few hundred pages. This episode is brought to you in part by Blue Apron. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at ht...

Hold on to your hors--I mean, rats, it's a live show! We present to you this dispatch from Boston on Robert C. O'Brien's novel Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. While we don't come away with a newfound love of rats, we do develop an appreciation for their arts and culture and their will to survive. Other topics include mouse marriage, Beantown humor, and the scientific process. This episode is bro...

Laura Esquivel's best-selling novel Like Water For Chocolate is a work of revolutionary magical realism. No really, it takes place during the Mexican Revolution and chronicles the life of a young woman whose strong emotions affect the world around her. Join us for a chat about exploding showers, sexual food, and everyone's favorite birthday boy Waluigi. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/priv...

Live shows and a busy summer mean there’s nothing special about our 250th episode, except insofar as each and every one of our episodes is a special wonderful delight! Alias Hook is a 2014 book that asks what Peter Pan and Neverland would seem like from the perspective of one Captain James Hook. The answer is: not great! But as with so many works of fiction that put us in the shoes of sometime ant...

Larry Shue's 1981 play The Nerd is about a gumption-less architect trying to extract a painful person from his life. Did we mention it's a comedy? We cover the play's plot (including its final reveal), the allure of answering machines, anonymous favors, and the Nintendo Switch. This week's show is brought to you in part by Blue Apron. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California...

Steve Kluger’s Last Days of Summer isn’t a complicated novel—it’s a nice, emotionally resonant book about a kid without a father and a man without a kid who form a unique and heartwarming bond. Sometimes it’s just nice to read a nice book where (mostly) nice things happen, you know? See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-se...

What's hidden in your secret garden? Which weeds need weeding? Which flowers need water, sunlight, and a Pokemon trainer to bring them to life? This week we talk about our own secret gardens, as well as the novel The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Other talking points include New Women, stolen identities, and The Secret. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Pri...

We’ve read fantasy adventure books and we’ve read sexy books, but have we read any books that are sexy fantasy adventures? After reading Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel’s Dart, the first in what is currently a nine-book series about sexy angel warriors, we can now definitively say “yes.” We have a chat about how Carey builds her world atop a real-world foundation, how the sexy stuff is intermixed with...

If you could wish for anything, what would it be? Dinosaurs to eat? Money to spend? A Nintendo to live in? The kids in E. Nesbit's story Five Children and It are bad at wishing. Like, really bad. But that means we get to have fun at their expense and perhaps learn a little bit about the perils of cutting corners. Also, if anyone finds out what Andrew would wish for if he met a genie, please tell u...

Do you know the meaning of life? We don't either, but we feel like we're just a little bit closer after reading Hermann Hesse's classic Siddhartha. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Andrew's out of the country so Craig's wife Laura joins the show to talk about Geraldine Brooks' Pulitzer Prize-winning novel March. March imagines the "offstage" of Mr. March, the largely absent father figure of Louisa May Alcott's classic Little Women. What happens to an idealistic pacifist when confronted with the horrors of the Civil War? Where exactly did school recess come from? And who knew...