Overdue

A podcast about the books you've been meaning to read. Updates Mondays.

Overdue is a podcast about the books you've been meaning to read. Join Andrew and Craig each week as they tackle a new title from their backlog. Classic literature, obscure plays, goofy murder mysteries: they'll read it all, one overdue book at a time.

 

Ep 252 - Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (Live in Boston) by Robert C. O'Brien

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.

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Ep 251 - Like Water for Chocolate, by Laura Esquivel

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.

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Ep 250 - Alias Hook, by Lisa Jensen

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 antagonists, it adds interesting layers to Hook and to the Peter Pan-theon even if the straight action and romance sequences aren’t anything to write home about.

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Ep 249 -The Nerd, by Larry Shue

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.

Ep 248 - Last Days of Summer by Steve Kluger

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?

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Ep 247 - The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett

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.

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Ep 246 - Kushiel's Dart, by Jacqueline Carey

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 the political machinations, and how most of the characters are actually people who want things and not just sexy bodies.

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Ep 245 - Five Children and It by E. Nesbit

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 us. The world needs to know.

Support the show by buying the book!
Bookshop.org · Kobo · Nook