For anyone who’s ever loved a movie or TV show where people in silly outfits pretend to be giant city-crushing lizards and/or robots, this week’s book plays around in a pretty entertaining space. If the references to the mid-to-late-2020 stretch of the COVID pandemic and the 2020 US presidential election date it a little, and if every single named character talks exactly the same, it’s still got neat ideas and a part where the evil billionaire antagonist is implied to have his face eaten off by a parasite from another dimension.
Support the show! Buy the book on Bookshop.org.
The name O. Henry is synonymous with more than just a candy bar. It's become shorthand for a brief, punchy tale that ends with a magical little twist. And this collection, his second published, contains such classic examples as the "Gift of the Magi" and "The Cop and the Anthem." Can you guess the ironic twist ending of this podcast?
Support the show! Buy the book on Bookshop.org.
The Club has been humming along for two months until a spat of terrifying phone-based burglaries have our sitters sittin' scared! Also, it's Claudia time! Between gigs, she must repair her relationship with her sister and figure out how to catch the eye of the dreamiest poet around: Trevor Sandbourne.
Here's the full Sit Me Baby One More Time reading list:
These episodes posted first for our Patreon supporters. To hear our long-read project episodes when they first come out (or hear the rest of Sit Me Baby... right now), visit patreon.com/overduepod.
Support the show! Buy the book on Bookshop.org.
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 maybe yourself.
Support the show! Buy the book on Bookshop.org.
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!
Support the show! Buy the book on Bookshop.org.
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.
Support the show! Buy the book on Bookshop.org.
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.
Support the show! Buy the book on Bookshop.org.
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 harshing your buzz by asking you to be introspective and better yourself? Sometimes these things just happen!
Support the show! Buy the book on Bookshop.org.
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.
Support the show! Buy the book on Bookshop.org.
Our latest show-within-a-show begins! We have convened a club whose charter is to learn about The Baby-Sitters Club. Join us as we meet the Club's founding members and learn about Kristy's mortal enemy: her mom's new boyfriend.
Here's the full Sit Me Baby One More Time reading list:
These episodes posted first for our Patreon supporters. To hear our long-read project episodes when they first come out (or hear the rest of Sit Me Baby... right now), visit patreon.com/overduepod.
Support the show! Buy the book on Bookshop.org.
