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 116 - The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Brontë

June 01, 2015  /  Andrew Cunningham

Hey, jabronis!

This week we finally read our first Brontë book, thanks to one of our Patreon supporters! Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is considered to be "one of the first sustained feminist books," and though many of the sensibilities of early-to-mid-19th-century England are present here, we see the typical marriage and courtship rituals through a darker lens.

Contemporary readers were scandalized by the things this book depicted, including but not limited to (1) a woman leaving a man and (2) a man being a loutish alcoholic and cheating on his wife. Join us for a discussion of all that plus some tips on safe high-fiving.

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Ep 114 - Mr. Popper's Penguins and The Borrowers (Bonus Episode)

May 20, 2015  /  Andrew Cunningham

This is our first monthly bonus episode, brought to you by our supporters on Patreon! If you want these shows one week earlier than everyone else, visit patreon.com/overduepod for details.

It's Children's Book Week again, and just like last year we're using it as an excuse to read things that Lil' Craig and Lil' Andrew never got around to reading.  Craig reads Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater, a story of a negligent husband and father who lets penguins into his house. Andrew read The Borrowers by Mary Norton, the tale of teeny tiny people who swipe things they don't think you'll miss when you aren't looking. Kids' books can take you to some weird places.

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Mr. Popper’s Penguins
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The Borrowers
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Ep 113 - Bad Feminist, by Roxane Gay (w/ Katherine Fritz)

May 18, 2015  /  Guest User

Why do we let the messy implications of our beliefs keep us from shouting them the rooftops?

Why is it difficult for a movement like feminism to be both strong and inclusive?

Why don't chickens feature more prominently in the Nativity?

Friend of the show Katherine Fritz joins us this week to answer these questions and discuss Roxane Gay's Bad Feminist. This 2014 bestseller features selected essays from throughout Gay's career, which includes pieces on The Help, the Internet outrage cycle, and the need for more diverse voices.

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Ep 112 - How Not To Write A Novel, by Howard MittelMark and Sandra Newman

May 11, 2015  /  Andrew Cunningham

At this point we've read a lot of novels, but we haven't tried to write our own just yet. Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman's 2008 anti-guidebook How Not To Write A Novel has shown us a lot of the stuff we should try to avoid if we ever decide to put pen to paper.

We also devote a substantial chunk of this week's episode to listener mail from our Looking for Alaska episode, specifically responses to our questions about why people read young adult fiction well into regular adulthood.

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Ep 111 - Sabriel, by Garth Nix (w/ Giaco Furino)

May 04, 2015  /  Guest User

Garth Nix may sound like the name of a country music superstar, but he's actually just the humble, award-winning author behind several fantasy series. This week's book, Sabriel, debuted in 1995 as the first entry in Nix's Old Kingdom series, and the novel remains notable for its lead character, its unique take on magic, and the small (for a fantasy novel) cast of characters.

Special guest Giaco Furino returns to the show this week, sharing with Andrew and Craig his thoughts on the Redundancy of Michael Crichton, magical vo-tech school, and talking bananas.

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Ep 110 - Looking for Alaska, by John Green

April 27, 2015  /  Andrew Cunningham

John Green's Looking for Alaska is another young adult coming-of-age novel in a long tradition of young adult coming-of-age novels. A young man goes away to school and becomes close with a small group of friends. They smoke, they drink, they have sexual experiences, they lose, they mourn.

It's nothing that hasn't been done, but Green's light tone and deeper thematic questions make Alaska worth reading whether you're still a young adult or not. Join us for more thoughts on this book, as well as the great Central Air Conditioning vs. Dishwasher debate of 2015.

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Ep 109 - The Girl Next Door, by Jack Ketchum

April 20, 2015  /  Guest User

Jack Ketchum's The Girl Next Door is not for the faint of heart. The story is based on the grisly murder of Sylvia Likens by her de facto guardian in the 1960s. What preceded her death is too reprehensible to print here, but Ketchum dives headlong into the awful, determined to suss out the causes (and bounds) of human evil.

Suffice to say, this makes for a difficult discussion on-air, and we spend nearly half the show trying not to talk about the rougher aspects of the book. So please join us for a discussion of phishing, safewords from the future, childhood games, and the parts of The Girl Next Door that made Craig feel terrible.

Caveat lictor: This episode contains explicit language and discussion of graphic material.

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Ep 108 - Little House on the Prairie, by Laura Ingalls Wilder (w/ Margaret H. Willison)

April 12, 2015  /  Andrew Cunningham

One of the reasons we read is because books can give us perspective—good ones can fully transport us to times and places where we've never been and, in some cases, could never go. That's the case with Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books, stories she wrote about her childhood on the American frontier.

These books aren't without their problems (there are fairly significant questions about authorship and racism is sort of everywhere), but they're worth reading because of how completely they immerse you in the lives of their protagonists. Join us and special guest Margaret H. Willison as we talk about one of the best-known titles in the series.

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