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 693 - Piranesi, by Susanna Clarke

Welcome to the infinite halls of Piranesi’s House. Don’t mind the flooded basement, or the cloudy attic, or the fact that staying here more than a day starts to really take a toll on your memory. Piranesi’s got it all written down, so he knows everything there is to know about the House. Or does he?

Support the show! Buy the book on Bookshop.org.

Ep 693 - Piranesi
Overdue

Ep 692 - The Princess Bride, by William Goldman

It's not every day you run across this skillful an abridgment of S. Morgenstern's classic tale of love and adventure, one that was also turned into a beloved feature film of the same name. But there's something weird going on here. Both author and abridger are editorializing a LOT, and I'm not sure I can even find the kingdom of Florin on a map. Oh well! It's probably nothing.

Support the show! Buy the book on Bookshop.org.

Ep 692 - The Princess Bride
Overdue

Ep 690 - The Vanishing Half, by Brit Bennett

How does one construct an identity? And what must you sacrifice to forge one all your own (and who is most impacted by your choices)? Bennett's acclaimed novel The Vanishing Half meditates on these questions and more in a story about passing, sister/motherhood, and acting.

Support the show! Buy the book on Bookshop.org.

Ep 690 - The Vanishing Half
Overdue

Ep 688 - The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead

Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer-winning novel The Nickel Boys tells a haunting story of two young men whose identities are forever changed by their experiences at a brutal institute for boys in 1960s Florida. It's not easy subject matter, but Whitehead's wonderfully economic prose keeps it engaging all the way to the downright surprising end.

Support the show! Buy the book on Bookshop.org.

Ep 688 - The Nickel Boys
Overdue

Ep 687 - The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair

Sometimes you read a book that you heard about in high school, something that was taught as a sort of historical document that helped to explain why things are the way they are today. But sometimes it turns out that the book is actually about a whole lot of other stuff too! Including lots of (apparently) live debates about politics and food safety! It's a tough book to read right now, but it's an important time to remember where we've been.

Support the show! Buy the book on Bookshop.org.

Ep 687 - The Jungle
Overdue

Ep 686 - Chicken Soup for the Soul, by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, and Amy Newmark

Over 100 tales of trauma, inspiration, and a vague sense that Positive Thinking may not be all it's cracked up to be! This collection (and its surrounding media empire) can be heartwarming, but nothing quite as heartwarming as a sodium-rich can of condensed chicken soup with noodles.

Support the show! Buy the book on Bookshop.org.

Ep 686 - Chicken Soup for the Soul
Overdue

Ep 685 - Before the Coffee Gets Cold, by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

A prime example of the "healing fiction" genre, Before The Coffee Gets Cold has uncharacteristically low stakes for a time travel novel: no future of humanity to save, no butterfly effects, no risk of destroying the present by altering the past. It's more concerned with simpler questions: if you had just a little more information about things that happened in the past, how much would it change the things you do in the present?

Support the show! Buy the book on Bookshop.org.

Ep 685 - Before the Coffee Gets Cold
Overdue

Ep 684- Thornhedge, by T. Kingfisher

In this award-winning novella, T. Kingfisher asks, "What if you DIDN'T want to wake Sleeping Beauty?" The protagonist Toadling is most certainly not the princess in question. She is, however, an "interesting, but sad" fae creature who tells her tale with a moving mix of warmth and tragedy.

Support the show! Buy the book on Bookshop.org.

Ep 684- Thornhedge
Overdue