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 711 - Upright Women Wanted, by Sarah Gailey

Gay anti-fascist librarians roam a speculative future version of the western United States in this week's novella. It's pretty close to as cool as it sounds, though the book will probably leave you wanting more in the end.

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

The Sillymarillion Episode 0 - J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion, an Introduction

For this new show-within-a-show, Craig and Andrew will be learning about the world of Middle-Earth! We're going to read J.R.R. Tolkien's posthumously published legendarium THE SILMARILLION.

In this episode, you'll hear us discuss the creation of this epic fantasy, including the work done Christopher Tolkien to wrestle his father's work into a form fit for publication.

This is a preview of a series we’ll be running exclusively for our Patreon supporters over the next few months; we won’t release them on the main feed until the entire series has run. If you want to listen to them as they’re released, see patreon.com/overduepod for more! Episode 1 is already up!

The reading list:

Ep 1 - Ainulindale, Valaquenta, Quenta Silmarillion Ch 1-3no

Ep 2 - Quenta Silmarillion Ch 4-10

Ep 3 - Quenta Silmarillion Ch 11-16

Ep 4 - Quenta Silmarillion Ch 17-20

Ep 5 - Quenta Silmarillion Ch 21-24

Ep 6 - Alkallabeth, Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age, Appendices

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

Ep 710 - A Boy’s Own Story, by Edmund White

The late Edmund White’s breakthrough 1983 novel is the first in a trilogy of autobiographical novels that depict key eras in his life as a gay man. A Boy’s Own Story is, as you might expect, about a boy — a boy whose longing for the men in his life leads to powerful (though perhaps not entirely positive) self-understanding.

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

Ep 709 - The Complete Peanuts, by Charles Schulz

Good grief! It's time to talk about Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, Lucy — the whole gang. To give ourselves a solid cross-section of Charles Schulz's work on Peanuts, we read Volume 1 (1950-52) and Volume 10 (1969-70) of the Complete Peanuts collection. So we're able to track the evolution of Charlie Brown's pumpkin noggin, as well as Snoopy's ability to walk, think, and dance. We get our laughs!

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

Ep 708 - American Psycho, by Bret Easton Ellis (with Too Scary, Didn’t Watch!)

We’re joined by Sammy and Emily of the TOO SCARY, DIDN’T WATCH horror movie podcast this week to talk about Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho. None of us had an amazing time with this read, partly because the book seems to revel in its extreme violence and misogyny. But be sure to tune in to TSDW later this week to hear what we all thought about the Christian Bale-led movie adaptation!

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

Ep 707 - Stone Butch Blues, by Leslie Feinberg

Leslie Feinberg’s debut novel is an intersectional bildungsroman about Jess Goldberg, a butch lesbian navigating the constellation of oppression that was the United States in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. It’s an overtly political novel, and it argues that a certain level of bleak hope may be necessary for survival. This cold comfort is balanced, however, with Feinberg’s tender depictions of chosen families able to endure for decades.

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

Ep 706 - James, by Percival Everett

James isn't so much a retelling or corrective of Huck Finn as it is an expansion, a conversation with, a delving -- or so says Pulitzer Prize winner Percival Everett. Tune in to find out what happens when an author reads Huck Finn 15 times and then starts putting pen to paper.

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

Ep 705 - Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson

A dying preacher writes a (rather) long letter to his son. Another dying preacher’s son returns home, seeking…something. Salvation? Forgiveness? A balm? Robinson’s novel is a deeply considered portrait of a family of ministers, wrestling with the powers and limitations of their faith and fatherhood.

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

Ep 703 - Play It As It Lays, by Joan Didion

Did you know the towering career of Joan Didion included several novels, many of which were driven by the same acerbic wit and insight that helped to anoint her as an essential voice in the New Journalism movement? Her second novel, Play It As It Lays, traffics in much of the same Hollywood/Los Angeles social destruction that powered her essays, but instead focuses in on the maddening, maddened Maria Wyeth - an actress whose star is waning with the gravitational force of a black hole.

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