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 childen’s books: they'll read it all, one overdue book at a time.
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What starts as a dismaying story about a wrongful conviction turns into a deep meditation on loyalty, marriage, and independence. Given the subject matter, you might expect a mystery or a courtroom drama. Instead, Jones offers up a moving account of a couple just trying to find a future that will have them. Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis . Follow @overduepod on Instagram and Bluesky Advertise on Overdue See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice ...
Our newest BSC member, Dawn, has a lot to juggle in her debut as a series protagonist. Her mom is dating Mary-Anne's dad. She's low-key feuding with Kristy, the BSC President. And she's been hired by a mother of three who just does NOT have her life together. What a trial by fire! These episodes posted first for our Patreon supporters! If you want to hear the rest of them ahead of time (and a bunch of other stuff besides), visit Patreon.com/overduepod. Here's the full Sit Me Baby One More Time r...
A story about a young woman trapped in an underground prison with 39 other women sounds like it could be a stone cold bummer, and it isn’t not that. But this translated French novel from 1995 also hits some affirming, human notes, and it’s those aspects of it that help explain why it’s found new life via word of mouth and BookTok. This episode is sponsored by Squarespace. Go to squarespace.com/overdue for 10% of your first purchase of a website or domain. Our theme music was composed by Nick Ler...
Perhaps befittingly, Anne Patchett's fourth novel changed the trajectory of her career. The award-winning Bel Canto centers on 58 people (a combination of hostages and militants sequestered in an unnamed country), many of whom spend the time cut off from the outside world meditating on the paths their lives did and didn't take. Many welcome the opportunity to sit, reflect, grow, and change -- all without the added pressure of the real world. But the tragedy, of course, is that they cannot keep t...
This episode delves into P.G. Wodehouse's "My Man Jeeves," exploring the origin of the iconic butler and Wodehouse's fascinating life, including his WWII broadcasts and their controversial reception. The hosts recap several short stories featuring Jeeves and other characters, highlighting their classic farcical plots and the unique master-servant dynamic. They also discuss the defunct "Ask Jeeves" search engine and Wodehouse's enduring influence on sitcom-like narratives.
Did you know that the classic 1997 slasher film I Know What You Did Last Summer was actually based on a propulsive young adult thriller from 1973? Lois Duncan's original novel isn't too interested in bloody kills, however. It's more focused on how young people build their identities: around their regrets, around their parents, and around tragedies. Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis . Follow @overduepod on Instagram and Bluesky Advertise on Overdue See Privacy Policy at https://art19....
Fresh off their victory over the Baby-Sitters Agency, the girls of the BSC turn on each other in this month's entry. Quiet Mary Anne has to get the group back together, negotiate with her well-meaning but strict single father, make and repair a new friendship, and engineer an unlikely meet-cute. And, of course, she needs to tend to some babysitting, including one job that will prove to be her toughest yet! These episodes posted first for our Patreon supporters! If you want to hear the rest of th...
An official offshoot of the classic Choose Your Own Adventure series, the Choose Your Own Nightmare books cropped up for a couple of years in the mid-90s, an (alleged) response to the popularity of our old friend RL Stine’s Goosebumps series. Stine’s somewhat longer-lived Give Yourself Goosebumps sub-series would launch just months after the first Choose Your Own Nightmare book, but it’s fun to read CYOA originator Edward Packard take a stab at something more explicitly spooky than the original ...
Everybody loves our old friend Ray Bradbury! This time we’re taking a spin with his first short story collection Dark Carnival, a smattering of spooky tales that wound up scattered across a number of other collections throughout Bradbury’s career. Stories discussed in this episode include: The Small Assassin The Dead Man Skeleton The Scythe The Emissary The Homecoming Uncle Einar The Lake The Jar Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis . Follow @overduepod on Instagram and Bluesky Advertis...
A buzzy title that came to life thanks to BookTok but came to our attention because of a good-old bookstore shelf display, this week’s book (and the kickoff to Spooktober 2025) is what it says on the cover: it’s about monsters and also computers. If you didn’t associate either of these things with “found family,” then it’s also here to challenge some of your preconceived notions. This episode is sponsored by Squarespace. Go to squarespace.com/overdue for 10% of your first purchase of a website o...
Rudyard Kipling's classic story collection The Jungle Book doesn't have a jazz orangutan named Louie, but it does have the bare necessities of imperialist fiction. The stories about Mowgli and other trailblazing animals all contain a whiff of "But what about the rigid hierarchy of nature?" And when every animal is personified...well...those simple bare necessities begin to reveal themselves. Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis . Follow @overduepod on Instagram and Bluesky Advertise on ...
The Club has encountered (gasp) competition! How will they manage to beat their new rivals, the Baby-sitters Agency? Also, Stacey's ready to spill her truth: her parents need to chill out. She's successfully managing her diabetes AND making friends AND crushing it as a baby-sitter, but their plan to see a new doctor in New York could ruin everything. These episodes posted first for our Patreon supporters! If you want to hear the rest of them ahead of time (and a bunch of other stuff besides), vi...
Some of us read a book. Some of us research the author and the historical context. Some of us sit in front of our microphones and record a podcast. Some of us edit it together and upload it to the website. Some of us write the description that goes up with it. Boy I hope this bit works! Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis . Follow @overduepod on Instagram and Bluesky Advertise on Overdue See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/...
Perhaps Elizabeth Gaskell’s best-known work, Cranford chronicles the lives of some Victorian era LMMs (Ladies of Modest Means). Their customs and relevance may be waning as Industrialization advances, but that doesn’t mean they won’t find ways to entertain us with their wit, their foibles, and their heart. This episode is sponsored by Squarespace. Go to squarespace.com/overdue for 10% of your first purchase of a website or domain. Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis . Follow @overduepo...
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 ...
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? This episode is sponsored by Squarespace. Go to squarespace.com/overdue for 10% of your first purchase of a website or domain. Our theme music was composed by Nick ...
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. These episodes posted first for our Patreon supporters! If you want to hear the rest of them ahead of time (and a bunch of other stuff besides), visit Patreon.com/overduepod. Here's the full Sit Me...
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. Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis . Follow @overduepod on Instagram and Bluesky Advertise on Overdue See Privacy Policy a...
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! Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis . Follow @overduepod on Instagram and Bluesky Advertise on Overdue See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at htt...
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. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/overdue and get on your way to being your best self. Our theme musi...
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. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info ....
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! Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis ....
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. This episode is sponsored by Squarespace. Go to squarespace.com/overdue for 10% of your first purchase of a website or domain. Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis . Follow @overduepod on Instagram and Bluesky Advertise on Overdue See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice a...
We have convened a club whose charter is to learn about The Baby-Sitters Club. Join us as we met the Club's founding members and learn about Kristy's mortal enemy: her mom's new boyfriend. These episodes posted first for our Patreon supporters! If you want to hear the rest of them ahead of time (and a bunch of other stuff besides), visit Patreon.com/overduepod. Here's the full Sit Me Baby One More Time reading list: Kristy's Great Idea Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls The Truth about Stacey M...
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. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/overdue and get on your way to being your best self. Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis . Follow @overduepod on Instagram and Bluesky Advertise on Overdue See Privacy Policy at http...
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 ...
The late Edmund White’s breakthrough 1982 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. This episode is sponsored by Squarespace. Go to squarespace.com/overdue for 10% of your first purchase of a website or domain. Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis ....
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! Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis . Follow @overduepod on Instagram and Bluesky Advertise...
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! For more from Too Scary, Didn’t Watch: Website: https://www.tooscarydidntwatch.com/ Apple Podcasts: https://po...
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. This episode is sponsored by Squarespace. Go to squarespace.com/over...
