Overdue

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

11 May 2015

Contributed by Lukas

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&nb...

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

04 May 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Garth Nix may sound like the name of a country music superstar, but he's actually just the humble, award-winning author behind several fanta...

Ep 110 - Looking for Alaska, by John Green

27 Apr 2015

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

Ep 109 - The Girl Next Door, by Jack Ketchum

20 Apr 2015

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

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

13 Apr 2015

Contributed by Lukas

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,...

Ep 107 - A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway

07 Apr 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Ernest Hemingway is celebrated for the economy of his prose.This week we read A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway.See Privacy Policy at h...

Ep 106 - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert Pirsig

31 Mar 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Rejected a world record 121 times before finally finding a publisher and going on to sell millions of copies, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maint...

Ep 105 - The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell

24 Mar 2015

Contributed by Lukas

We're back to sci-fi this week, but we take a break from the politics-heavy universe of Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. Mary Doria Russell's Th...

Ep 104 - 'Tis Pity She's A Whore, by John Ford

16 Mar 2015

Contributed by Lukas

John Ford's 1620s revenge drama 'Tis Pity She's A Whore has everything: friars, murder, bawdy jokes, bawdy suitors, incest -- incest?! What'...

Ep 103 - Foundation, by Isaac Asimov

09 Mar 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Celebrated science fiction author Isaac Asimov wrote a lot in the 20th century: short stories, screenplays, books on pop science, books on h...

Ep 102 - Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston

02 Mar 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Zora Neale Hurston's 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God is one of the most widely-read books in American literature. It's so entrenched in the mo...

Ep 101 - The Man in the High Castle, by Philip K. Dick

24 Feb 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Our odometer has rolled over, but the show's the same: this week we take you through the alternate history presented by Philip K. Dick's The Man in th...

Ep 100 - Fifty Shades Darker, by E.L. James

16 Feb 2015

Contributed by Lukas

100 episodes! That means we've read and talked about 100 books, which isn't a lot in the grand scheme of things but it sure feels like a lot for our l...

Ep 099 - Six Characters in Search of an Author, by Luigi Pirandello

09 Feb 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Luigi Pirandello's most notable contribution to the Western canon is a play about six characters come to life, intruding on a theater rehearsal in sea...

Ep 098: Secret of the Ninja (Choose Your Own Adventure)

02 Feb 2015

Contributed by Lukas

We dip back into the Choose Your Own Adventure well this week to read Jay Leibold's Secret of the Ninja, a harrowing tale about dojo and time trave...

Ep 097 - Batman: The Long Halloween, by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale

26 Jan 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Set in the early years of Bruce Wayne's Batmanhood, Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale's Batman: The Long Halloween chronicles a murderous year in Gotha...

Ep 096 - Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury

19 Jan 2015

Contributed by Lukas

It's not October anymore, but we've gone back to the spooky story well this week to read Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes. Unlike&n...

Ep 095 - Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville

12 Jan 2015

Contributed by Lukas

At last, we've caught our White Whale!Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick, a Leviathan of the American literary canon, chronicles the journey of th...

Ep 094 - The Secret History, by Donna Tartt

05 Jan 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Donna Tartt, a recent recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Goldfinch, broke onto the literary scene over twenty years ago with her d...

Ep 093 - Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov

31 Dec 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Usually books try to make you root for the protagonist. Even if he or she is flawed in some crucial way, most stories try to make you feel something f...

Ep 092 - A Kidnapped Santa Claus / Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins

22 Dec 2014

Contributed by Lukas

What're the holidays without children's stories? Every year, families gather around their yule rocks and Festivus poles to hear their favorite tales o...

Ep 091 - In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote

16 Dec 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Truman Capote's Capote's "non-fiction novel" In Cold Blood chronicles the mass murder of a family in rural Kansas by two runaway parolees.&n...

Ep 090 - Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry

09 Dec 2014

Contributed by Lukas

We hope you like awesome horses and sobbing cowboys, because this week special guest host Casey Johnston is walking us through Larry McMurtry's Loneso...

Ep 089 - The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood

01 Dec 2014

Contributed by Lukas

For the second week in a row, we've decided to read a book about a dystopian society—Animal Farm was about the oppressed overthrowing and then ...

Ep 088 - Animal Farm, by George Orwell

25 Nov 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Old Man Stalin Had A Farm...E-I-E-I-O....What happens when you mix the Russian Revolution with a bunch of farm animals and (more than a dash) of dysto...

Ep 087 - Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn

17 Nov 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Have you read Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl, or seen the major motion picture currently in theaters? Because if not, you probably should turn back: we're ...

Ep 086 - Summerland, by Michael Chabon

11 Nov 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Michael Chabon is no stranger to genre fiction. He has a Lovecraftesque alter ego. He's written essays decrying navel-gazing trends in the short story...

Ep 085 - Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, by Haruki Murakami

04 Nov 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Haruki Murakami is a giant of contemporary literature, particularly in his native Japan. However, his books are often rife with references to Western ...

Ep 084 - You Are A Monster (Choose Your Own Adventure) by Edward Packard

28 Oct 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Spooktober comes to a close with yet another Choose Your Own Adventure story: Edward Packard's You Are A Monster. If you missed our previous CYA episo...

Ep 083 - The Mummy, or Ramses the Damned, by Anne Rice

21 Oct 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Spooktober rolls on with this week's story, an Anne Rice novel that's about spooky mummies and the women who love them. For real, though, people in th...

Ep 082 - At the Mountains of Madness, by H.P. Lovecraft

13 Oct 2014

Contributed by Lukas

If you've ever heard of a Cthulu, read about the Necronomicon, or been creeped out by sleepy towns in New England, you likely have H.P. Lovecraft to t...

Ep 081 - Rosemary's Baby, by Ira Levin

06 Oct 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Our spooky October (Spooktober?) continues this week with Ira Levin's Rosemary's Baby, a book about broken trust and creepy new neighbors and Sat...

Ep 080 - The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, by Washington Irving

30 Sep 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Washington Irving - aka Jonathan Oldstyle, Abner Knickerbocker or Geoffrey Crayon - is widely regarded as the First American writer. Born just after t...

Ep 079 - The Homecoming, by Harold Pinter

24 Sep 2014

Contributed by Lukas

The stuff in these show notes is just as important as the stuff that isn't in these show notes. At least, that would be the case if they were written ...

Ep 078 - The Mystery of Chimney Rock (Choose Your Own Adventure) by Edward Packard

15 Sep 2014

Contributed by Lukas

We're trying something a little different this week on Overdue. To hear more, turn to page 44. To go back, turn to page 56.OK, this episode listing do...

Ep 077 - Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! by Richard Feynman

08 Sep 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Safecracker, prankster, bongo drummer, painter, teacher. Richard Feynman was many things in addition to being a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, and he ...

Ep 076 - This Is How You Lose Her, by Junot Díaz

02 Sep 2014

Contributed by Lukas

This week's story, This Is How You Lose Her, is a loosely connected collection of short stories that blurs the line between protagonist and autho...

Ep 075 - The Hairy Ape, by Eugene O'Neill

25 Aug 2014

Contributed by Lukas

"I'm a hairy ape, get me? And I'll bust youse in de jaw if you don't lay off kiddin' me."When Eugene O'Neill wants to get his point across, he leaves ...

Ep 074 - Orange Is The New Black, by Piper Kerman

18 Aug 2014

Contributed by Lukas

There's a fair chance that you're familiar with Piper Kerman's Orange Is The New Black through the award-winning Netflix drama. This week we...

Ep 073 - Portnoy's Complaint, by Philip Roth

12 Aug 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Things get a little hot and heavy on this week's episode dedicated to Philip Roth's 1969 novel Portnoy's Complaint. We do, however, start off wit...

Ep 072 - Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen

05 Aug 2014

Contributed by Lukas

This week, we take another run at Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice is, in Andrew's words, "a book where a bunch of people eventually get mar...

Ep 071 - Go Tell It on the Mountain, by James Baldwin

29 Jul 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Go Tell It on the Mountain, the first novel by revered American author and essayist James Baldwin tackles a whole host of serious issues ranging from ...

Ep 070 - Girl With a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier

22 Jul 2014

Contributed by Lukas

This week's book, Tracy Chevalier's Girl With a Pearl Earring, is historical fiction that purports to tell the story of the painting of the same name....

Ep 069 - The Reader, by Bernhard Schlink

14 Jul 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Bernhard Schlink's The Reader was published just five years after the reunification of Germany, and the ways in which it explores the countr...

Ep 068 - Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, by Robin Sloan

07 Jul 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Robin Sloan's debut novel, Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, tackles the literary world's imminent digital future with an adventure tale that Andrew d...

Ep 067 - Bossypants, by Tina Fey

01 Jul 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Tina Fey is a prolific, talented, outspoken comedian with a track record to rival the best in the business. She’s also a keen observer of the human ...

Ep 066 - The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, by Agatha Christie

24 Jun 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Agatha Christie is the owner of numerous superlatives: best-selling novelist, influential mystery writer, criminally successful playwright. ...

Ep 065 - The Marriage Plot, by Jeffrey Eugenides

17 Jun 2014

Contributed by Lukas

More than a year after reading Middlesex for Episode 12, this week we return to Jeffrey Eugenides' oeuvre to check out 2011's The Marri...

Ep 064 - Big Blonde and Here We Are, by Dorothy Parker

09 Jun 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Dorothy Parker was a prolific Jazz Age writer who rose to prominence during her days as a member of the Algonquin Round Table - a group of writers, cr...

Ep 063 - King Lear, by William Shakespeare

02 Jun 2014

Contributed by Lukas

William Shakespeare's reputation is basically secure at this point. He was hugely influential, his works are widely studied, and although he's over 40...

Ep 062 - The Giver, by Lois Lowry

26 May 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Lois Lowry's The Giver imagines a world without color, without hills, without difference and most importantly without memory. Winner of...

Ep 061 - The Lorax / Oh the Places You'll Go! by Dr. Seuss

19 May 2014

Contributed by Lukas

In honor of Children's Book Week, we each decided to read a Dr. Seuss book for this episode—that's right, Andrew had somehow managed to avoid the Lo...

Ep 060 - Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

12 May 2014

Contributed by Lukas

What if superheroes were real? Would we still revere them so much? Or would they be too frightening for us to handle, too unstable for us to control?W...

Ep 059 - The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, by Mark Twain

06 May 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Mark Twain is an incredibly prolific, incredibly distinctive author. This week's read is just a short story and it's one of Twain's first major succes...

Ep 058 - The Passage, by Justin Cronin

29 Apr 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Justin Cronin got his start publishing quiet but moving "literary" fiction. In 2010, he blew up North America (in a manner of speaking) with his post-...

Ep 057 - Tell the Wolves I'm Home, by Carol Rifka Brunt

22 Apr 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Tell the Wolves I'm Home, author Carol Rifka Brunt's first novel, is multi-faceted: it's about different kinds of love. It's about siblinghood, and gr...

Ep 056 - The Misanthrope, by Molière

14 Apr 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Molière's The Misanthrope is a three-and-a-half centuries old play about something as old as time: dishing on your people behind their back...

Ep 055 - To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

08 Apr 2014

Contributed by Lukas

A true classic, Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird is one of those books we should have read years ago. For the two of you who aren't famili...

Ep 054 - In the Woods, by Tana French

31 Mar 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Why do we keep trying to solve murders in small towns? What is it like for an American author to set a story in a sleepy Irish suburb? Will our amnesi...

Ep 053 - The Yellow Wallpaper / The Lottery

25 Mar 2014

Contributed by Lukas

We double-dip a bit in this week's show, reading two short stories and proving that you don't have to have a ton of time to read something thought-pro...

Ep 052 - Extra Innings, by Baseball Prospectus

17 Mar 2014

Contributed by Lukas

It's almost baseball season! And what better way to celebrate America's (former) pastime than to document the annual occurrence of Craig forcing Andre...

Ep 051 - Replay, by Ken Grimwood

11 Mar 2014

Contributed by Lukas

What if you got to/had to live the same 25 years of your life over and over again? Would you try to recreate the life you had lost? Would you game the...

Ep 050 - Fifty Shades of Grey, by E.L. James

03 Mar 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Strap yourselves in and pick a good safe word, because Andrew and Craig both read Fifty Shades of Grey for this, our landmark 50th episode! ...

Ep 049 - Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut

24 Feb 2014

Contributed by Lukas

What's a granfalloon, you ask? Or a karass? A stuppa? A wampeter? These are all terms from the Bokonon religion, created by K...

Ep 048 - Dracula, by Bram Stoker

18 Feb 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Craig and Andrew take a trip to Transylvania this week, facilitated by Bram Stoker's Dracula. Join us for a talk about the evolution of the vampire, t...

Ep 047 - Pygmalion, by George Bernard Shaw

04 Feb 2014

Contributed by Lukas

'Ello 'ello! What's all this then?! A discussion of George Bernard Shaw, turn-of-the-century dialects, My Fair Lady and gender politics, ya ...

Ep 046 - The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway

28 Jan 2014

Contributed by Lukas

We return to the Dead White Male canon this week with Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, the gripping tale of an old man who goes out fi...

Ep 045 - The Awakening, by Kate Chopin

21 Jan 2014

Contributed by Lukas

What does it mean to be a woman? We don't know the answer to that question, and it's doubtful we ever will. But reading Kate Chopin's revolutionary no...

Ep 044 - Mary Poppins, by P. L. Travers

14 Jan 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Have you ever revisited a classic from your childhood only to find a whole pile of weird subtext you've never noticed before? Andrew's never read Mary...

Ep 043 - The Raven, by Edgar Allan Poe

31 Dec 2013

Contributed by Lukas

Nothing screams New Year's like a guy sitting in his study, missing his beloved, wishing an obnoxious, repetitive bird would just leave him the heck a...

Ep 042 - A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens

24 Dec 2013

Contributed by Lukas

'Tis the season to do seasonally-themed episodes, and so Andrew read Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, the short story that has been so widely ...

Ep 041 - Winter's Bone, by Daniel Woodrell

17 Dec 2013

Contributed by Lukas

What do you do when your meth-cooking father goes missing in the Missouri Ozarks? Ask your relatives? Go to the cops? Dig for evidence yourself? These...

Ep 040 - Franny and Zooey, by J.D. Salinger

10 Dec 2013

Contributed by Lukas

Sometimes an author's personality (or legend, even) grows to the point that it's just as interesting as the work they produced. This is certainly true...

Ep 039 - The Hound of the Baskervilles, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

25 Nov 2013

Contributed by Lukas

In 1893, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "killed" Sherlock Holmes. Eight years later, the popular detective returned in The Hound of the Baskervilles, muc...

Ep 038 - Eddie and the Cruisers, by P.F. Kluge

18 Nov 2013

Contributed by Lukas

Andrew and Craig both come at P.F. Kluge's Eddie and the Cruisers from a unique perspective: Kluge was (and is) writer-in-residence at Kenyon Colleg...

Ep 037 - The Unnamable, by Samuel Beckett

12 Nov 2013

Contributed by Lukas

No plot, no characters, no setting. Samuel Beckett's The Unnamable sounds like it's about nothing, but it's more than just the Seinfeld...

Ep 036 - Battle Royale, by Koushun Takami

05 Nov 2013

Contributed by Lukas

Another Hunger Games movie is right around the corner, but you just can't wait. You need to read a heartwarming tale about tweens and teens who are al...

Ep 035 - No Exit, by Jean-Paul Sartre

29 Oct 2013

Contributed by Lukas

Hell is sheeple, hot cocoa, interventions, mannequins, French pronunciations, and gin. Also, hell is other people. Or so wrote Jean-Paul Sartre i...

Ep 034 - Don't Go Back to School, by Kio Stark

21 Oct 2013

Contributed by Lukas

We tried something a little different this week—instead of reading a novel or play, Andrew read Kio Stark's crowdfunded handbook Don't Go Back to Sc...

Ep 033 - The Stand, by Stephen King

14 Oct 2013

Contributed by Lukas

Did you know that Stephen King's The Stand isn't a taut legal thriller? It's just one of the many things that Andrew and Craig learned about the book ...

Ep 032 - A Visit from the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan

08 Oct 2013

Contributed by Lukas

 Rock and roll, PowerPoint slides, African dictators: all succumb to the inexorable march of time in Jennifer Egan's Pulitzer Prize-winning ...

Ep 031 - The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde

01 Oct 2013

Contributed by Lukas

The relationship between interior evil and its effect of one's external appearance isn't new to the show, but it's explored pretty explicitly in Oscar...

Ep 030 - Medea, by Euripides

16 Sep 2013

Contributed by Lukas

What's there to enjoy about a 2400-year-old tragedy? Is it the ekkyklemas? The god-chariots? Or is it the protagonist so wounded by her husband's acti...

Ep 029 - The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde

10 Sep 2013

Contributed by Lukas

Andrew wanted something short and funny for his selection this week, and he got it in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. It's up for debat...

Ep 028 - The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury

02 Sep 2013

Contributed by Lukas

Ray Bradbury once described his first novel, The Martian Chronicles, as a collection of short stories "pretending to be a novel." In fact, m...

Ep 027 - You Shall Know Our Velocity! by Dave Eggers

26 Aug 2013

Contributed by Lukas

It's rare that we read a book and just out-and-out dislike it, but that's what happened when Andrew read Dave Eggers' You Shall Know Our Velocity! Egg...

Ep 026 - Persuasion, by Jane Austen

13 Aug 2013

Contributed by Lukas

Craig's never read Jane Austen. Yes, it's unbelievable. Yes, it's sort of shameful. But making up for that kind of thing is what this show's all about...

Ep 025 - Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes

05 Aug 2013

Contributed by Lukas

Intelligence is a wonderful thing, but as this week's book shows us it isn't the only thing. In Daniel Keyes' classic, developmentally disabled man Ch...

Ep 024 - Grendel, by John Gardner

30 Jul 2013

Contributed by Lukas

This week's show is all about revisiting past shows - the book Craig read, John Gardner's Grendel, is a modern prequel and/or retelling of the Beowulf...

Ep 023 - Breakfast of Champions, by Kurt Vonnegut

23 Jul 2013

Contributed by Lukas

In the book's preface, Vonnegut called Breakfast of Champions an attempt to "clear his head of all the junk in there." He wasn't kidding.&nb...

Ep 022 - Antony and Cleopatra, by William Shakespeare

16 Jul 2013

Contributed by Lukas

What is Antony and Cleopatra ? Tragedy? Romance? History? Comedy ? The conventional wisdom is to pick tragedy, but this messy entr...

Ep 021 - Life of Pi, by Yann Martel

08 Jul 2013

Contributed by Lukas

One note for this one: while every episode has a general spoiler warning attached to it, we spoil Yann Martel's Life of Pi in a pretty big way in this...

Ep 020 - The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson

01 Jul 2013

Contributed by Lukas

Craig and Andrew team up with their evil selves this week to read Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Well, not really. But in honor of ...

Ep 019 - The Color Purple, by Alice Walker

24 Jun 2013

Contributed by Lukas

We're back from our hiatus, and to kick the rust off we're diving right into a thorny discussion about race, sexuality, and poverty with Alice Walker'...

Ep 018 - Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley

09 Jun 2013

Contributed by Lukas

"You know Frankenstein's the name of the doctor, not the monster - right?" Despite decades of metal bolts and flat green foreheads muddying the waters...

Ep 017 - Winnie The Pooh, by A.A. Milne

03 Jun 2013

Contributed by Lukas

A.A. Milne's famous bear is almost ninety years old. The first collection of Winnie-the-Pooh stories was published in 1926, yet many of us first trave...

Ep 016 - World War Z, by Max Brooks

28 May 2013

Contributed by Lukas

Max Brooks' World War Z, soon to be a not-awesome-looking motion picture, takes an interesting approach to the zombie apocalypse story: it's told thro...

Ep 015 - The Elements of Style, by Strunk & White

20 May 2013

Contributed by Lukas

Whether or not you've read The Elements of Style, the writing rules and techniques you learned in grade school likely came from Strunk and White’s “...

Ep 014 - The Crucible, by Arthur Miller

13 May 2013

Contributed by Lukas

When you talk about a witch-hunt, you aren't normally referring to sane, procedural, and fair trials. You're talking about a fear-driven investigation...

Ep 013 - A Lesson Before Dying, by Ernest J. Gaines

06 May 2013

Contributed by Lukas

Ernest J. Gaines' Pulitzer-nominated novel A Lesson Before Dying takes place in 1940s Jim Crow Louisiana, where a black schoolteacher is asked to visi...