This graphic memoir (ahem) This collection of comics chronicles the life of an Iranian girl named Marji, whose experiences are heavily based on those of author Marjane Satrapi. Satrapi lived through the Islamic Revolution in Iran and its authoritarian aftermath, and her story is one of resistance, education, and the difficulty of finding yourself a…

Holes! We all need 'em, we all love 'em. This is a book where a boy is sentenced to dig a bunch of holes out in the desert because he was accused and convicted of a crime he didn't commit. That's bad! But he also discovers a little something about himself and his family, and makes a new friend. That's good! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/p…

Lo's award-winning novel seeks to shine a light on marginalized experiences from mid-century San Francisco. What's most impressive is how she's synthesized all of her research into a couple of fresh, compelling characters - allowing the story to honor the historical record without feeling overly bound by it. Our theme music was composed by Nick Ler…

Every week, one of our hosts reads a book and tells the other person (and you, the audience) about it. This week's book is about the topic of war and also the topic of peace. It has characters and themes. Find out more about all of this and more on this week's Overdue! This episode is sponsored by Squarespace. Go to squarespace.com/overdue for 10% …

For our latest show-within-a-show, we'll revisit Ancient Greece through Emily Wilson's new translation of Homer's The Iliad. We'll be reading it a few books at a time and having a more in-depth chat about it than we do about most books. These two episodes cover Books 5-9. Episode 3: These three books include: gods intervening directly on the battle…

The first rule of podcasting is DON'T TALK ABOUT PODCASTING. The second rule of podcasting is please tell everyone about podcasting and specifically about this episode in which we cover Chuck P's notorious novel about masculinity, terrorism, and getting punched in the face. This episode is sponsored by Squarespace. Go to squarespace.com/overdue for…

There There sets itself apart by being a book by and about indigenous Americans in an explicitly contemporary, urban setting. It's also got a neat perspective-shifting structure and interconnected characters. This episode is sponsored by Squarespace. Go to squarespace.com/overdue for 10% of your first purchase of a website or domain. Our theme musi…

This bonus episode was recorded on LEAP DAY! So we leapt into The Mystery at Lilac Inn with our good friend young sleuth Nancy Drew! Let's play some Hot or Not, I guess?? Also we're talking Odies 2023! To join us for future bonus recordings, head to patreon.com/overduepod. Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis. Advertise on Overdue See Priv…

The third and final of White's whimsical children's books about animals, The Trumpet of the Swan asks important questions like: How do swans learn English? How can we better provide accommodations for those who need them? And how much money could a swan earn at a jazz club in the 1960s? This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a…

Modern readers often experience C.S. Lewis as "the Narnia guy," but he's also one of the 20th century's foremost Christian apologetics. The Screwtape Letters, written from the point of view of a demon whose object is to send souls to Hell, is a deeply Christian work but its appeal comes just as much from Lewis' insight into what makes humanity tick…

Toni Morrison’s second novel in her beloved Beloved trilogy, Jazz introduces the reader to a trio of characters united by an incident of tragic romance. Will the freewheeling optimism of the Jazz Age set them on the path of redemption or will they be bound to their painful pasts? This episode is sponsored by Factor. Head to factormeals.com/overdue5…

Percy Jackson returns for another road trip across a mythological United States. Plenty of new characters are introduced -- and some of them survive! 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 Inst…

Our month of sequels continues with the first full-length novel in Martha Wells' Murderbot series. The book's extra length leaves it room to dig into themes that the novellas had only nodded at, and also has a whole bunch of extra murderbots in it. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/overdue and get …

To kick off a month of sequel coverage, we get bone deep in the Locked Tomb follow up Harrow the Ninth. This obtuse but compelling sci-fi/fantasy tome plays with perspective, doubles down on the space wizards, and challenges the reader NOT to notice oddly specific meme references. This episode is sponsored by Squarespace. Go to squarespace.com/over…

An early-90s Bengali novel that was translated into English relatively recently, The Aunt Who Wouldn't Die has a lot going for it, but as with many books the thing we'll remember the most is the murderous horny ghost aunt. Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis. Advertise on Overdue See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and Califor…

For our latest show-within-a-show, we'll revisit Ancient Greece through Emily Wilson's new translation of Homer's The Iliad. We'll be reading it a few books at a time and having a more in-depth chat about it than we do about most books. These two episodes cover Books 1-4. Episode 1: The Iliad drops us right into the middle of the action, where "the…

Move along, everyone. Nothing to see here. No women navigating adult friendships and their identities as parents. No jabs at men in power who work overtime to cover up their shame. And definitely no kids that catch on fire. Move along! Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis. Advertise on Overdue See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privac…

Time to celebrate winter with a chilly fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen. Also we're talking Disney's FROZEN! To join us for future bonus recordings, head to patreon.com/overduepod. Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis. Advertise on Overdue See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.c…

The Witch Elm has Dublin, and it has murder, and it has a squad of detectives, but despite all that it is not a book in Tana French’s Dublin Murder Squad series. This riff on her classic crime novel formula focuses instead on some of the suspects, namely Toby Hennessey, who doesn’t know if he can’t remember things because of head trauma or because …

Banned in many countries until the 1960s, David Herbert Lawrence's 1928 novel is both racier and tamer than you might imagine. What more would you expect from a book that uses both "the love experience" and [BLEEP] to describe, well, adult behavior? Caveat lictor: this episode features discussions of Adult Situations. Our theme music was composed b…

Happy 2024, and happy Public Domain day! Time finally caught up to US copyright law a few years ago, and the result has been a steady trickle of new creative work that’s available for anyone to modify and adapt. This year’s Big One is the earliest version of Mickey Mouse, but the new batch of PD stuff also includes this week’s Pooh book, as well as…

You can't spell Horny without Ho(-Ho-Ho)! In this year's Happy Hornydays celebration, one of the people finding love during the holiday season is Santa herself. That's right, this is an F/F steamy short featuring a gender-swapped Kristina Kringle and the niece (???) of Melchior (????) the Magi (?????). Sadly, the extremely promising lore goes somew…

This generation-spanning epic explores the experience of a Korean family living in Japan throughout (most of) the 20th century. We talk about Lee's use of time, her penchant for "minor" characters, and the recent adaptation of Pachinko for Apple TV+. Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis. Advertise on Overdue See Privacy Policy at https://a…

Despite being fairly well-versed in 20th-century fantasy, Mervyn Peake and his Gormenghast series has flown completely under our radar until now. It's a strange, florid, disjointed book with some fascinating character portraits, and also the most detailed description of a dude taking a bite of a pear that we have ever read. This episode is sponsore…

Our previous show-within-a-show concludes! In this longread project, we worked our way through Neil Gaiman's signature graphic novel series THE SANDMAN. Some Patreon supporters got these episodes monthly, but every two months we combined them for general consumption. If you haven't heard, our current longread project is Emily Wilson's translation o…