Overdue (Headgum)

Welcome to our newest show-within-a-show! We're working our way through Neil Gaiman's signature graphic novel series THE SANDMAN. Some Patreon supporters get these episodes monthly, but every two months we'll combine them for general consumption.

In Episode 5: A GAME OF YOU, the story is about Barbie, her fantastical dreams, Barbie's friend Wanda, their neighbors Hazel and Foxglove, a vengeful witch named Thessaly, an authoritarian cuckoo bird, and MARTIN FLIPPING TENBONES. 

In Episode 6: FABLES AND REFLECTIONS, Gaiman penned another set of one-off stories. Some are fables, others are reflections. Tune in to find out which is which! 

Find out more about how to get these episodes monthly at patreon.com/overduepod.

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Tell me about a Complicated Man. Mishima's breakthrough coming-of-age novel about sexuality in late Imperial Japan has a powerful narrative voice and prose style. But the legacy of his work and his political goals has led to him being a bit of an "enigma" (as one listener referred to him) -- to put it lightly.

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This week’s book tackles aging and writing and the author’s determination to write a book about a gay character who is allowed to experience joy. These are all themes that hit us where we live as we trundle into early middle age ourselves.

Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis.

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This contemporary Victorian story is chockablock with twists and turns, backstabs and broadsides, as well as Dickensian pornfiends. It also features a steamy lesbian romance between two women desperate to escape their own circumstances. We dive into what makes Fingersmith memorable, as well as where its structure overstays its welcome.

Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis.

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We close out Spooktober with a cornucopia of spooky stories from a state we both have a relationship to. Join us for a conversation about ghostly grandpas, paranormal presidents, and spectral students.

For more on our bonus episodes, head to patreon.com/overduepod.

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Super-dense fantasy isn't everyone's cup of tea, and even people who enjoy that kind of tea can sometimes find individual cups of tea that aren't to their taste. Still, any book with lion and bird people in it can't be all bad.

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.

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Yaa Gyasi's debut novel tracks the lasting impacts of the slave trade across multiple generations and continents, through the eyes of two half-sisters and their descendants. 

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What do lawyers, airports, and thrillers have in common? They're all relevant to John Grisham's breakout novel The Firm! A Stepford-y secret, high-end copy machines, brilliant young law school grads -- this book has it all.

Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis.

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This week's book observes society from the outside, asking occasionally uncomfortable questions about what it means to "progress" and to "fit in" and who gets to decide whether a person is doing those things.

Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis.

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What if you got playing cards in the mail? Playing cards that told you to help random people in your community? Would you do it? Could you do it? What does "helping" mean? And who is even sending these cards?? We answer MOST of these questions as we discuss Markus Zusak's The Messenger (aka I Am the Messenger).

This episode is sponsored by Microdose Gummies. To learn more about microdosing THC go to Microdose.com and use code Overdue.

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This award-winning novel by a real writer's writer has elicited a broad range of responses, with some folks praising the prose and structure and others bouncing off its characters and style. But maybe that range of reactions was inevitable given the way Trust Exercise explores the slipperiness of memory and narrative.

Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis.

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The thrilling conclusion to the Millennium trilogy, The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest continues most of the plot threads introduced in the previous book. If you thought that The Girl Who Played With Fire was lacking in secondary and tertiary characters, boy have we got good news for you! 

Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis.

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Is The Winter's Tale a tragicomedy? A dramedy? A romance? A problem play? Who knows! But we can say for certain it's a play about a king who gets jealous and makes bad decisions. Also a bear eats someone.

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We return to the Dragon Tattoo-niverse this week to discuss the second book of the Millennium trilogy, and to talk about each of the three dozen-or-so named characters tucked inside this book. 

Need a refresher on Lisbeth and Mikke? Listen to our 500th episode on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis.

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Look out the window. Do you see a love triangle? Characters that embody turn-of-the-century tensions? Or do you see a boring courtyard? Best ask for a new room, perhaps one with a view.

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What if the kids who fell into that wardrobe in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe all came back to the real world and needed extensive therapy to deal with the things they had seen and done? Welcome to Every Heart a Doorway, where a strong central conceit helps cover for a somewhat rushed mystery narrative.

Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis.

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We've talked about National Treasure Beverly Cleary on the show before, but we haven't spent time with her most indelible character, one Ramona Quimby. Recorded on the eve of Craig's new-dadhood, we're joined by TV critic and parenting expert Kathryn VanArendonk to discuss yard apes, sick days, and how differently the book hits from the other side of the parent/kid divide.

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Dear diary: Today we talked to our friend Natasha from the UNSpoiled podcast about a high-school-aged vampire novel with a popular screen adaptation. No, it's not Twilight. 

The UNSpoiled! podcast: https://www.unspoiledpodcast.com/
UNSpoiled! on Twitter: https://twitter.com/unspoiledshow

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Your best friend passes away unexpectedly. Via witchcraft, you bring them back to life unexpectedly. Two of your ALSO-dead casual acquaintances/frenemies ADDITIONALLY come back to life unexpectedly. And the person that caused all these deaths is the least expected thing of all.

Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis.

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Flog the jib and shiver me timbers, it's time to set sail with the first of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels Master and Commander. It's equal parts ship jargon, ship action, and shipmen (aka sailors) pondering themes of isolation and authority. Plus, we get to the bottom of who exactly is the master and who is the commander.

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Natasha from the Unspoiled podcast joins us this week to hatch a podcast about Eragon, a book that borrows freely from every other fantasy/sci-fi story that existed as of its creation in the early 2000s. 

Find more from Unspoiled here!

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YOU: An intrepid spaceboy, graduating at the top of your class at Space Academy.

YOUR MISSION: Find and destroy the evil space vampire at any cost!

Our fourth Choose Your Own Adventure outing takes us into deep space and beyond—join us as we hijack advanced spacecraft, evade arrest, and drift through the vast inky void of space. Will we catch that nefarious SPACE VAMPIRE? There's only one way to find out!

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Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse is a modernist classic. Rich in lyrical prose and unrelenting streams of conciousness, Lighthouse set a standard for peering into characters' heads and hearts and relaying the contents back to the reader. It also closely mirrors portions of Woolf's life - particularly her summers in St. Ives and the devastating loss of her mother at a young age. Discussion points this week include bag shoes, second helpings of soup, and the difficulties of conveying via podcast this book's lasting appeal. 

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Enjoy the FINAL EPISODE of our latest show-within-a-show! We read Edith Grossman's translation of Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes a few chapters at a time. Some Patreon supporters got these episodes monthly, but every two months we combined them for general consumption.

These episodes cover Chapters 48-74 of Part Two aka The End of the Story.

In Episode 13, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza bid goodbye to the Duke and Duchess of Prankdom...for now.

In Episode 14, we bid goodbye to Don Quixote and Sancho. And we learn just how mad Cervantes was about that unofficial Quixote sequel.

Next up: GOOSEBUMS, a Goosebumps miniseries!

Find out how to get these longreads episodes monthly at patreon.com/overduepod.

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This week, Glory Edim of Well-Read Black Girl fame joins us to talk about Deesha Philyaw's inaugural short story collection. We also chat with Glory about her work with WRBG and some of her favorite interviews.

You can find more from Glory and Well-Read Black Girl at their website or on their podcast. 

Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis.

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What book could possible be more overdue for a read than Beowulf, one of the oldest extant works of Anglo-Saxon literature?

Join us as we revel in Beowulf's heroic deeds, discuss the finer points of oral tradition, and wonder just who infused this Old English tale with a triple-shot of Christianity.

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It's time to go back to school, where professional scientists Melody and Erin from the Heaving Bosoms podcast can help us talk about Ali Hazelwood's The Love Hypothesis. This STEAMy romantic comedy is one heck of a romp, and we have a heck of a time recounting it.

Caveat lictor: This episode is marked explicit because this book includes adult material!

You can find more from our new friends at the Heaving Bosoms podcast here.

Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis.

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This week: a non-fiction book that sometimes reads a lot like fiction, The Orchid Thief is only a little about the titular thief and a LOT about Florida and its history and its denizens. Plus, "orchidelirium," the part of the 19th century where the English aristocracy would just go wild for these bad boys.

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We're sharing a special preview of the new podcast, Well-Read Black Girl from Pushkin Industries.

Well-Read Black Girl is the literary kickback you never knew you needed. Glory Edim, author and founder of the Well-Read Black Girl community, sits in deep, honest and close conversation with authors like Tarana Burke, Anita Hill, Gabrielle Union, Elizabeth Acevedo and more. You’ll also meet book club members, literacy advocates, and Black booksellers to hear what they’re reading and what it means to be well-read.

In this preview, Glory talks with Korean American author and teacher Min Jin Lee. Min talks about how reading can radicalize young people — in a good way — and how, through storytelling, we can approach a "new reality” by creating a version of the world we want to see.

You can listen to Well-Read Black Girl at https://link.chtbl.com/wrbgoverdue.

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It's time to talk about expectant fatherhood. But whose? You'll have to listen to find out!

For our previous discussion of pending parenthood, tune into Ep 347 - What to Expect When You're Expecting

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To celebrate this year's Children's Book Week, we decided to discuss the work of children's author and illustrator Sandra Boynton, whose board books we both have and which are well known for their fun illustrations and whimsical poetry. Since they're each pretty short we decided to talk about a bunch of them, including:

1. Doggies
2. Dinosaur Dance!
3. Barnyard Dance!
4. Pajama Time!
5. Blue Hat, Green Hat
6. Moo, Baa, La La La!
7. The Going to Bed Book

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.

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One of Edith Wharton's few stories set outside the realm of the American upper class, Ethan Frome is a story about a Massachusetts farmer trying to live out his heart-dreams.

Join us for a discussion of his totally-not-okay heart dreams, Andrew's cat Newman, ghosts, makeup, Seinfeld, and pickle dishes.

(That list makes it sound like we didn't talk about the book, but we totally did. We promise.)

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You've crash-landed on the mysterious Planet of the Dragons, and suddenly you find yourself drafted into another culture's war by the very first sentient being you run into. Oh well! Guess you have nothing better to do! It's a classic Choose Your Own Adventure setup.

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Who wants to celebrate April with some modernist poetry??? This month, we allude to many of the allusions in T.S. Eliot's landmark poem.

Thank you to the Patreon supporters who joined us as we navigated this tricksy poem. Find out how to join us for bonus recordings at patreon.com/overduepod.

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Bring on the battalion of Dad Books! Cornwell started writing the Richard Sharpe novels because he wanted something like Horatio Hornblower on land. Well, we haven't read any Hornblower yet but we can attest that this book sure is about a British rifleman fighting in the army during the Napoleonic Wars!

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Imagine a version of the spaceship from Wall-E, but with racial and class divisions that mirror those in our own society. That's a (dramatically oversimplified) one-line summary of what's going on in this week's book.

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.

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Heidi, Heidi, Heidi! Everyone's talking about this adorable ragamuffin, a precocious child who lights up every life she touches like a ray of God's perfect sunshine. This week we learn that living in a hut in the Swiss Alps is better than living in a city, and that if you roast a piece of cheese just right it sounds like the best food you could ever eat. 

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.

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Wilde's fairy tales probably aren't the best-known of his works, but that doesn't mean they don't get a little Wilde-y. Just don't expect many happily-ever-afters.

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Would a rose by any other name smell as sweet? If you're a wizard of Earthsea, you can make it smell however you want if you know it's TRUE name. LeGuin's beloved fantasy novel is notable for how it plays both against and into common fantasy tropes, delivering a proper hero's journey without the same Sturm und Drang we've come to expect in the genre.

ANNOUNCEMENT: Join us for our 600th episode recording at bit.ly/overdue600. We're talking PERCY JACKSON!

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.

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Eight stories. Eight women (and plenty more). Eight experiments in genre and form that each explore modern horrors. Carmen Maria Machado's debut short story collection is filled with weird fiction and intimate nightmares, making it a fitting entry for Spooktober 2021.

Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis.

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Sandra Cisneros' first novel is a collection of rapid-fire vignettes about childhood and friendship and race and America. We also check in with the darker side of our recurring guest host, the Iowa Writers Workshop.

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The "cold" in this classic spy novel is a metaphor, but it's still a chilling book for a chilly season! If you like double-, triple-, and possible quadruple-crossings and hate happy endings, this is a book that you'll want to bring in from the cold. 

Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis.

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.

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For our fourth Do Overdue episode, we revisit our first trip to Austenland and Jane Austen's final novel, a book Craig liked but didn't fully grok ten years ago.

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For the Big 500, we go to Sweden to solve a murder and also some financial crimes. And much like The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, we also go on at some length about the specs of classic Macintosh computers.

Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis.

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It's time to meet the Queen of Suspense! To kick off her reign, Mary Higgins Clark spins a tale about a wrongfully accused women trying to reinvent herself -- only to be nearly caught by the monster she thought she'd left behind. It's more thrilling than mysterious, so it shouldn't be a surprise that we DO get an answer to the novel's titular question.

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A run-down mansion decades past its former glory, a headstrong heroine, a creepy family, and mushrooms all come together to form a perfect, spooky storm in this week's episode.

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Margaret Edson's rewarding play Wit (sometimes spelled W;t) is not light, boulevard comedy fare. Inspired by Edson's time in a Washington, D.C. research hospital, the play tackles death from a number of angles including cancer treatments and 17th-century poetry. But what makes it such an enduring entry into the modern canon is how Edson handles these subjects with surprising humor and, well, wit. (Sorry.) 

Discussion points include legacy, favorite teachers from our childhood, and what we lose as we fight to stay alive.

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"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, Mary Shelley's original Frankenstein has endured. So much so that it almost seems old hat to correct people for thinking that lumbering monstrosities in big heavy boots are called Frankensteins.

Turns out there's still plenty to learn from Shelley's Modern Prometheus. On this week's episode, we discuss the finer points of creature creation, bum out over Nature vs. Nurture, and answer some of your questions. 

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WE FIND OURSELVES SHOOK BY THIS ROLLICKING RATTLING RIDE ALONG THE RAILS OF THE GHOST TRAIN.

This bonus episode was part of our Do Overdue 10th Anniversary Spectacular, in which we revisited books from earlier in the run of our show. It was also recorded with a live Patreon supporter audience online. 

Find out how to join us for future bonus episodes at patreon.com/overduepod. 

Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis.

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Welcome back, cats and kittens! We have another MEW episode for you to listen to right MEOW! 

The Cat Who Saved Books is a book about books for book lovers. It does have a talking cat in it, and the cat kind-of-sort-of sets events in motion that leads to the saving of books. But "The Teenager Who Saved Books, And Also A Cat Was There Sometimes" is not as good a title. 

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Enjoy another episode of our spookiest show-within-a-show yet! In case you can't tell by the name, we're reading a selection of eight spooktacular books from R.L. Stine's Goosebumps series. Some Patreon supporters get these episodes monthly, but every two months we'll combine them for general consumption.

Ep 3 - MONSTER BLOOD
If you're like the kid in Monster Blood, you, too have been horrified by the prospect of needing to find progressively bigger containers for a slowly growing puddle of goop.

Ep 4 - SAY CHEESE AND DIE - AGAIN!
An evil camera with some sick splat stats returns to trouble some teens! Can our hero overcome his hubris or will he be doomed by his desire for revenge on his teacher?

Find out more about how to get these episodes monthly at patreon.com/overduepod.

Also, here's the full GOOSEBUMS reading list:

Welcome to Dead House

Stay Out of the Basement

Monster Blood

Say Cheese and Die - Again!

Night of the Living Dummy

The Haunted Mask

A Night in Terror Tower

Egg Monsters from Mars

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Did you pay attention in ninth grade English? Craig did, sort of. This week he reads – or rereads, he’s not sure – John Steinbeck’s classic tale of Depression-era migrant workers. Topics of conversation include foreshadowing, hoosegows, and male camaraderie. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What makes a good ghost story? If you said creepy children, gothic architecture, and unreliable narrators, then Henry James has you covered The Turn of the Screw. 

This week Andrew mangles words, Craig gets lost in James' Victorian prose, and the two solve the mystery surrounding the ghosts of Bly.

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Most people familiar with C.S. Lewis' work will have come to him via the Chronicles of Narnia, a series of fantasy books that's defined for better or worse by its heavy-handed Biblical allegory.

Till We Have Faces, Lewis' last novel, certainly deals with some of the same themes. But it's also a retelling of the classic Cupid and Psyche myth that originally appeared in Apuleius' The Golden Ass in the late 2nd century. 

Join us as we talk about the myth retold, Lewis' Christian roots, and what happens when Heaven and Hell host the Olympics. 

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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 our 20th episode, we did both read the book this week, mixing up our usual format a bit.

What follows is a discussion on the duality of man, abridged books, and that thing that happens when stories like this gloss over scientific explanations so as to avoid boring the audience.

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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 show, so if you have the movie next in your Netflix queue or something you may want to hold off. 

That said, if you don't care about spoilers, join us for a lively discussion of the current heat wave, swearing, religion, and tigers in boats! 

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What is Antony and Cleopatra ? Tragedy? Romance? History? Comedy ? The conventional wisdom is to pick tragedy, but this messy entry in the later chapters of Shakespeare's canon dances between the Bard's genres like a "high-coloured" Lepidus.

This week we struggle with Shakespeare's portrayal of the titular heroine, get lost in the play's globe-trotting plot, and - for good measure - debate the finer points of Sister, Sister.

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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. Breakfast is a melange of narrative, sketches, and character sketches - and Andrew totally dug it. 

This week we discuss current events (specifically royal babies), Vonnegut's voice, and the benefits of self-insertion. 

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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 myth. The book deals with monsters and the nature of good and evil, much like Frankenstein or Jekyll and Hyde. The book is all about the roles we play and the ways we try to impose order on chaos, much like Breakfast of Champions. 

Anyway, this one's apparently for those of you who have been listening to us since the early days. Thanks for that.

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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 Charlie Gordon is transformed into a genius basically overnight, but his emotional growth can't quite keep pace with his intellectual growth. It doesn't help matters that his transformation ultimately proves to be temporary.

It's a deeply moving story, but it's not uplifting. Everyone just try to be happy, OK?

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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!

Join us for a lively discussion about Jane Austen's last novel - a charming tale of love and marriage as well as a subversive satire of the system that encompasses both. (We also talk about historical fiction, bad days, and cool pizza.)

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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! Eggers' tale of two young men who travel around the world and give away $32,000 may have resonated with reviewers, but Andrew had trouble getting into it.

What follows is a discussion less about the book's plotting and themes, and more about Andrew's reaction to the book and just what he didn't enjoy about it (and why). Apologies for the audio quality on this one; it was recorded in Andrew's now-former apartment, and echoes abound though we have tried our best to minimize them.

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Ray Bradbury once described his first novel, The Martian Chronicles, as a collection of short stories "pretending to be a novel." In fact, many of the Martian stories were published individually, and it wasn't until 1950 that Bradbury stitched them all together.

This patchwork storytelling made it hard for us to get a bead on Chronicles . Craig liked it, but we found it hard to discuss why without the benefit of a central character or singular narrative. That said, you can still join us for a lively talk about colonialism, space travel, Fearing the Bomb, and twerking (for some reason).

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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 debate whether Wilde actually meant to say anything with this farcical comedy, but if there's one thing to take away from it it's "stop taking everything so seriously all the time."

We tried to wrap this one up early and then accidentally got into a sort-of-personal talk about the nature of marriage. Enjoy! 

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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 actions that she's driven to commit atrocities only Breaking Bad's willing to put on TV?

What if there's nothing to enjoy? Maybe that's why Euripides received third prize out of three when he submitted Medea to the annual Athenian theater festival in 431 BCE. Join us this week as we debate the tragedy's merits, bumble our Greek vocabulary, and make the obligatory Tyler Perry joke.

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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 Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. A much darker affair than The Importance of Being Earnest, this book is the closest examination of morality in Victorian England that we've read since Jekyll and Hyde. 

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

Join us as we discuss the most recently published book we've read yet. Also: passive aggressive behavior, stories in the second person, and Craig admits to an unhealthy appreciation for Bryan Adams. 

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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 this week! 

Special guest Giaco Furino walks Andrew and Craig through the apocalyptic (and then post-apocalyptic), Lord of the Rings-inspired, vaguely supernatural "complete and uncut edition" of the book, which the author himself describes as "boss."

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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 School. Stark interviews artists, writers, and entrepreneurs of various stripes who all have one thing in common: they've found success despite not having the credentials conferred by traditional educational institutions. What followed was a discussion not just of the book, but of our own personal experiences building careers without graduate degrees. This is a fascinating topic, and if you have any of your own stories to share we'd love to include them in future shows. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hell is sheeple, hot cocoa, interventions, mannequins, French pronunciations, and gin. 

Also, hell is other people. Or so wrote Jean-Paul Sartre in his famous existentialist drama No Exit. 

Join us this week as we travel to Hell to figure out what, exactly, the hell Sartre meant when he penned that infamous quote.

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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 all dropped down on an island by a repressive government and forced to kill each other, and you need to do it now.

That's why special guest Suzannah Rosenberg joins Andrew and Craig this week for a discussion of Koushun Takami's Battle Royale. Join us for a discussion of romance, violence, birthdays, and cat whispering.

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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 of novels - or so Craig tries to convince Andrew. Beckett, a Nobel Laureate, is likely best known for Waiting for Godot, a play in which "nothing happens, twice." It stormed the theatre scene in Paris, London, and New York in the 1950s, inspiring a generation of theatregoers and angering countless more. Listen this week to find out which play angered Andrew the most. Join us also for a discussion of Twitter followers, movie previews, and cricketing.  

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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 College (their alma mater). They've both had him in class, and Kenyon College looms particularly large in many of Kluge's works.The book itself is part whodunit mystery, part love letter to New Jersey, and part tale of youth gone by. Join us for a discussion of all those things, plus more extensive chatter than usual about the author and his writing style. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In 1893, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "killed" Sherlock Holmes. Eight years later, the popular detective returned in The Hound of the Baskervilles, much to the delight of Doyle's mother.

Why was Doyle unable to abandon his creation? Why have the zany detective and his Everyman sidekick Watson endured for over a century? Maybe we'll answer those questions. At the very least, we'll talk about how nerds have kept the crime-fighting duo alive for new generations to enjoy in print and onscreen.

In this week's episode, we'll also discuss the adventures of Sir Arthur "Iggy" Conan Doyle, Professor Challenge, nerd rage, and (last but not least) hellhounds.

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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 in the case of JD Salinger—the stories that sprang up around the reclusive author threaten to overshadow many of the stories he actually wrote. It doesn't help that he stopped publishing new work 45 years before his death in 2010.

Having already read Catcher in the Rye, Andrew this week moved on to Franny and Zooey, a pair of related stories about Salinger's fictitious Glass family. Join us for a discussion of the relationship between artists and art, pizza, and the first big snow of the winter.

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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 are the options facing Ree Dolly, protagonist of Daniel Woodrell's 2006 novel Winter's Bone. Woodrell's described his Ozark-based work as "country noir" - a term we spend a minute or two attempting to define before launching into our discussion of the novel that was later adapted into an Oscar-nominated film starring Jennifer Lawrence. 

Bear with us as this episode gets started. We clearly needed to talk about Christmas trees, rowdy neighbors, and nine-volt batteries before discussing family and violence in rural America.

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'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 adapted that you know it front-to-back even if you've never come within ten miles of the book itself.

Also on the docket: our holiday plans, a brief aside that compares A Christmas Carol to Bill Murray vehicle Groundhog Day, and our unhealthy relationships with caffeine.

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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 alone. Therefore it's only natural that Craig read a classic tale of bird vs. man antagonism.

The Raven is arguably Edgar Allan Poe's most famous work, so it's fitting we use it as a springboard to talk about all sorts of Poe-related topics such as New Year's resolutions, Poe's Philosophy of Composition, pentameters and octometers, and James Earl Jones' luxurious voice.

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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 Poppins, but all he noticed in this children's tale of whimsy and wonder was the bizarre-and-possibly-damaging stuff. Also on tap: chatting about gambling, babysitters, and more.

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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 novel The Awakening is as close as we'll ever come to understanding the obstacles facing a woman in late 19th-century New Orleans.

Censored in its day for its matter-of-fact portrait of a woman stuck in a stifling marriage, The Awakening remains relevant through its insightful exploration of the pursuit of independence. It's also a perfect opportunity to practice mispronouncing French.

Join us for a discussion of watery metaphors, rakes and mademoiselles, and more than a few late-game television tangents.

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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 fishing in the sea. The title is maybe a little more literal than some other books we've read.

Join us for a discussion of man's place in the circle of life and of Craig's many misfortunes. Just don't come expecting us to talk about the story's religious undertones.

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'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 say?

Conversations about whether or not stories should end romantically or with women declaring their independence, ya say?

Well, 'Guv, I'm all ears. Cheerio! 

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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, the Olympics, and probably a whole bunch of other stuff too.

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What's a granfalloon, you ask? Or a karass? A stuppa? A wampeter? These are all terms from the Bokonon religion, created by Kurt Vonnegut in his 1963 novel Cat's Cradle - a hilarious but depressing satire of scientific and cultural responsibility in the atomic age.

Topics for this week's discussion include Donuts versus Bagels, grading your own work the Vonnegut way, the incredible intimacy of feet, and pissants. That's right. Pissants.

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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! Boy are they sorry!

A warning up front in case you're not familiar: this is a book that is mostly about a BDSM relationship. Our show this week has swearing and pretty graphic descriptions of sex, so keep that in mind while listening.

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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 system and make a whole bunch of money? Would you try to change the course of human history, with sometimes-disastrous results?

Those are the questions raised by Ken Grimwood's sci-fi classic Replay, which Andrew read for the show this week. Tangentially related is a conversation about Andrew and Craig's own time traveling, done thanks to the magic of Daylight Saving Time.

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It's almost baseball season! And what better way to celebrate America's (former) pastime than to document the annual occurrence of Craig forcing Andrew to tolerate his love of baseball?

Extra Innings: More Baseball Between the Numbers is an in-depth, statistics-focused look at today's game from the folks at Baseball Prospectus. It's full of trivia, charts and, thankfully, humorous anecdotes that illuminate the tension between the old-school and stat-wonky approaches to the sport.

Join us as Andrew trolls everything from anti-vaccers to the World Series, and as I try to rise above it all by playing our new favorite game: "Jazz Singer or Baseball Man." 

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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-provoking. The theme is "female authors writing about controversial-at-the-time ideas," and the stories are The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and The Lottery by Shirley Jackson.

One is about a misdiagnosed "hysterical" woman slowly going insane through lack of mental stimulation, one is about a seemingly innocuous small town that is slavishly devoted to its own traditions. Both remain subversive and retain their impact even today.

Oh yeah and we also talk about which grocery store animal mascot would win in a fight.

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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 amnesiac protagonists ever regain this memory? What's the best way to interrogate a suspect?

We try to solve these mysteries and more on this week's episode as we discuss Tana French's award-winning crime novel In the Woods.

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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 familiar, it's a story about a lot of things: the trial of an innocent black man; growing up in small-town Alabama during the Depression; and growing up. It's made all the more interesting by Lee herself, who to date has never written another novel.

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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. It's also full of great zingers about man's duplicitous nature, all written by a guy who loved theater so much he ended up nearly dying onstage in his final performance.

Join us as Richard Wilbur's delightful translation makes us laugh out loud, as we butcher French, Italian, and any other language we can get our hands on, and as Andrew shares his disconcertingly assured plans for Craig's eventual demise. 

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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 growing up. It's about the early stages of the AIDS epidemic in the US. There's a lot going on here, to which we add the requisite discussion about pizza-making, podcasting, and how actors remember all those lines.

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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-apocalyptic don't-call-them-vampires "genre" novel The Passage.

We can't hope to cover every plot point or character in Cronin's 766-page genre epic, but we try to at least touch on a few reasons for its mainstream appeal: rich characters, an unrelenting plot, and lots of sweet jargon.

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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 successes, but it manages to convey why he remains vital over 100 years after his death. It's great for a few laughs, too.

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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?

What if they didn't want to save us?

These are the questions that kick off Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, a classic revered by comic fans for its deconstruction of superhero imagery, its compelling Cold War conspiracies, and its engrossing art and characters. Join us this week as we debate "comic" vs. "graphical novel," gripe about origin stories, and outright spoil the end of Watchmen.** No seriously, we talk about the end of this one explicitly from roughly 50:00 to 1:01:30. As always, caveat lector.

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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 Lorax, and Craig knew nothing about the Places He'll Go. Seuss himself is a fascinating guy, a prolific and long-lived artist who put a lot of good into the world but was by no means perfect. In some ways he's a product of his time, even if his work is timeless. 

Also on tap: old Subway ads, a couple of The Wire references because Craig is finally watching The Wire, and a discussion of the latest rash of Hop on Pop-inspired violence.

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Lois Lowry's The Giver imagines a world without color, without hills, without difference and most importantly without memory. Winner of the 1994 Newberry Award, The Giver shares thematic DNA with classic "Kid Who Is More Special Than Anyone Else Ever" literature like The Hunger Games, Ender's Game, and Harry Potter.

So naturally we take a big old swing at Quidditch. Other targets of our (perhaps misplaced ire) include Nebraska, bachelor weekends, and dreams.

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William Shakespeare's reputation is basically secure at this point. He was hugely influential, his works are widely studied, and although he's over 400 years old he remains a part of the liberal arts canon to this day. That doesn't necessarily mean that his works are easy to parse. This week, we stumble a bit through the epic tragedy King Lear, a play that has all the hallmarks of a Shakespearian tragedy—death, madness, people running around in disguise—but a big cast of characters that isn't easy to keep track of if you're a Shakespeare newbie.

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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, critics and actors who liked to spend lunch cracking wise and practically joking. A celebrated poet, Parker also churned out dozens of short stories, earning herself an O. Henry Short Story Prize for "Big Blonde" which we discuss on today's show. We also cover her biting portrait of newlyweds "Here We Are," the Reading Rainbow Kickstarter, and how babies are not to be trusted with anything.

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

It's a more focused, less-sprawling book than Middlesex, but as in his previous book Eugenides spends a lot of time here talking about growing up with a difficult condition. Intentional or not, there's also some subtle sexism here that we try to walk ourselves through—it's complicated by both authorial intent and the time the book is set (the early 1980s), but it's still a talk worth having in light of recent events.

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