Overdue Podcast

My take on Peter Benchley is that the reason Steven Spielberg is a brilliant filmmaker is that I grew up hearing Peter Benchley’s name a lot and thinking he must be a great author of suspense and then I watched every other film and tv miniseries based on his stuff and realized oh wow what the hell

"Jaws was a turning point for great white sharks," says Oliver Crimmen, who's been the fish curator at the Natural History Museum in London for more than 40 years. "I actually saw a big change happen in the public and scientific perception of sharks when Peter Benchley's book Jaws was published.”

two men are sitting on a couch and one has a shirt that says mountain dew Alt: A gif from Stepbrothers; two men sit on a couch with ice packs and one looks off to the side and says, annoyed, "What are you doing? It's Shark Week!"

A peek into Overdue HQ

Ep 714 - Jaws, by Peter Benchley — Overdue 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 Bench...

Ep 714 - Jaws, by Peter Benchley

August 2025 reading schedule: 8.4 - Jaws by Peter Benchley | 8.11 - Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls | 8.18 - An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole | 8.25 - Bad Summer People by Emma Rosenblum

It is August, allegedly

Ep 713 - Bonjour Tristesse, by Françoise Sagan — Overdue 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...

Ep 713 - Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan

So glad you found us! Enjoy the (many episode of the) show!

If we all work together, we can get "Overdue-esque" — something which makes you feel both smart and chuckly without having to do the work yourself — into the popular vernacular.

Franz Kafka T-Shirts for Sale Shop high-quality unique Franz Kafka T-Shirts designed and sold by independent artists. Available in a range of colours and styles for men, women, and everyone.

I Woke Up Like This [bug] is really strong work

Everyone Wants a Piece of Kafka, a Writer Who Refused to Be Claimed (Published 2024)

"Max Brod — close friend, betrayer of Kafka’s last instruction to burn his manuscripts, heavy-handed editor of his diaries and unfinished novels, and author of the first Kafka biography"

Ep 712 - The Trial by Franz Kafka — Overdue 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. Support the show!...

Ep 712 - The Trial, by Franz Kafka

We know we might be wrong.

Heck yeah, we support this

I'll take one shout-out at the end of the episode, thanks lads.

Sit Me Baby One More Time Episode 01 - Kristy's Great Idea (The Baby-Sitters Club #1) — Overdue Our latest show-within-a-show begins! We have convened a club whose charter is to learn about The Baby-Sitters Club. Join us as we meet the Club's founding members and learn about Kristy's mortal enem...

Sit Me Baby One More Time Ep 01 - Kristy's Great Idea

Our next show-within-a-show starts hitting the main feed today!
These episodes posted first for our Patreon supporters. To hear our long-read project episodes early (or hear the rest of Sit Me Baby... right now), visit patreon.com/overduepod.

Horse-Riding Librarians Were the Great Depression's Bookmobiles During the Great Depression, a New Deal program brought books to Kentuckians living in remote areas

"'Libraries' were housed any in facility that would step up, from churches to post offices. Librarians manned these outposts, giving books to carriers who then climbed aboard their mules or horses, panniers loaded with books...They took their job as seriously as mail carriers."

Can't sleep, thinking about her*

*Weird Baby Book Month on Overdue, featuring Everett's 500 IQ Baby, Gailey's Baby with...Something Else...for Eyes, and their tbd literary baby friends.

"Q&A With Sarah Gailey" Book: Upright Women Wanted Photos by Allan Amato   Author: Sarah Gailey Author Bio: "Hugo Award Winner and Bestselling author Sarah Gailey is an internationally published writer of fiction and nonfict...

"Queer people are accustomed to the kind of rugged hardship that characterizes Old West stories. Because Upright Women Wanted deals explicitly with fascism — a social structure that is actively hostile to joy in diversity, a desert of ideals — the Wild West seemed like a doubly good fit."

Ep 711 - Upright Women Wanted, by Sarah Gailey — Overdue 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 wa...

Ep 711 - Upright Women Wanted, by Sarah Gailey

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

An antidote for the Sunday Scaries? The Sunday Sillies:
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A Boy's Own Story is Now a Graphic Novel. Edmund White Has Thoughts. To mark the 40-year anniversary of the classic coming-out novel, Brian Alessandro talked to Edmund White about his bold decision to adapt it.

"I feel lucky to have written the first gay travel book, the first gay sex guide; I wrote the first coming out story, 'A Boy’s Own Story.' So I feel like my fortune was to come along early enough to be able to do the first of each in these genres."

A graphic of the July schedule: 7.7 - A Boy's Own Story by Edmund White 7.14 - Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey 7.21 - The Trial by Franz Kafka 7.28 - Bonjour Tristesse by Franoize Sagan Also: The Sillymarillion Ep 0; Sit Me Baby One More Time, Ep. 1 - Find out more at patreon.com/overduepod

Your summer reading list is here

Edmund White, Pioneer of Gay Literature, Is Dead at 85

"I do feel some degree of guilt...It’s also hard not to feel numb, and the worst thing for a writer is to feel numb. Your natural tendency is to want to forget; but your deepest sense of duty and obligation is to history and to the people you knew and loved.'”

Ep 710 - A Boy’s Own Story, by Edmund White — Overdue The late Edmund White’s breakthrough 1983 novel is the first in a trilogy of autobiographical novels that depict key eras in his life as a gay man. A Boy’s Own Story is, as you might expect, about a...

Ep 710 - A Boy's Own Story by Edmund White

Charlie Brown runs and says "Hey Patty! Guess what I got for Christmas!"

A Mafia Mistress for Christmas (2023)
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Charlie Brown hands a handful of scraps to Lucy and says "Here! Eat this, and don't say a word!"

The Jungle (1904)
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Lucy points out the window and says "It snowed last night, Charlie Brown!"

In the Midst of Winter (2017)
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Snoopy types "weird characters" on top of his doghouse.

The Princess Bride (1973)
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Charlie sits in the night, points at the sky, and says "There! See? That's the moon!"

Orbital (2023)
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Charlie Brown says "You-you-you GIRL, you!!"

Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined (2016)
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