How does one construct an identity? And what must you sacrifice to forge one all your own (and who is most impacted by your choices)? Bennett's acclaimed novel The Vanishing Half meditates on these questions and more in a story about passing, sister/motherhood, and acting.

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This book's heavier social commentary is... leavened? Heightened? By being juxtaposed with some borderline-goofy corpse-hiding heist stuff. We think it works! Not all reviewers of the book agree.

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Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer-winning novel The Nickel Boys tells a haunting story of two young men whose identities are forever changed by their experiences at a brutal institute for boys in 1960s Florida. It's not easy subject matter, but Whitehead's wonderfully economic prose keeps it engaging all the way to the downright surprising end.

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.

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Sometimes you read a book that you heard about in high school, something that was taught as a sort of historical document that helped to explain why things are the way they are today. But sometimes it turns out that the book is actually about a whole lot of other stuff too! Including lots of (apparently) live debates about politics and food safety! It's a tough book to read right now, but it's an important time to remember where we've been.

Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis.

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Over 100 tales of trauma, inspiration, and a vague sense that Positive Thinking may not be all it's cracked up to be! This collection (and its surrounding media empire) can be heartwarming, but nothing quite as heartwarming as a sodium-rich can of condensed chicken soup with noodles.

This episode is sponsored by Squarespace. Go to squarespace.com/overdue for 10% of your first purchase of a website or domain.

This episode is also brought to you in part by MasterClass.

Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis.

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A prime example of the "healing fiction" genre, Before The Coffee Gets Cold has uncharacteristically low stakes for a time travel novel: no future of humanity to save, no butterfly effects, no risk of destroying the present by altering the past. It's more concerned with simpler questions: if you had just a little more information about things that happened in the past, how much would it change the things you do in the present?

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Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis.

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New year, new podcast ideas! Time for a few announcements that won't fit into a regular episode.

In this special edition podcast update, we share some tweaks to our Patreon project. This includes the new Dusty Bookshelves newsletter, monthly Q&A streams, and more! Also, we'd like to thank you all for listening and for supporting the show.

For more info on the Patreon and how to get bonus episodes early, head to patreon.com/overduepod

Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis.

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In this award-winning novella, T. Kingfisher asks, "What if you DIDN'T want to wake Sleeping Beauty?" The protagonist Toadling is most certainly not the princess in question. She is, however, an "interesting, but sad" fae creature who tells her tale with a moving mix of warmth and tragedy.

Complete our listener survey at gum.fm/overdue.

This episode is sponsored by Squarespace. Go to squarespace.com/overdue for 10% of your first purchase of a website or domain.

This episode is also brought to you in part by MasterClass.

Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis.

Follow @overduepod on Instagram and Bluesky

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See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.