What's scarier than an authoritative government that censors and corrupts its artists? The literal devil! This week we're talking about The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, a seminal work in the 20th-century Russian canon and an exploration of just how weird stuff needs to get for the devil to introduce you to Pontius Pilate.

Spooky talking points include witch cream, vices, and Joseph Stalin's Haunted House.

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Welcome to Spooktober 2018! Our first book this year is Carrie, Stephen King’s first published novel. Even if you know what happens—and you have probably at least encountered the pigs-blood-prom-night thing through cultural osmosis at this point—the way King builds to and follows that iconic scene keeps this book plenty spooky.

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After reading a whole bunch of books, we’ve finally gotten to the odyssey part of the Odyssey! Giants, dead people, sort-of-goddesses—these books have it all.

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Just like Bella can't resist her vampire beau Edward, we couldn't resist returning to Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series. So we sharpened our fangs and grew out our wolfbeards for a lengthy discussion of the second book in the series, New Moon.

We bemoan the dearth of quality humans in Bella's life. We discuss our #TeamJacob leanings despite some concerns about his "Nice Guy" persistence. And we express our frustration with a book that doesn't WANT to be a metaphor for power dynamics despite being about a teenage girl DEALING WITH SUPERNATURAL MONSTER BOYS.

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What can be said about Thomas Pynchon's postmodern classic Gravity's Rainbow? Well, it's nearly a thousand pages long so what CAN'T be said, am I right??

Join us for a slightly longer than normal conversation about sexual antics, post-war war machines, and the difficulty of Difficult Books About Difficult Men.

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Louis L'Amour's The Walking Drum, a historical novel set circa the 12th century in Europe and the Middle East, is less concerned with being an adventure story and more concerned with telling the reader about worlds that are different from their own. Mathurin Kerbouchard isn't always the most complex character, but the things he learns, the places he goes, and the people he meets all come together to form a novel that evokes American Westerns but is set far away from the American West.

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How far would YOU go for your kids? asks Craig DiLouie in Suffer the Children. Would you listen to a whole podcast about KIDS WHO EAT BLOOD?!

This episode was recorded live over the Internet with some of our Patreon supporters in the audience. Find out more about our Patreon project at patreon.com/overduepod.

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Johnny Tremain is sort of Revolutionary War fan-fiction and sort of World War II propaganda, but it nevertheless remains a part of the canon because it shows us a side of these characters that most elementary school history books exclude. Natasha from the Unspoiled podcast joins us for a journey through this occasionally extremely violent childhood classic.

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If you want to relive the 2008 financial crisis, this is the book for you! Behold the Dreamers is the story of the crash through the eyes of immigrants who work for bankers, but Imbolo Mbue resists making any individual character into a hero or villain. That might not always be satisfying, but it makes for a more nuanced story.

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NOTE: This episode does contain explicit language.

Welcome back to our good friends Margaret and Sophie! They're here to tell you all about Erich Segal's classic tearjerker Love Story. Get ready to hear about tears, jerks, and unfortunate fate of the original cool girl.

Other talking points include: saying you're sorry, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and preposterous privilege.

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