For our last regular show of 2016, we come to Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being and get schooled on the relationship between the writer and reader and the nature of time itself.

We also touch on Christmas gifts from the future-past, good names for blogs, and more.

This week’s show is sponsored by Penn State World Campus, and you can check out our merch store between now and January 31 at overduepodcast.com/store.

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

This week we learn all about the "quick, dirty, and over-the-top" erotic fiction of Alexa Riley - and since Stealing Christmas is holiday-themed, we get into the spirit of the season, too!

Join us for a frank and explicit discussion of mall barons, safe unsafeness, and sexy, sexy sexual intercourse.

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

Show me Zadie Smith's WHITE TEETH! Join us for a discussion about her debut novel that tackles immigration, assimilation, and our collective struggle to control the lives we lead.

We'll also reference Lady Gaga, share some rules for fistfighting (and writing), and discover the sad clown Pa(g)liacci.

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

S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders was written when the author was just 16, which is impressive not just because the book has an atypical amount of empathy and perspective for something written by a teenager, but because the author is especially close to her characters’ circumstances.

Also on tap for this week: sick raps, tales from the McDonald’s drive-thru, and a whole lot more.

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

The History of Love is littered with catchphrases. Bazinga! Time to make the donuts! Not the Mama!

That is to say, our episode on The History of Love is littered with catchphrases. The 2005 novel by Nicole Krauss stars Leo and Alma, whose fates are intertwined by the success of a powerful book. The name of that book? The History of Love. It's a book-within-a-book. Get it?!

We also chat about pen pals, t-shirts, saccharine texts, and the need to be seen.

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

Neil Gaiman started 2013's The Ocean at the End of the Lane as a novella for his wife, who "doesn't really like fantasy." This gives the book a different vibe from some of Gaiman's other work, though any book that features a tattered sentient bedsheet clears the "fantastical" bar for us.

This breezy book deals mostly in Bradbury-esque musings on the nature of childhood and adulthood, and we spend a lot of time on that as well as the Great Page Count Race of 2016 and our new t-shirt empire.

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

No book for this month's bonus episode, gang, and we're also releasing it at the same time for both patrons and everyone else in the interest of being timely.

We were both deeply saddened by the results of last week's United States presidential election, and we've spent most of the last week dissecting our feelings about it and trying to figure out where we go from here. In this episode, we provide some context for our international listeners, attempt to commiserate with those who agree with us and reach out to those who don't, and lay out a path for getting more involved if that's something you want to do.

Thanks for listening, everyone. Your support means the world to us.

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

What does pizza murder have to do with a linguistic virus that dates all the way back to Ancient Sumeria? Find out as we discuss Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash.

Other talking points include Stephenson's "Multiverse," anime, and "pooning." Thanks again to all of our listeners.

It's been a hard week, but you folks are amazing.

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

Magic Bites, the first novel in a longrunning series by wife-and-husband writing team Ilona and Andrew Gordon (known collectively as Ilona Andrews) does throw out some interesting ideas. The relationship between magic and science is neat, and some of the action set pieces work well.

But in other places, unfortunately, it fell flat for Andrew—characterization is often two-dimensional, the magical near-future Atlanta often feels contradictory and hastily drawn, and the prose is just clunky enough to highlight the novel’s problems rather than mask them. We talk about all of this plus voting, how phones work, and the pitfalls of judging an entire body of work by the strength of the debut.

This episode is sponsored by Squarespace.

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

Listener beware, we're choosing the scares! In this, our final Spooktober entry of 2016, we bounce around the pages of R.L. Stine's Give Yourself Goosebumps #6: Beware of the Purple Peanut Butter.

It's time to get the heebies AND the jeebies as we discuss unhelpful childhood nicknames, clash with Bad News Barney and Drippy Dora, and try to survive the sickest Goosebumps reference ever included in a Goosebumps book.

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