Overdue

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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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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'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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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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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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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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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.

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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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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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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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