Episode 330 || So You Watched Ted Lasso

Listen in this week as Annie and guest, cousin and Bookshelf Community Manager, Ashley Sherlock discuss all things Ted Lasso.

To purchase the books mentioned in this episode, visit our new website:

Very Sincerely Yours by Kerry Winfrey
Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman (Beartown by Fredrik Backman)
The From-Aways by CJ Hauser
Frankly in Love by David Yoon
New Girl in Little Cove by Damhnait Monaghan
Act Your Age, Eve Brown by Talia Hibbert
The Guncle by Steven Rowley
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engel
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
A Place for Us by Fatima Fahreen Mirza
At Home in Mitford by Jan Karon
The Sweet Life in Paris by David Lebowitz

From the Front Porch is a weekly podcast production of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in South Georgia. You can follow The Bookshelf’s daily happenings on Instagram at @bookshelftville, and all the books from today’s episode can be purchased online through our store website, www.bookshelfthomasville.com.

A full transcript of today’s episode can be found below.

Special thanks to Dylan and his team at Studio D Production for sound and editing and for our theme music, which sets the perfect warm and friendly tone for our Thursday conversations.

This week, Annie is reading Falling by T.J. Newman. Ashley is reading The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller.

Thank you again to this week’s sponsor, Visit Thomasville. Whether you live close by or are passing through, I hope you'll visit beautiful Thomasville, Georgia: www.thomasvillega.com.

If you liked what you heard on today’s episode, tell us by leaving a review on iTunes. Or, if you’re so inclined, support us on Patreon, where you can hear our staff’s weekly New Release Tuesday conversations, read full book reviews in our monthly Shelf Life newsletter, follow along as Hunter and I conquer a classic, and receive free media mail shipping on all your online book orders. Just go to patreon.com/fromthefrontporch.

We’re so grateful for you, and we look forward to meeting back here next week.

episode transcript

Welcome to From the Front Porch, a conversational podcast about books, small business, and life in the South.

“Be curious. Not judgmental.”

- Jason Sudeikis, Ted Lasso

I’m Annie Jones, owner of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in beautiful downtown Thomasville, Georgia, and today, I’m joined by my frequent co-host, The Bookshelf’s community manager, Ashley Sherlock. Together, we’re reflecting on our love for Ted Lasso just in time for the show’s second season, and we’re recommending books we think will help you keep the love alive after the last episode is watched.

Hi Ashley.

Ashley: [00:01:00] Hello.

Annie: [00:01:02] Okay. I'm so excited to talk about this. I've I've had this on the list for a while on the episode idealist for a while, but it finally makes sense because Ted Lasso season two premiers, I think. On the date of this recording, it will premiere the next day or something like that.

Ashley: [00:01:17] Yeah. July 16th. I'm so ready.

Annie: [00:01:20] Okay. So very ready. Um, tell me why you watched Ted Lasso, what you love about it, et cetera.

Ashley: [00:01:31] Okay. So it took me a while to press the play button. Um, not necessarily for any reason, but I had multiple people tell me that this was something that I should be watching. So thought I'd give it a try sports. Aren't really my thing, but heart is my thing. So came came because I was told, stayed for the heart.

Annie: [00:01:54] Nice. Did you just watch it once?

Ashley: [00:01:57] Oh, many times [00:02:00] I've seen it three times.

Annie: [00:02:02] Three, oh my god. Jordan and I loved it so much, but I've only watched it once through. I'm a little scared to rewatch cause I loved it so much, but it's nice to know that it would hold up if I chose to watch it two, nah three times.

Ashley: [00:02:17] Definitely hold up.

Annie: [00:02:20] We watched it last summer. I am pretty pleased that we were early adopters of this one. We got apple TV or apple, whatever they call it apple plus I don't even know. Uh, we got it a while ago, but we hadn't watched a ton of stuff on it and this Ted Lasso came up as like a preview, you know, like it was saying, oh, it's coming soon to apple TV plus or whatever apple plus and I thought, well, that looks fun because Jordan and I do love sports and if you'll recall this time, last year we were being given nothing like the Olympics were canceled. March madness was canceled. I was having a time [00:03:00] and so I was like, I don't care how dumb this looks. We're going to try this show about soccer and instead we watched it faithfully.

I am pretty sure. I feel like they released it week by week. Um, I might be wrong about that, but I think they release it week by week and we watched it and just fell in love with it and you're right. It's totally the heart. It's not just a sports show, although it definitely revolves around soccer. It's also about a man who's a fish out of water. Like he is an American trying to get used to a British game. It's about a group of British soccer players trying to get used to this American coach. Um, and I think the word that I've heard kind of thrown around and certainly the word that I associate with Jason Sudeikis as Ted Lasso is earnest.

Like his earnestness is so refreshing at a time when I feel like snark rains and I love snark. Like I like [00:04:00] sarcasm. I appreciate a well-timed witty remark or critique, but this show is so ernest and is not shy about being earnest. It's not ashamed of just being a feel good show and I really appreciate that. I think that that was kind of missing on the TV landscape.

Ashley: [00:04:20] Yeah, I agree. I think it's kind of the same reason why we like Schitt's Creek a little bit, because like it's funny and there's a little bit of, it's not, it's not hatred, there's no hatred, you know, like there's, there's the villain obviously, but it doesn't glorify sarcasm and meanness.

Annie: [00:04:41] Yeah. You know, that's such a good point. Hunter and I recorded an episode last week about Jane Austen and we were talking about one of the things we really love about Jane Austen is that even her villains are complex and in Ted Lasso, even the characters that maybe you struggle with a little bit, or you're struggling to understand their reasoning, they are [00:05:00] complex thoughtful characters. So nobody is just completely evil or completely good. Like everybody is pretty complicated, which I like.

Ashley: [00:05:06] Yeah, definitely.

Annie: [00:05:08] Okay. So I told you, we were doing like, so you watched Ted Lasso. Now you need to read this. So tell me what your criteria was in looking for. Like what led you to select the books you've selected today?

Ashley: [00:05:21] I think I mostly went for the feel good aspect, um, just things to read that are complex and, you know, have a little bit of real life in them, but at the end of it, you just feel complete, you know what I mean?

Annie: [00:05:39] Yeah, absolutely. I think I also tried to pick feel good books for sure. I tried to look for earnest characters, although that was hard cause I think I am drawn to snarky characters and so it was hard for me to think what is a book I read where the characters are really earnest. Um, and then I also looked for like again, kind [00:06:00] of fish out of water stories, like where a character was thrown into a situation where they didn't quite know what to do.

So, okay. I'm going to start cause I think I have a couple more titles than you. Uh, my first one, which I think you will love is Very Sincerely Yours by Kerry Winfrey. So the reason I pick this one, it is a romcom and Ted Lasso is not really under any definition, a romantic comedy, but the two characters in Very Sincerely Yours are so earnest and so kind and they are people who are trying their hardest to do their best in life and in work. The male protagonist in the story, and many readers may already know this, but he is kind of loosely based on or inspired by Jim Henson and Mr. Rogers and in a way, Ted Lasso kind of gives off Mr. Rogers. And I immediately thought, right and I immediately thought like, [00:07:00] oh, this guy reminds me a lot of Ted Lasso.

Like I could see Ted Lasso running a children's television show, which is what the character in various Very Sincerely Yours does and various sincerely yours deals with like these characters kind of dealing with real life things, but the book never feels too heavy and it never really gets bogged down in the heaviness and Ted Lasso in the series, no spoilers, but he is dealing with his own kind of personal crisis, but the show to me never felt heavy the whole time I watched. Like, it kept kind of this hopeful pace about it and that is certainly the case with a lot of romcoms, but especially Kerry Winfrey's romcoms.

There's like a sense of hold onto hope. Like the good news, like the good news is coming. The happy ending is coming and I just fell in love with the characters. Just like I fell in love with the characters. Ted Lasso, another important thing to note, my favorite romcoms have really vibrant side characters. [00:08:00] Ted Lasso, the show has like a whole team of soccer players, a whole team of coaches that you really fall in love with and Kerry Winfrey, I think does a fantastic job of writing really well-developed interesting side characters. Sometimes even they become the main characters and her next book so I really love this one. I read it a few weeks ago and immediately when I was thinking about books for fans of Ted Lasso, I thought of this one, it's Very Sincerely Yours by Kerry Winfrey.

Ashley: [00:08:28] Nice. My first one is Act Your Age, Eve Brown by Talia Hibbert. I can't remember if I recommended this one before. Did you read it?

Annie: [00:08:38] I have not read this one.

Ashley: [00:08:39] Okay. So I picked this one because the main character Eve Brown, she's sweet and charming like Ted, but it's also another fish out of water story. Um, eve is she goes into interview for a chef position at a bed and breakfast, but the boss is, uh, not sweet and charming [00:09:00] um, and she, in the beginning, she kind of just can't get on the right foot with him. Um, she hits him with her car on accident one day. Um, but then she, um, she begins to start helping him at the job. Like I dont know if she had the job officially, but she, she hit this man with her car. So now she trying to pay him back and eventually, you know, he's, I mean, you can't resist a warm, sunny, happy, happy go, lucky attitude. He gets a little bit worn down and yeah, she, she kind of, I don't know. She uses, uses her own positivity to turn things around for other people.

Annie: [00:09:47] Oh, just like Ted. Yeah. Okay. My next one and I thought a lot about, um, this genre that I think one of our customers kind of coined curmudgeon lit because, because the thing [00:10:00] is Ted Lasso, isn't a curmudgeon. So a lot of feel-good literature to me, deals with grouchy people who become not grouchy and so I was a little hesitant to include this one, but it also has a soccer element so I'm including it. So this is Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman. I think we hear people talk about Frederick Backman, a lot, particularly A Man Called Ova or Beartown and I thought about including Beartown, because it really is a book about sports. It's a book about hockey and I loved Beartown, but Beartown is heavy. Like it is dealing with some serious issues of sexual assault and small town politics and honestly it just doesn't have the like light and sunny feeling of Ted Lasso.

So instead I went with Britt-Marie Was Here, which I think is an unsung, uh, book of Frederick Backman's. It is starring or featuring Britt-Marie, who's kind of this older [00:11:00] curmudgeonly woman who, for some reason winds up becoming the soccer coach of this small town and the children wind up, or the kids, students really wind up loving her, but she is very firm and again, just kind of grouchy and grumpy, but she gets one over by the small town and the love they have for her and the love they have for the sport of soccer.

So to me, the town embodies the spirit of Ted Lasso maybe more than Britt Murray does, but the book is very charming, which I think Ted Lasso is a very charming show and again, this is kind of, to me, an unsung title of Frederick Backman's when I hear people talk about their favorites of him, I don't feel like they mentioned this one enough, so I wanted to throw it out here. Great backlist title, dealing again with sports. I love sports adjacent books dealing with soccer, just like Ted Lasso does and it's got this really lovely spirit of community and so does Ted Lasso. So it's Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman.

[00:12:00] Ashley: [00:12:00] Okay. Um, another fish out of water. Um, I guess I should have said when you asked me what my criteria was I really should have just said fish out of water. Um, but is The Guncle and there's not a whole lot that I can say about this that we haven't already said, but that's the most recent, very feel, good fish out of water book that I have read. The uncle who nobody would ever expect to be able to take care of children ends up forming beautiful relationships with these two kids and I think it's, it's really readable, like Ted is rewatchable for sure.

Annie: [00:12:38] Ooh. I do think I don't reread very much, but I do think The Guncle is readable and I wouldn't be shocked if I wind up revisiting it every summer or something. It just is such a summery book too.

Ashley: [00:12:47] Definitely.

Annie: [00:12:48] I really loved that, that book so much and everybody I know who I've recommended it to, or who's picked it up on their own has loved it. Like it is, it feels universally beloved, which I think is really rare in a book and [00:13:00] Ted Lasso, I don't know anybody who's watched it and not liked it.

That's what I was about to say. Universal. Everybody, look, we just need some positivity in our lives.

Ashley: [00:13:08] We do. We really do.

Annie: [00:13:11] Okay, cool. Along the lines of a fish out of water, I wanted to mention a book that I feel like I have talked about many times on this podcast, but it's been a minute, like, since I've mentioned again, and it is The From-Aways by CJ Hauser. So most people know CJ Hauser from either being on this podcast or writing a beautiful essay called "The Crane Wife." she also wrote a book I really loved, I think I selected it as my shelf subscription one month, Family of Origin, but her first book, her debut novel was The From-Aways and it was kind of a quiet book when it released. We did really well with it because CJ had Tallahassee connections. She was at FSU at the time. So she did her book launch at the Bookshelf.

I loved this book and now it's been a while since I read it, I read it because [00:14:00] I want to reread it because CJ was doing her book launch with us, but I really wound up falling in love with it. So the book is about this woman who marries a guy and moves to his small hometown in Maine. So if you like me have trip to Maine planned later this summer, this could be really fun, but she is they begin calling her from away because that's what they call people who aren't from this town originally, who don't necessarily, aren't maybe going to settle down there or make roots there. They're just people who are from away and I thought this was so great about this woman who begins working at a small town newspaper. So you can see why I also loved it for the journalistic aspect of it.

She befriends a woman and they begin kind of digging into this story together. So there are some kind of, there's kind of some heft to this story, but it's all about trying to find your home and trying to become at home and to figure out kind of where you [00:15:00] belong, which I think really that's what Ted Lasso is about. Both for Ted Lasso, the main character, and also for some of the side characters in the book, like they're trying to figure out who they are and where they belong and so are the characters in The From-Aways, plus just like you've got this great British setting in Ted Lasso, you've got this really rich, main setting in The From-Aways. I immediately felt like I needed to take a trip there. I needed to eat lobster ASAP and so I think this book has a really deep sense of place as well.

So it's called The From-Aways by CJ Hauser or if you've read her other books it's quite, or her other book, it's quite a departure. Um, Family of Origin to me is more dark and dysfunctional. Uh, The From-Aways is relatively light. Still got some heft to it, still has some depth to the story, but just a really pleasant feel good read. You would like it.

Ashley: [00:15:48] What was it called again?

Annie: [00:15:49] It's called The From-Aways by CJ Hauser.

Ashley: [00:15:52] Oh, that's right. I remember.

Annie: [00:15:53] You might remember it. Yeah. Yeah, because it is it's. I think it was from around the first, I think it was one of the first book [00:16:00] launches I was able to do at the Bookshelf, which means it was probably around 2014 or so.

Ashley: [00:16:04] Yeah. Write it down. Okay. My next one. Is a little bit different, but I think, uh, after watching Ted Lasso for his, you know, the first, second or third time, it might be time to read or reread A Wrinkle in Time.

Annie: [00:16:20] Um, oh, okay.

Ashley: [00:16:22] Because-

Annie: [00:16:23] I'm intrigued.

Ashley: [00:16:24] Because that's the book he gives to Roy to inspire him in his leadership. Ted Lasso inspires maybe could inspire somebody else, but also Ted, I feel like, kind of has this theme of, um, focusing on the foundation of his soccer team. Um, you know, really instead of just putting a bandaid on something and calling it a day and not really fixing the problem, he's trying to get to the root of it and A Wrinkle in Time is something that probably most of us read in elementary school. I think it was assigned reading for me in the fourth grade. [00:17:00] So I don't know, just kind of getting, getting back to the basics, remembering where you came from and I don't know if I would consider A Wrinkle in Time and inspiring book, but maybe it could inspire you to lead like it might inspire Roy to lead a little better.

Annie: [00:17:15] Oh, I totally forgot about that detail. This is what happens when you watch it three times, you really pick up on those.

Ashley: [00:17:23] Listeners, can't see it, but I'm doing a hair flip that I remembered something that I needed.

Annie: [00:17:29] Oh, that's wonderful. Okay. My next one, when I think a fish out of water stories, I think about immigrant stories. Right? So my next one is the young adult novel, Frankly in Love by David Yoon I adored this book when it came out a couple years ago and David Yoon has since written a couple of other books that you might be interested in, but Frankly in Love is the one that I kind of fell in love with.

Uh, the main character is Frank. He was born and raised in America. His parents of course, kind of want him to [00:18:00] to really hold onto the family's Korean traditions and they like to use his Korean name. They want him to date a Korean girl, but he has a girl, the girl of his dreams is this white girl named Brit and so he is trying to figure out where he belongs in his family's understanding of who he is and then who he really is and so he's kind of battling between kind of the way his parents want him to turn out and they brought him to America, but they also are deeply rooted in their Korean traditions, and then they also want him to be American and he really wants to fit in with the rest of his kind of American counterparts.

While that is kind of going on, Frank turns to a family friend, Joy Song who is in a similar bind. Like she also has parents who want her to maybe do the traditional Korean thing so Frank and Joy wind up developing this close-knit friendship that may turn into [00:19:00] something else you never know, but it's also about Frank dealing with his relationship with his dad so it's not just a love story, although a love story would be perfectly acceptable. There's also lots of things, almost like the book, A Place For Us. Like there's lots, um, that Frank is dealing with in terms of his familial and parental relationships, um, figuring out who he is in their eyes and who he wants to be and how much of himself he wants to share with his parents.

So I love this book and for sure, Frank is a fish out of water, trying to figure out who he is and in that way, very much reminds me of, um, of Ted Lasso because Ted Laddo is an, obviously not a young adult, he's an older guy trying to navigate, but he's trying to navigate a new place in a new town and where he fits in that story. So I think the two are similar.

Ashley: [00:19:49] Okay. So I have another one that's kind of similar to A Wrinkle in Time. Um, but it's Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott.

Annie: [00:19:56] Okay. Interesting.

Ashley: [00:19:58] Similar in my reasoning [00:20:00] for including this in my list, because there's a scene I think is either in the first or the second episode, Coach Beard and Ted are walking home after, after the game that they lost um, and coach Beard says I hate losing and then Ted replies, bird by bird, coach.

Annie: [00:20:19] Oh my gosh. I never even noticed that. I'm going to have to watch. I'm gonna have to watch it.

Ashley: [00:20:26] Stuff like that is what I live for. I like put that in my veins. Um, so he's, he's referencing Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. Um, that's where she, she and her brother were putting off a project about birds until the night before and then I actually, I haven't read this book, but I would like to now, after reading this description. They put off a project until the night before and they're overwhelmed and their dad just sits down with them and tells them, just take it bird by bird, buddy. Bird by bird. You know, and that's, [00:21:00] I mean, kind of like a re like Ted giving Roy A Wrinkle in Time, trying to get to the root of the problem, taking it one step one step at a time.

Annie: [00:21:10] That really is the, I think that's one of the takeaways from Ted Lasso, right? Is that they just took it like one game at a time, one play at a time, one relationship at a time whereas I feel like, I don't know. I don't know that I speak from personal experience, but some of us tend to like bite off a lot at once or do a lot of things at once instead of just taking out one moment at a time. Oh, I love that. What a good recommendation. That's a book I know, I would love that book and I just have not read it yet.

Ashley: [00:21:26] Yeah, same.

Annie: [00:21:26] Okay. Another one that I wanted to talk about that I read recently and loved and for those of you who are PG readers, I think a lot of the books I've recommended today are pretty PG, but this one I know would be, would be right up your alley.

So it is New Girl in Little Cove by Damhnait [00:22:00] Monaghan. This book is so fun. So it was recommended to me by Kate Storehoff, who is now one of the managers at Bookmarks in North Carolina, but she used to work at the Bookshelf and I remember she posted it on her stories, I think, and recommended it to me and I devoured it.

I love it. It is so feel good. It's a paperback original. It is about a young woman who after the death of her father decides to take a teaching job in Newfoundland, Canada. So kind of on the, in a very small town called Little Cove on Newfoundland and I learned so much about Newfoundland and its culture and its language, the way the author, the author used to live in Newfoundland and so the way she writes the dialect of the people is so wonderful. Like I could hear it in my head. It was almost, it almost had like this Irish lilt to it. So I very much felt like I was there. I would hope that the audio book would be a [00:23:00] great experience because I would hope that you could hear that, um, that dialect really come out.

Anyway, this woman has moved here and she's kind of moved there to like escape her problems um, more or less. Like she's trying to process the grief of the death of her dad and she becomes this teacher at this Catholic school. She struggles with her own faith and so doesn't really have a great relationship with the Catholic church and this small town is very Catholic and they go to mass every Sunday and the school is deeply Catholic and so she kind of butts heads with some of the people on the island and in the school and struggles with going to mass and things like that.

There is a slight love story element to this book, but mostly this is about her trying to figure out her place on the side, whether or not, this is a place she wants to really set down roots. She really doesn't in the first part of the book, she does not want to do that. She really just is there to live out a year long or two [00:24:00] year contract and of course, as often happens with these characters who find themselves in these small towns or small communities, there are real hardships and real difficulties there, but she also winds up really loving the island and its people and I just love how this unfolded. Even the, there were a couple of hardships or challenges that she faces while living there and even those were relatively light. Like I never felt dragged down by the story. I was very invested in what was happening to her, but I never felt like. Oh, no, this is going to end badly.

Like it's a book again, much like Kerry Winfrey's right that it ends, or it just constantly is pushing toward and leaning toward hope and I really liked this book. I think it'll give some people Anne of Green Gables vibes, just because of the Canadians but, but to me, it's, it's a very adult story about an adult young woman kind of figuring out yeah again, more of those themes [00:25:00] of home, where you belong and the people on the island. Remind me so much of the people who rally around Ted Lasso and like who eventually, really, he wins them over and she is trying to win people over, but also they're trying to win her over. Like they're trying to win her over to their town and their community and their way of life.

I thought this was such a sweet, lovely, charming book. It's called New Girl in Little Cove by Damhnait Monaghan. I also really liked that she lived in Newfoundland and so she really writes about this place really beautifully.

Ashley: [00:25:16] Nice. That sounds really cute.

Annie: [00:25:17] It's so good. I'm going to give it to mom cause I know she'll really like it, but I think, I really think there are not many people who I don't think wouldn't enjoy it. It's just a really fun, good and a good summer book. Even though my normal rule for summer books is like, I don't want anybody colder than I am. Like I don't want to read a winter book right now because my whole, all my windows in my house are [00:26:00] foggy because, because the air in here is so cold and Newfoundland is obviously quite chilly and the book kind of takes place over a school year so it is very wintry, but I just thought it was super cozy and delightful. Really liked it.

Ashley: [00:26:14] Nice.

Annie: [00:26:15] Okay. I, a couple more that I'm just going to give, like honorable mentions. They're probably books that people have already read, but I wanted to throw them out there. The first is probably pretty obvious. It's At Home in Mitford, The Mitford Books by Jan Karon. The reason I mentioned these is because Mitford is this small town. This priest moves to town and, um, or this priest lives in the town and has to kind of, um, build community among the people in Mitford and I, to me, the earnestness of it, the people in Mitford are just very earnest. I think that's one of the things actually, my mom looks for most in books.

It is kind of this sense of redemption and people who are genuinely trying to be kind. As much as I love snark and sarcasm, my mother [00:27:00] hates it and so um, we were raised in a house that was very wary of sarcasm and stark, which is hilarious given, given the children.

Ashley: [00:27:09] You mean the house I was raised in?

Annie: [00:27:12] Yeah and the house you were raised in, but mom just doesn't have much patience for that and so Mitford is one of her favorite places to be it's one of her favorite books series and I do think it elicits the same spirit as Ted Lasso and then I kept thinking about, um, I thought about David Sedaris a little bit, but again, there was that snark factor.

Ashley: [00:27:30] Yeah.

Annie: [00:27:30] And then I thought about David, really?

Ashley: [00:27:32] Yeah.

Annie: [00:27:33] Like I thought, oh, because he moves to England and um, I thought that could be a good fit but then I thought about David Liebovitz, who also is fairly snarky as I recall, but he wrote a couple books. I really liked about living in Paris and about being an American in Paris and there are just some things. So one of them is called The Sweet Life in Paris. Another one is called L'Appart, I think. I'm sure I'm mispronouncing that French term um, but about him kind of building a home or [00:28:00] making a home in Paris, but there are so many things that Ted Lasso does. One of my favorite lines, he says them so quickly, but like somebody asks him how he takes his tea and he's like, I take it right back to the counter because there's been a mistake and that makes me laugh so much. So there are Barry as lovable as Ted Lasso is, he's also very much an American.

Like very, like a stereotypical kind of in tune with his feelings, hates tea, um, Kind of pushy like I just feel like these books about American expatriates would probably ring true for Ted Lasso fans so I wanted to throw those out there even though they're they're slightly, maybe snarkier than Ted Lasso is I just, that tea line is one of my favorites.

Ashley: [00:28:44] That's good one. I love, I love Ted and his relationship with tea.

Annie: [00:28:48] Yeah. Um, okay. Any final thoughts on Ted Lasso? What are you looking forward to about season two? What do you want? We're coming out of this, I don't know if you realize this, cause I know you're not sports [00:29:00] adjacent, but, um, yesterday as of this recording yesterday, The England lost the grace, you know, the soccer match to Italy and so coming off of a loss. Yeah. So how, what are you looking forward to in season two of Ted Lasso?

Ashley: [00:29:15] First of all, I'm slightly sports adjacent and I played soccer for two years in like 5th or 6th grade so I have terms, I was a halfback. Thank you very much.

Annie: [00:29:32] Like Ashley talking about her softball career.

Ashley: [00:29:36] The running joke. That's fine. Um, no. Okay. So first of all, I don't have any, I, I like to go into things with expectations as you know. Um, so like I haven't, I haven't looked up like any predictions or anything like that. Um, I am just really excited to see what happens with Roy. Um, I am really happy. I [00:30:00] love Roy so much. Um, I don't know. Really, I'm just kind of looking for a continuation of season one. I hope I hope they can keep up all of the the good feelings.

Annie: [00:30:14] Because I feel like when we went into season one, all of us had either no expectations or low expectations and now I feel like truly, again, I don't know anybody who didn't like the show and so now we have really high expectations and so I really hope this show can live up to them. And I'm trying to keep in mind that like, it's a show, like cut them some slack, whatever. Like you, I want to go in without any knowledge, like when I was googling for the quote I wanted to put at the top of the episode, there were some websites that were like, here's what critics are saying about season two and I was like, Nope, I do not want it now. I want to go without knowing anything and I want to just mostly get lost in that world again. Like I really liked the world of Ted Lasso.

Ashley: [00:30:58] Yeah.

Annie: [00:31:00] From the Front Porch is a weekly podcast production of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in South Georgia. You can follow The Bookshelf’s daily happenings on Instagram at @bookshelftville, and all the books from today’s episode can be purchased online through our store website, www.bookshelfthomasville.com.

A full transcript of today’s episode can be found at www.fromthefrontporchpodcast.com.

Special thanks to Dylan and his team at Studio D Production for sound and editing and for our theme music, which sets the perfect warm and friendly tone for our Thursday conversations.

This week, what I'm reading is brought to you by visit Thomasville. One of the things I love most about Thomasville is its walkability and I know it's super hot and humid during the summer so walks don't necessarily sound like such a good idea, but walking saved me during the pandemic I'd strap on my tennis shoes and walk around McEntire park, then tour the old [00:32:00] cemetery.

I walked around cemeteries. It's fine. Totally normal. I'd walk by Thomas Hill high school's baseball field and to the historic Taqwa neighborhood before hitting the bricks on broad street, even right in the heat of summer. I love passing by the old homes and thoughtful architecture, love breathing in fresh air and seeing new details that I might've missed on a previous walk.

If you're planning a trip to Thomasville, make sure you bring your tennis shoes. To find out more about how you can visit Thomasville, go to ThomasvilleGA.com.

This week, I'm reading and listening to Falling by T.J. Newman. Ashley, what are you reading?

Ashley: [00:32:58] I just started The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller.

Annie: [00:33:00] I hope you love it. I hope you love it so much.

Ashley: [00:33:02] So far, so good.

Annie: [00:33:03] Thank you again to our sponsor, Visit Thomasville. Whether you live close by or passing through, I really do believe you would enjoy a visit to beautiful Thomasville Georgia.

We’re so grateful for you, and we look forward to meeting back here next week.

episodes, special guestAnnie JonesJuly 22, 2021