Episode 331 || July Reading Recap
In this week’s episode, Annie recaps her July reads.
To purchase the books mentioned in this episode, visit our new website:
Very Sincerely Yours by Kerry Winfrey
Rock the Boat by Beck Dorey-Stein
Survive the Night by Riley Sager
New Girl in Little Cove by Damhnait Monoghan
You Have a Match by Emma Lord
Falling by T.J. Newman
Millennial Nuns by the Daughters of Saint Paul
My Monticello by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson
Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang
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 Tacky: Love Letters to the Worst Culture We Have to Offer by Rax King.
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.
“It was in moments like this that Ma Ma’s eyes filled with an inscrutable gaze, one of joy and sadness, love and despair all at once. Only looking back at the scene through an adult lens do I see in the cracks of her face the sweet pain Ma Ma must have felt in those moments. Gratitude for the little she had. Heartbreak in needing it. Confusion over what our lives had become.”
- Qian Julie Wang, Beautiful Country
I’m Annie Jones, owner of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in beautiful downtown Thomasville, Georgia, and today, I’m recapping the books I read in July. It is to me, very hard to believe that we are already approaching the hardest month of the summer, for me personally. It's just hard to believe that August is right around the corner. We are going to be doing some changes to the store's point of sale system, to our store website and so there's a lot kind of looming in August, but first we have to recap and look back at July, which was a very full month.
I don't think when I first like plotted out my summer, I really took stock of how much I would be doing and what an adjustment it was from last summer and what we were all doing last summer and so I was worried, my reading kind of got put on the back burner this month, but instead when I looked, I realized I'd read quite a few books. I just wound up kind of spacing them out a little bit. I was on the road for market and for other various travels and so it was a weird [00:02:00] reading month for me, but when I look back, it's really not that bad. Like I, I did better than I thought I did so let that be a lesson to us all, to be a little more gracious with ourselves.
I kicked off the month with a book I had been looking forward to very, very much, but if you've been listening to the podcast, you know, we sold out of our initial stock of this title and so I finally picked it up on our way to Birmingham for a little overnight trip we took and I read it, I think in one or two sittings, kind of in the car on our drive to, and back to and from Birmingham. Very Sincerely Yours by Kerry Winfrey. I adore Kerry Winfrey's adult novels. I've not read her young adult books, but I love her adult novels. They are romcoms with heart and depths. They are sweet and funny and charming and if you're a PG reader, I think these are pretty appropriate for you too. So if you've been hesitant, maybe to do other romance books, I think these might be a good, fun way to see if this [00:03:00] genre might be for you.
In Very Sincerely Yours, which I knew about after interviewing Kerry, I think for an episode of the podcast or for a, um, an event we were doing maybe a virtual event, we did last year, I knew this book was coming. I knew she had been doing a lot of research and was writing this book with this male protagonist who was kind of inspired by Mr. Rogers and Jim Henson and I wasn't sure how that was all going to come together, but I needn't have doubted. The book is truly lovely and delightful and fills you with all those kinds of warm and fuzzy feelings I think we get, when we think about. Mr. Rogers and the differences he made. So our main character is Teddy. She is a little bit lost, has just suffered from a breakup. She moves out of her boyfriend's home and kind of starts over and so this book is actually a lot about Teddy and Everett.
Everett is our Jim Henson inspired, uh, male protagonist and what I really liked [00:04:00] about this book is that both Teddy and Everett are imperfect people trying to be better. They are trying to figure out who they are, Everett who has his own children's kind of puppeteer show on public television so there's your Mr. Rogers influence, he is realizing he's a little bit of a workaholic and he has put his love life and his relationships just in general, he's put them on the back burner and so he is trying to achieve a better balance I think in his life.
Teddy realizes that she kind of became lost in her previous relationship and is trying to come into her own. She moves in with her two friends, which this is something I love about Kerry Winfrey's books and it's what I like about the best romcoms. You've heard me say it before, but the best romcoms I think have really delightfully funny, fully realized quirky side characters and Kerry Winfrey does a great job of it. In the book, Teddy goes to live with her two friends and their friendship and the friendship of that trio and how they reinvite Teddy into their lives is so lovely [00:05:00] and so sweet and comforting. I loved the descriptions of the home they were creating together. I loved the descriptions of Everett's show, and again, just really liked that these were people that were trying really hard.
So in our episode last week where Ashley and I kind of discussed books inspired by or influenced by Ted Lasso or books that would kind of fill you with the same feelings that the TV show Ted lasso fills you with, Kerry Winfrey's book immediately came to mind. Very Sincerely Yours immediately came to mind because these characters much like the characters in Ted Lasso, are complex. They've got issues. They've got baggage, they've got real things, kind of clinging to them. They are not completely rose colored characters. These are characters with flaws and with what feels like very real lives, but they are trying so hard and their earnestness is something that I love about Ted Lasso and that I love about this book.
So you heard me rave about it last week, but I of course had to mention it here. It was the first book I [00:06:00] finished in July and I truly, truly loved it. It is Very Sincerely Yours by Kerry Winfrey. It's also worth noting and maybe this is superficial me, but it's a little bit longer than Carrie's other books and so I really felt like the characters were given a lot of room to breathe and to grow and so that was a nice plus too.
The next book I picked up was Rock the Boat by Beck Dorey-Stein. This is a book that I'm recommending to people who like Amy Poeppel. Amy Poeppel's book, Musical Chairs is a book that kind of saved my summer last year. I don't recall reading just a ton of books, particularly in the latter part of the summer that I just loved and devoured, but Musical Chairs by Amy Poeppel was one and I think it's because I read it as it released, it wasn't an arc. It wasn't something I was reading for anything else. It was a book I just picked up because I thought I might like it. I really wound up loving it. I think it made my top 10 of 2020 if I'm not mistaken.
So Rock the Boat to me is similar kind of well-written feel good [00:07:00] fiction in the vein of Amy Poeppel or maybe Emma Strobbe or something like that. You might recognize Beck Dorey-Stein from her previous book called From the Corner of the Oval. She was a stenographer in the white house during president Obama's years there and I've heard that book is excellent. I have not read it. It's a memoir. It came highly recommended to me after I posted reviews of this book, which is Beck Dorey-Stein's first novel.
She is a former high school English teacher. So I think the writing is really good. Again, I had not read her previous book, so I didn't quite know what to expect and I knew this would be a departure, right because the other book was a memoir and this is fiction, but I really wound up loving it. It's mostly about a character named Kate, but also her two high school friends, Miles and Ziggy. Maybe this sounds crazy, but it almost reminded me of Dawson's Creek, the latter season, where, especially in those last two episodes, am I geeking out here? I don't know, uh, where the characters kind of come back home to Capeside.
So [00:08:00] Kate has lost her job. She returns back to her hometown on the coast of New Jersey. She is joined there by her friends, Miles and Ziggy, who she really hasn't kept in touch with and they have returned or have been in this hometown as well. So one of them has lived there long-term, the other one is coming back much like Kate is, and they have some ghosts, metaphorical ghosts to tackle. This is not a ghost story, but they have like these metaphorical things in their past that they're kind of uncovering and coming to terms with in their adulthood. I really liked this book and I wound up lending it to my mom because there's a really feel good element to this story where Kate is trying to figure out who she is much like, in fact, I felt like a lot of my books that I read this month were kind of intertwined with one another and I, that was completely accidental but Teddy from Very Sincerely Yours is trying to figure out her life and her passion and what she wants to do. There's a small business element that's really lovely and the same is true for Kate in Rock the Boat.
So Kate is [00:09:00] trying to figure out who she is and what she wants to do after she's lost her job and as she's trying to find a new one. She's also back home when she really had no desire to be back in this hometown in this small town where she was from so there's a lot here that felt familiar as somebody who moved away from her hometown and never really thought she'd live in it or close to it and, and so I really liked that element of the story. I also absolutely fell in love with the setting of this book. So Rock the Boat is set in this small coastal town in New Jersey, and it makes me want to vacation on the coast of New Jersey.
I just really felt like the setting was so beautifully written and so warm and inviting and you guys know, I love a summer book in the middle of summer. I don't really love reading winter books in the middle of summer and so one of the things I really liked about this book was the summer setting and just this coastal piece that I guess I had while reading it. I just really loved these people and I wanted the best for them. As Kate is figuring out who she is [00:10:00] there's this person magic she takes on at her local library. That's the, that's the part that maybe you want to pass it onto my mom. I felt like my mom would really enjoy Kate rediscovering her passions and figuring out who she is and who she wanted to be.
So I love this book. There are so many books that deal with high school friendships and kind of coming back to a hometown and many of them go the thriller, right? Some of them go the comforting, like warm blanket route. This is definitely the latter and for that reason, I really enjoyed this book and it's one, I haven't seen a ton of buzz about which I'm kind of surprised by. I don't know if it's just because it's kind of in that feel good category of literature and sometimes that gets overlooked, but if you liked Very Sincerely Yours, if you like Amy Poeppel, if you like Emma Strobbe, I think you would really enjoy this one. It is called Rock the Boat by Beck Dorey-Stein.
For an utter departure, my husband and I listened to Survive the Night by Riley Sager. This is a book that I wanted to read. I've read all of Riley Sagers books. I'm always hesitant to describe myself as a fan of anything. I just think it's [00:11:00] kind of opposite of my personality to fully fan over something but I do really rely on Riley Sager for these just kind of one sits, overnight reads that I just love because of the ride they take me on and I was really looking forward to this one. So if you are not familiar, Riley Sager writes thriller, horror stories, very much based in suspense and horror tropes, which is why sometimes I can't decide fully where one of his books lives because they deal so much in the land of horror and suspense tropes.
Sometimes it is hard for me to figure out, wait, is this genius like, like, is this genius or is it a little bit cheesy, like a good suspense or horror movie? So the premise of Survive the Night was what really intrigued me. I was always going to read it, but I definitely was looking forward to this one because it's about a character named Charlie. This is set in 1991. So the setting is really fun. Charlie is trying to leave her college campus and go home. [00:12:00] She's experienced some trauma at her college campus and she is taking the rest of the semester off, maybe even taking the rest of her college career off. Maybe her college career is over and she needs a ride and so she grabs a ride with this guy who she soon suspects is a serial killer.
Now, here is what I want to tell you that premise is what was sold to me and it's exactly why I picked up the book. I do not want to spoil anything, but this book did not go the direction I thought it was going to, or that I really was prepared for wanting it to. So I fully thought this was going to be like an overnight because the book really is told hour by hour. So I thought this was going to be a book about Charlie defending herself and surviving the night against a serial killer. The book takes several kinds of twists and turns and so it wasn't exactly what I anticipated, but Jordan and I really did enjoy listening to it.
It was very fun for a road trip to listen to it although it did make rest stops, feel very [00:13:00] precarious in a way I'm not sure I fully endorse or recommend, but the audio book was a really fun listening experience, particularly on a long road trip and Jordan in particular, this is not typically Jordan's genre so it was fun to listen to together and then I did die laughing because Jordan is super smart. If you've met him or had, or you've heard him on the podcast, maybe you could Intuit that, but he's super smart, but he's very slow in picking up plot lines. Like that good TV shows and movies, he is very slow and so it cracked me up that he kind of immediately I think tapped into what Riley Sager was doing even before I did, which is so rare in our marriage and so it was very entertaining to me. Very fun listening experience.
I just like Riley Sager. I think he's pretty reliable. I feel similarly about Grady Hendricks. So I've not read all of Grady Hendricks works. Again, there are times when I can't tell if, if a Riley Sager book I'm reading is [00:14:00] cheesy and just fun and campy, or if it's utter genius because of the way he's tackling with and dealing with tropes but I really did like this one, it's just not the book plot I was really fully expecting and that's okay. Um, but I do want you to know if you like me are kind of sold on this idea of like riding in a car with Ted Bundy overnight, that's not really the book you're getting and so I just want to prepare you for that mentally, because I wish I had been prepared for that mentally so then I could have just enjoyed it for what it was. So that is Survive the Night by Riley Sager. I enjoyed it on audio, Olivia read the physical book. So I think either way, you'd be good to go there.
Okay. Then I picked up another feel-good book, which a lot of the books I read in July really did kind of fall into this category. I think it's honestly a Testament to the state of my brain. I'm having a harder time not that this is a therapy session, but I do feel like I'm having a harder time this summer than last summer and maybe that's wishful thinking and I do as a [00:15:00] personality, my personality tends to look back on the past with rose colored glasses. So I know last summer was really hard and difficult, but my reading life has been a little bit upturned, I think, for the last 16 months and this summer, I have just felt rather ambivalent about a lot of the books I've been picking up and so I think I was drawn to particularly this month kind of feel good fiction, which made me pick up New Girl in Little Cove. This is a book by Damhnait Monoghan.
This was recommended to me by Kate Storehoff. You've heard me talk about Kate many times. She is one of the managers at Bookmarks in North Carolina. She's a former Bookshelf employee and she and I have a pretty good overlap in terms of our Venn diagram of reading tastes and I'm pretty sure she even tagged me in her review of this book so I was anxious to read it. It's got a really, um, is fun, the right word? It's got a really light cover. Like when I think about this book cover, and I think about this book, I just, the burden [00:16:00] immediately removes itself from my shoulders. Like I just looked at this book cover and felt happy. It's it's a, this girl kind of standing on the coast.
This is a book set in 1985 with a character named Rachel. Rachel is a young teacher who has moved to the very outskirts of Newfoundland to teach at this Catholic school and Rachel has her own issues and qualms with the Catholic church, but she's kind of hiding those truths about herself so that she can teach and so that she can take this position. She's recovering, not that you ever recover, she's, she's processing the loss of her dad and is trying to find a place where she can grieve quietly. She and her mother have an interesting relationship and they both are grieving in very different ways and so Rachel has moved to this town to teach at this Catholic school.
I love this book so much. I know a lot of people, I think a lot of people will read this and be reminded of Anne of Green Gables, particularly, Anne in her adult years where she's [00:17:00] teaching at, you know, Canadian school. The same is certainly true of Rachel, although again, this is set in the eighties and Rachel has her own issues with faith and doubt that come to play which of course I loved because I love literature that deals with that in an interesting way. I fell in love with the people and the setting of Newfoundland much like Rock the Boat, which I loved for the New Jersey coast. I absolutely loved New Girl in Little Cove for it's rich setting and as much as I love a summer setting in my summertime reading, I did love this book.
This book is set over a school year and it's set in Newfoundland. So obviously not the steamy temperatures, the steamy temperatures I'm experiencing are not portrayed in New Girl in Little Cove and that was fine with me because I loved the people so much. I could definitely see myself rereading this one. I could see myself reimersing myself in this world. I wouldn't mind if this became a series. I don't think there are any plans for that to be the case, but I certainly wouldn't mind it. I, I [00:18:00] really love this book. It honestly, it reminded me and partly because the way. Damhnait Monoghan wrote the dialect of this particular little city in Newfoundland, this little coastal town in Newfoundland reminded me so much of kind of the Irish lilt and Jordan and I do not necessarily recommend it, but one of the first movies we saw back in the theater earlier this summer was a movie called Finding You.
No idea why Jordan picked it, except at the time there were not many movies playing in the theater and we just so desperately wanted to go see a movie and so we went and saw this one. Again, don't really recommend. Maybe you could rent it at home and it'd be fine. It was a fine movie, but I love the Irish setting and the people and I was very much reminded of that movie, which I'm pretty sure is based on a book. I really felt rather so-so about that movie, but this book to me did it but better and I think it might also [00:19:00] remind folks so it might remind you of Anne. Anne of Green Gables, might remind you of finding you. I think it could also remind you of Jan Karen's Mitford books. I just, if you like the Mitford books, I think you'll really like this one.
It's dealing with slightly heavier things although I think some of the Mitford books actually do deal with some heavier subject matter but mostly it's about a community of people who I think you will absolutely fall in love with. Obviously there's Rachel the main character, but all of the very rich side characters, particularly the woman who she lives with, who she kind of boards with is very fun. There's just a lot to love about this book and it's a thin little paperback. You will fly through it. If you're in a reading slump and you like some of the books I've already mentioned, I think you might want to try this one. It is New Girl in Little Cove by Damhnait Monoghan.
I feel like all of the books I read this month were read in or around other places, meaning I did not do a lot of reading from home this month. I was on the [00:20:00] road a lot more than I really fully anticipated being and so this next book I picked up while in McDonogh, Georgia. I was visiting a friend of mine and McDonogh has a little bookstore on the bricks there on the, on their town square called Stories on the Square and I picked up this young adult book called You Have a Match. This is by Emma Lord. It was a Reese Witherspoon pick for her young adult book club.
Let me tell you why I bought this. I had a stack of books and Hunter, I don't know if Hunter is listening to this, but Hunter, if you're listening, Hunter and I texted back and forth about what book I should buy, because I like to support independent bookstores when I'm traveling but I also have to acknowledge that I own an independent bookstore and therefore do not need to like buy a giant stack of books. So I had this stack of books that I kind of want or was choosing among, and none of them were, You Have a Match by Emma Lord. Like I never sent a picture of this one to hunter and Hunter had great ideas for what I should read, and I was fully [00:21:00] prepared to buy a different book, but then I saw this one on the shelf and I was struck by it's summer time camp setting, but I'm going to read you the part of the blurb that struck me.
So, and this is just a blurb, like I'm sure in the Lord did not write this but whoever wrote this blur well done because it made me pick up this book. The end of the blurb was, but part of life is showing up, leaning in and learning to fit all your awkward pieces together because sometimes the hardest things can also be the best ones. I can't really fully describe to you how that sat with me and how that resonated with me in the moment but I immediately was like, oh, this is the book I need to buy and so I bought this book at Stories on the Square in Maddona, Georgia. Immediately read it. I think I read it while I was at my friend's house and then read it a little bit when I got home and I loved it.
So it is a young adult book. It's not maybe, I felt like I read two really great young adult books [00:22:00] last summer that I really loved. I wouldn't quite put this one on par with those, but I think the premise is really original and creative and very parent trap related. So if you like me are obsessed with parent trap, this, this could be fun for you. So our main character is Abby. She, along with her two dear friends kind of sign up for this DNA test, you know, Ancestry.com or something like that and so they each do it for various reasons and Abby has no real expectation that her results will come back with anything unusual but of course, as is with the case in good literature, something does come back unusual and that is that she has a full sister who she knew nothing about. She had no idea that there was this sister of hers kind of living out in the world.
Not only that, but of course, as with the case in young adult literature, this sister of hers is beautiful and this really famous or semi famous Instagram influencer and next thing you know, both girls [00:23:00] meet through this DNA site and they try to uncover the truths of their sisterhood and their parents and why things were kept secret from them and why they're being raised by different parents and they do it all at this summer camp. So hence the parent trap vibes, very firm and strong here.
There's also a love story that I found pretty secondary, but Abby and her, one of her best friends, Leo, they kind of have been sidestepping each other for years. You know, Tiptoeing around this potential potential romance. I enjoyed that part of the book, but honestly, the real meat of this story is Abby and her and her sister Savyy, and then figuring out who each other is and the truth of who they are and I really liked that part. Again, this wasn't quite my favorite young adult books that I've read in recent memory.
I felt like I read ones that I really loved last summer. I'm thinking of The Names They Gave [00:24:00] Us by Emory Lord, that is also a camp book and Lucky Collar by Emma Mills. Both of those just really stick out to me as young adult books I've truly adored in the last year or so, but I really did like this one and if you're looking for a summer camp setting, and again, if Parent Trap is one of your favorite movies of all time, then I think you'll really enjoy this one for what it is. It is called You Have a Match by Emma Lord.
Next up, I did another audio book. So that's another thing that's really been different about my reading life this summer is I feel like I have been enjoying or at least attempting to enjoy because they're not always my first choice, audio books and I decided to listen to Falling by T.J. Newman. I have said that my audio books need to be eight hours or fewer, and they need to have a really good narrator obviously and they mostly are non-fiction, but I obviously tried some fiction this summer and Falling was recommended to me by [00:25:00] Olivia. She read this book in its physical format and loved it and the way she described it to me, I thought, well, maybe that could be a good audio book.
Something that has also helped my audio book, listening habits is that, Erin, one of our shop employees, she helps run our online sales and you probably have communicated with her perhaps via email. She does a lot of audio book listening and so I'm always anxious to hear what she's been listening to and she has convinced me on a couple of audio books and this was one of them. So Falling by T.J. Newman is a thriller suspense novel about a man named Bill who is a pilot and he is piloting his commercial jet full of people from lax to New York City and pretty much the moment he, you know, the plane takes off, he receives a call and realizes that his family on the ground has been taken hostage and he has two options. He can either crash the plane or his family will die. So those were the options immediately presented him.
[00:26:00] If you are a fan of Harrison Ford action movies of the nineties, hello, this is for you, which is what I've always said about, I think Blake Crouch novels, but I love this book and it reminded me so much of like a really good Harrison Ford thriller, bemay Ben Affleck, but just a really good suspense movie of the eighties or nineties. I love this book. It did not hurt that TJ Newman is a flight attendant and she wrote this book kind of in between and on these flights that she was working and so I think you really get a good picture of the amount of training that a flight attendant goes through. I think this would be a very fun pairing with the books, The Layover, which I read last month.
Now The Layover is, believe me, just a complete romcom situation. This is a very intense thriller suspense book. Again, Olivia read the physical book and loved it. I thought my audio book reading experience is one of the best audio books I've listened to in years, probably since I listened to the book Rabbit Cake, which also [00:27:00] had a fantastic narrator. So this was narrated by Steven Weber. Apparently he is an actor and I think you could definitely tell. This reading definitely felt like a performance. I felt like I was enjoying a show, to be honest with you and there were parts that honestly, I had to look up who the audio book reader was because I thought it was Stanley Tucci. I fully thought that in his spare time, this summer Stanley Tucci decided to narrate this audio book.
That is not the case. It's this man named Steven Weber. Nevertheless, excellent narration. I completely felt like I was on the plane. I listened to this on my way to McDonogh Georgia and back, and just kind of, it was the kind of audio book that I felt like, like when I got home, I hadn't quite finished it so I needed to do things that would require me to finish it. So I listened to it in the morning while I got ready. I listened to it every chance I could so that I could really fully immerse myself in this story. [00:28:00] If you are looking for a suspense novel this summer, I honestly can't think of a better one and I've named other suspense books in this episode, but I think Falling stands above the rest just in terms of a read it in one, sitting utterly get lost in the story. Uh, just for a fun, like again, eighties, nineties throwback is what it felt like to me, like a nineties um, I don't know, airplane book. I just really liked it. It is called Falling by TJ Newman. I loved my audio book listening experience, but I think you could go either way on this one and really enjoy it and appreciate it.
Okay. Total, I'm laughing because I just, I always make this list and then when I start describing things, I'm like, wow, really all over the place, really all over the place this month. Okay. Next up the book, Millennial Nuns by the Daughters of Saint Paul. If you are a Patreon supporter, you undoubtedly heard me and [00:29:00] Olivia talking about Millennial Nuns and when this book came out, I immediately said on that podcast on Patreon that I was going to take this one home because I am very, I do not want to sound disrespectful in any way. I'm very fascinated by and enamored with nuns and their calling and their purpose and I was super intrigued by this because I often, maybe you do too, think of nuns as older. I don't even know that it's because of like the Sound of Music or Sister Act or what, but I just feel like, I didn't know that there was a population of devoted Catholic women who were still answering this call.
Like I just did not know that millennials or gen Zers were becoming nuns and that is super naive of me. Anyway, this book is a collection of essays written by different sisters in The Daughters of Saint Paul and look, I think, well, first of all, I think if you are a Catholic, you will [00:30:00] undoubtedly enjoy or appreciate this book because you are probably even more familiar, hopefully more familiar than I am with the Catholic church and its rituals and its traditions. I am not Catholic, but again, really love as we all know. I love books about faith. I love books that deal with faith. This was different because this is not fiction. This is these women writing, essentially their testimonies, to borrow an evangelical term or what I think of as an evangelical term, them sharing their testimonies and their stories of kind of how they became daughters of Saint Paul and each one of their stories is super different.
I imagine that was the intent. Each one of these women has a very different story. Some of them are true what I would call conversion stories. Some of them are people who grew up in faith and grew up deeply entrenched and rooted in Catholicism. I absolutely fell in love with these women. I want to meet them. I don't think I will ever get to, but I really wish I could. They wrote so beautifully and profoundly about their callings and [00:31:00] some of the essays were not like the best written things I'd ever read, but honestly, that was not the point of this book. The point of this book was to, to share about their livelihoods and their callings and I learned a lot about Catholicism and I heard in some of these essays, the same pulls or questions I have about Catholicism or issues in church. I think every church has its own issues and struggles and you could hear some of these women grappling with those just like I do and that was really refreshing.
Also just really refreshing there, sincerity and they're devotedness. So each of these women is devout and I don't mean, I don't mean like head in the clouds, oh, goody two shoes. I'm trying to think of pious. Pious is the word I'm looking for. I don't mean pious. I mean devout. These women [00:32:00] are dedicated to their callings and when I personally learned and found fascinating is the daughters of Saint Paul are committed to evangelizing through media so the subtitle of this book deals with social media. I left off the subtitle because I actually don't think it accurately portrays the book itself. I thought, honestly, that this book would help me handle social media better.
That is not what this book is about. This is about being a nun who is a millennial and how they each came to their callings and heard their callings and also how they share their stories and these are nuns who are very savvy in terms of marketing. Like these women, some of them went to college. Some of them didn't go to college. Some of them have PhDs. Some of them work in printing presses and in publishing, some of them run children's book fairs, which I love. So like I just pictured the pious life or the nuns life, I think oh, like Whoopie Goldberg probably [00:33:00] pictured it in Sister Act. You know what I mean? I think I pictured it a very certain way and learning what their days look like was fascinating but also, and this is going to sound weird, but I'm telling you, this is how I operate. I learned a lot about professional development. I, I feel like I try so hard to read professional development books and instead books about nuns and that oral history of the office are where I've learned some really great things about professional development and leadership.
I learned a lot about professional development. I learned a lot about spiritual growth and development, little truths that I really needed to hear and so my copy is well-worn already, and I read bits and pieces aloud to Jordan. I fell in love with these women. I'm so grateful for this book. It is certainly going to be a standout book for me, just in terms of very unusual from what I certainly have read in the last five to 10 years. I think maybe 10 years ago, pre Bookshelf I was reading more spiritual growth books than I am now and that is not what I was anticipating when I picked up this book but that is partially what I found and then partially just found an [00:34:00] inside look into the deep, deep calling of these women to, to service and to God and I really liked it. So it is called Millennial Nuns. It's by The Daughters of Saint Paul.
Again, total departure. Next up, a book I'm highly anticipating. Well, I was highly anticipating it now I've read it. Now you can highly anticipate this book comes out in October, I'm so sorry, but it is called My Monticello. This is by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson. Maybe you've already seen this one. I don't know. I had seen it in a couple of places and was super excited when I got the arc. I think if you like Colson Whitehead, you will love this book. It is a collection of, I think, three or four short stories followed by the novella, My Monticello. All of the stories are set in Virginia where Jocelyn Nicole Johnson is from and I loved it. They're all about the, all of the [00:35:00] stories are about the Black experience in Virginia, but they're also a little bit, gosh, I don't want to say post-apocalyptic but they are imagining, I think a near future world, at least in My Monticello, a near future world and what our world might like might look like if we continue down the trajectory we are on.
I think this book has a lot to say about modern culture and modern politics and issues. However, it's also just really good writing and really good storytelling. So if you find yourself, maybe shying away from political literature right now, I get it, but that's, that's not all that this is, I feel like this book is also just deeply well-written. Like, it's just really well written and I, in case you have not been able to tell from my last couple of reading recaps, I have had trouble with literary fiction, which is a real sadness to me because that is my favorite [00:36:00] genre but literary fiction has been a struggle for me for months now. It feels like where I can only do one or two a month whereas normally I feel like I was devouring at least four, at least for a month and so this was so refreshing to finally like hunker down on my couch with a work of literary fiction.
I think it helped that these were short stories and that then at the end, you get this novella and there's a short story in particular that I think has been published elsewhere. My understanding is that it had been previously published called "Control Negro". It was blurbed or referenced somewhere by Roxanne Gay. You may be able to Google for it and find it, but I would also encourage you to read it as part of this collection, because I think it really helped make this collection complete. I thought that short story was so brilliant and then to go into My Monticello, which I'll give you um, a little insight into what that, that novella is about. So My Monticello is envisioning again, a near future in which [00:37:00] something has happened and we're not quite sure as the reader, we're not quite given full information about what has happened, but we are clearly living in a disaster or post-disaster world and this group of people who all live on the same neighborhood, mostly Black and Brown people, but also white people, managed to kind of escape their neighborhood and get on this van and the driver of the van is a former employee of the Monticello museum, like the home of Thomas Jefferson and so she drives everyone to Monticello, where they wind up kind of camping out and trying to survive.
What is really interesting is that this main character is a relative of Sally Hemings and so this history of hers comes out when she arrives at Monticello and she remembers that this house is partially hers and so there's just a lot here about history and how we interpret and how we read history, [00:38:00] who the writers of history were of what we have been taught but again also just really good storytelling. In part, My Monticello reminded me a little bit of a book I read a few years ago and I did reference it on the podcast. It's called The End We Start From, by Megan Hunter. She wrote The Harpy that came out last year, but that book is also kind of a post-disaster book and a story of survival and that's really what My Monticello felt like was this story of survival.
I cannot say enough good things about this book. I think there are several things to like about it, especially if you're like me and out of practice of reading literary fiction. It's short, it's got short stories, so you can just read them one at a time, devour them and then let them go. You know what I mean and then move on to the next set of characters. Um, although the reality is that I think these people will stick with me awhile. I think I'll be hand selling this one a lot. I really, really liked it. It releases on October 7th and it is called My Monticello by Jocelyn Nicole [00:39:00] Johnson.
Okay. Last up I finished the beautiful memoir, Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang. I think this one is going to be everywhere. I actually think My Monticello is going to be everywhere too. I'm just kind of on high alert for where those books are going to be, but I suspect we're going to see these books as you know, national book club picks, celebrity picks and I certainly think you're going to start seeing Beautiful Country places. This is published on September 7th so you've got a little while for this one. Qian wrote this on her daily subway commute while she also worked as a practicing litigator and like was working to make partner in her firm so I feel like that tells you a little bit about who she is and I think that resilience and that stubbornness really come out in this memoir.
You're probably going to hear this one compared to Educated. I understand that comparison. Wong is a Chinese American immigrant. The book is about coming to America and her parents [00:40:00] coping with what happened to them when they came over to America and the life they led in China versus the life they led in New York, where she wound up being raised. The writing in this book is so original. That's why I will understand the comparisons to Educated, which I adored when it came out a few years ago but this book, the writing is almost more poetic and I hope you could get a sense of it maybe at the start of the podcast. That's how I opened the podcast was with a quote from this book and I, I wanted to you to be able to hear the rhythm of this story.
So it's, it's a traditional memoir and that it's divided up into chapters. The storytelling is relatively linear, but the writing feels more poetic to me. Maybe that's my imagination, but it just feels really rhythmic in how in the phrasings and how she words things and so I feel, I find the writing to be especially powerful. I also think, and again, I think this is why folks will be comparing [00:41:00] this to Educated. I also think because she is writing about her childhood, you almost feel like the book is being narrated by a child. It's not, she's obviously an adult writer writing and looking back on her life, but the way she is writing really does make you feel like you're there with her as a young person, trying to figure out why your life has changed so, so completely and where is this beautiful country you were told existed? And so it really opens your eyes to a specific immigrant experience.
She, my understanding is that she was led to finally kind of put the story down on paper after some of the issues that came during the Trump administration with immigration. I just think it's a really powerful book and a really good book and I think will open, yeah, open up, I hate to use that cliche, but I think it will open a lot of people's eyes, including my own to the immigrant experience and to her experience in [00:42:00] particular. I really loved what I read and I think you will too. I suspect we're going to see this book everywhere this year. Um, I'm sure it's already on like highly anticipated lists and things like that, but I guess I'm here to tell you from my perspective, very much deserving of being on those lists. I really, really liked it and I, I think readers will, I think it will resonate with readers too.
That is the last book I read in July. So again, kind of a lot of good books, but also closed out the month I think with books, more traditional to what I typically am drawn to. So that was kind of comforting and I, yeah, I would love to hear what you read in July. You can comment on our Instagram at Bookshelftville and fill us in on what you read this month.
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. I am finally back home this week. I feel like I have been all over the place as I referenced in this week's episode. I just feel like I've been on the road a lot, but I was back in the Bookshelf on Tuesday and the first people I really got to talk with outside of the Bookshelf staff was a couple visiting Thomasville from Virginia and getting to hear their experience of Thomasville was so refreshing and it was so neat to hear how much joy and pleasure they were finding in our town cause sometimes when you live in a place, you forget how lovely it really is and although I've [00:44:00] certainly felt a little bit of that as I've had the opportunity to go some places and then come back home, it was really nice to hear it from other people.
To hear from people who are visiting Thomasville and who find it to be a really relaxing place to visit, a really hometown feeling place to visit and a warm and inviting place to visit. I loved that even though they were visiting in the heat of the summer and the wet of the summer, it has been very rainy here, they found a lot to love about our town, including the beautiful historic homes, the walkable streets, and the friendly shopkeepers. Those are the very same things I love about Thomasville. To find out more about how you can visit Thomasville, go to Thomasvillega.com.
This week, I'm reading Tacky: Love Letters to the Worst Culture We Have to Offer by Rax King. It is as funny as the title would suggest.
Thank you again to our sponsor, Visit Thomasville. Whether you live close by or just passing through, I really [00:45:00] do believe that you would enjoy a visit to beautiful Thomasville, Georgia.
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