Episode 340 || September Reading Recap
In this week’s episode, Annie talks about all the books she read in September.
To purchase the books mentioned in this episode, visit our new website:
Matrix by Lauren Groff
The Power by Naomi Alderman
We Are Not Like Them by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza
Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult
The Survivors by Alex Schulman
The Dinner by Herman Koch
Blue-Skinned Gods by SJ Sindu
A Place for Us by Fatima Fahreen Mirza
A Burning by Megha Majumdar
The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty
Graceland, At Last by Margaret Renkl
Late Migrations by Margaret Renkl
Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket by Hilma Wolitzer
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 Podcast 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 Bewilderment by Richard Powers.
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:
Annie Jones: [00:00:00] [squeaky porch swing] Welcome to From the Front Porch, a conversational podcast about books, small business, and life in the South. [music plays out]
[as music fades out]
“This book held no miracles. No gods, no heroes. It told of nothing but quiet human problems. Yet it was more exciting and more unrealistic to me than bloody battles or powerful demons. Every person and every situation in the first few pages were like nothing I’d ever seen or thought about before, but it also seemed just like the world where I lived.”
― SJ Sindu, Blue-Skinned Gods
I'm Annie Jones, owner of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in beautiful downtown [00:01:00] Thomasville, Georgia. And this week I'm recapping the books I read in September. Can you believe it is the end of September? I cannot. This month has absolutely flown by. It's also still quite warm here with some fall ish temperatures on the horizon, but I think that contributes to this idea that we're still living in August or July.
And so to look at the calendar and realized we're at the end of September has been a bit of a rude awakening and we're fast approaching the last quarter of the year, which means I think lots of good reading happened this month, but I also am gearing up for slower reading months for me when the store picks up, that generally means my reading life slows down.
So it was pleasant. A pleasant discovery to look and realize I'd actually read a lot of books in September and a lot of really good books. So let's get started. The first book I finished in September was Matrix by Lauren Groff . [00:02:00] I had been sitting on my ARC of Matrix for nine months. Like a baby, like a baby, that book waited to get in my hands.
I don't know why I put it off, except I really loved fates and fury. And I know people, that's a book where people have a lot of feelings about fates and theories, right? You either loved that book or you hated it. I don't know, personally very many readers or customers who like, felt ambivalent about that book.
That being said, because I loved it. And then, because. I knew Matrix was about a medieval nun. I think I just put it off because literary fiction has been hard for me in 2021. I have not really devoured the literary fiction in the ways that I normally do. And I didn't want to do Matrix at this service. So in preparation for the bookshelves fall literary lunch, I finally picked up my copy, [00:03:00] read a few pages and immediately became immersed.
And there are other readers I know where it took them 50 or a hundred pages to get into this one. But truly for me, it was immediate. I immediately felt an interest in, and the connection with Marie de France. She is a real life historical figure about whom not much is known. And if you're like me, you will read this book.
And either when you're done or halfway through, you will immediately begin Googling because you're just desperate to know. Did Lauren Groff come up with these things off the top of her head? Did she base it in historical research? In fact, it is both. There is not much known about Marie de France. And so Lauren Groff has created this really powerful, interesting, beautiful story that does not exist in historical record.
So that's fascinating. And the book also deals with the historical figure of Eleanor of Aquitaine about whom I also knew that. And there is plenty of historical record about her. Truly this era in history [00:04:00] is something that missed me as a high school student, as a college student, as an adult person. And that is part of the reason I delayed picking this one up and yet I immediately became immersed in Maria de France's story.
I loved. I loved her. I absolutely loved her and she is complicated. So if you are not familiar with this work, Lauren Groff has written this book about a fictional version of the historical figure of Marie de France. The book opens when Marie is in her late teens. She is for lack of a better term. She is an illegitimate child.
She is, she has been kind of disregarded outcast, and she finds herself at this nunnery where she does not belong. She feels ambivalent or even negative towards a God figure. She has no desire to be living among other women at the nunnery. She herself is almost this looming kind of masculine presence.
She's physically tall. The, [00:05:00] the garb doesn't fit her again, literally and figuratively. And then we watch her transform. So the book starts when she's in her late teens and ends at her death. And so it's really, it's not a plot driven novel. It's really a character driven book about Marie de France and the transformation she makes from this person who does not want to be at this nunnery, who is desperately at first, almost trying to escape and return to her old life.
And then eventually coming to terms with where she is and making a home there. So there is a lot in this book about history, feminism, sex, power. The moment I finished, I looked at Jordan and I said, I love this book so much. I do not know who I will sell this to. And I just meant from a booksellers perspective, that's what you're always thinking of.
Really like, [00:06:00] even when you don't want to be thinking of it, that's always what you're thinking. Like, how am I going to sell this? How am I going to get somebody to read this to maybe even as a reader, you think that right? When you finish a book, you love, you want to figure out how can I convince my friends to read this too?
This book is just so unique and I think it scratched. Um, I hate this phrase, but I say it all the time. It's scratched a lot of my itches. That's let's say it ticked all of my boxes. That seems better. And I finished and I thought, who else can I recommend this to my friend Hunter had already read it. It was, he was the first person that I thought of just because of this medieval setting, because of the power, because of the sex.
I just wasn't sure who I was going to sell this to. So let me try to sell it. You, you. I loved this book. It's a five-star book for me. It's going to be in my top three books of the year. There is sexual content in this book, and I have questions about it, but it is true to the character of Marie de France that [00:07:00] Lauren Groff is portraying.
I also think this book is saying so much about power. In fact, when I finished reading it and I was talking to Jordan about it. This is what happens when I read a really good book, I immediately start reading passages aloud. And the moment I finished kind of telling Jordan about it, he said, you know, it reminds me of that book you and Hunter read a couple of years ago called The Power. And I thought, oh, that is weird. But yes, I can see the comparison. I did not love the book, The Power, but this book is dealing with kind of what happens in a nunnery where humility and femininity reign, what does power look like? How does power manifest itself?
What makes a nunnery different from the outside world? In what ways would power manifest itself in ways that it doesn't. In a patriarchal society, that kind of [00:08:00] stuff. Those themes were absolutely fascinating to me, but that is just underneath a really good story. So to me, the story was really great. The writing is, as I have come to expect from Lauren Groff, absolutely.
But the storytelling is so good that even these themes of power and femininity, they don't get lost in it. That's what bubbles to the top when you're finished. But you also, I found it very readable, like for literary fiction, which I've been having trouble reading this year. It felt very easily readable.
You should know that. I don't think this book will be for everyone. I think I've made that clear. I also think the lack of quotation marks will drive some people batty. I did. It did not. I didn't even notice till I was almost done with the book. And then I thought, Ooh, this might be hard for some people.
The language is true too, and of the time. And so again, it might not be for you, but I'm thinking maybe if you liked Hamlet, you might like this. Uh, Hunter is the first person I thought of. And then Lucy is the other person I thought of, and I [00:09:00] texted her to see if she had read it. So I have some customers who I think would really appreciate this one.
And if you are a research Sherpa like me, this is the kind of book that once you're finished, you will immediately begin Googling. And I looked at Jordan and I said, do I need to learn about the middle ages? Like I know nothing that is such a blank spot in my personal knowledge. And I, now I want to know all about it.
So I loved this book. It's a rave for me. You can probably tell I'm going to stop going on and on about it, but I loved it. It won't be for everyone. But many of the people I know who have read it have also really appreciated it or enjoyed it. And then others haven't. So it's a lot like Lauren Groff's other work.
It's a lot like Fates and Periods. And that I, I kind of am hearing both things, but for me, it's a raves five stars Matrix by Lauren Groff.
Next I read We Are Not Like Them by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza. [00:10:00] So several of the books you're going to hear me talk about today. I read in preparation for the fall literary lunch, including Matrix,
But, I kind of had this giant stack of ARCss. I need to go through if you work or live among books and in the book industry or in the book world, you know, that fall is always a huge time in the publishing world, but it feels even more so this year because of delayed titles, et cetera. So I had this giant stack of ARCS to kind of work my way through to see what I really wanted to highlight and share with our customers.
This is one that I think is going to be everywhere. It wouldn't shock me. If it's a book of the month, pick wouldn't shock me. If it becomes like a book club selection for like Good Morning America or Reese Witherspoon or something like that. Here's why, so Christine Pride and Joe Piazza...
Joe is a white author. You might recognize her from a book I really liked a backlist title called Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win highly recommend. That was a fun one. [00:11:00] And then Christine Pride is a black woman who works in the publishing industry, I think, as a book editor. And so they've known each other for a long time. They're friendly, they've worked together and they decided to co-write this book about an interracial friendship between Riley and Jen.
And Riley is a black newscaster living in Philadelphia. Jen is her long, long held lifelong white friend whose husband is a cop. And you can probably guess where this is going, but the book opens with a pretty vivid, um, troubling scene of a young black teenager getting shot by the police. This is no spoilers as the plot immediately progresses.
You discover that one of the cops who shot this young man was Jen's husband. And then Riley, as a newscaster, as somebody working her way up the ranks has to cover this story. So there's a lot happening here. This is why I say, I think it's going to be book club fodder, [00:12:00] but I don't want, um, the bombastic nature of the plot to overshadow the fact that I actually think this is just a really well-written, interesting book.
It reminds me of if Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid and Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult had a book baby. So if you liked either of those titles, I think this one will be for you. I think it will be very accessible. And much utilized by book clubs. I think it would make a great book club conversation.
The interracial friendship between Riley and Jen feels very realistic. I also loved reading kind of in the afterwards. I'm always curious how writers co-write books like that is a fascinating topic to me. I just have trouble understanding how two people could kind of work together on this, on a work of art that is almost unfathomable to me.
But what I appreciated reading was that Christine and Joe. The authors did not like each take a character instead, they both worked on each of these characters, which I thought was [00:13:00] really interesting to know. And I, I want to share it with you. If you decide to read this book, I think that's valuable information to go in knowing and the book alternates between Riley's perspective and Jen's perspective.
And I never found that to be annoying or distracting. Instead, I was very invested in both of their perspectives. Both of these characters are incredibly interesting and. And flawed. These are not always likable people. And as you know, if you've listened to this podcast long time, likable characters are not important to me.
They are also deeply likable. Like these are women's. With whom I feel like I could be friends. Right? So they just felt very realistically drawn. And the story is very compelling and it moves along at a lightening quick pace. So I think I read this book in one sitting, it was not difficult to read. It was very enjoyable.
Though also thought provoking based on obviously the subject matter you're dealing with. I really liked this one again. I can [00:14:00] see it being a lot of places this fall, but if you, if your personality is like mine and you tend to be wary, or if, uh, if you tend to be suspect of like, Buzzed about books, I guess.
I just want you to know the writing is really good here. The storytelling's great. And I think this one would be worth your time. So it is called We Are Not Like Them by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza.
Because I was reading for our fall literary lunch, I then took a very different direction in my reading life and picked up the book, The Survivors, this is a translated novel by Alex Schulman.
He's a Swedish writer. Who's actually friends with Frederick Bachman though. This book did not remind me in any way of Frederick Bachman. That was a fun surprise, kind of at the end. So Alex Schulman is a popular writer in Sweden. This is his first book to be translated into the English. It is small like, well, in my view, it's pretty small around [00:15:00] 250 or so pages.
And it absolutely flies by because it's very quietly got this feeling of foreboding and dread. It reminded me a lot of The Dinner by Herman Koch, not in terms of plot, but in terms of plotting. In terms of maybe in terms of the quiet writing style, but really just in how the plot progressed, it reminded me of The Dinner.
All while I was reading The Dinner, I felt this deep sense of foreboding and the same is true of The Survivors. So The Survivors is about three brothers. The book opens with them kind of spreading the ashes of their mother. I loved how this book was written. So every other chapter is about these three brothers in adulthood, visiting the cabin summer vacation, home of their childhood.
To disperse of their mom's ashes. It goes [00:16:00] back. I hope I can describe this. Well, so the book opens with them at midnight dispersing their mom's ashes, two chapters later, it's 10:00 PM, two chapters later. It's 8:00 PM. So it's going backwards through the day. I found that to be very clever. I did not find it distracting or irritating instead.
I think it contributed to the. Since of doom that I felt while reading it. And then every other chapter is these three brothers in their childhood. And you get the sense then very much of who these three brothers are, the roles they play in their family and the trauma of their childhood. And. I just think it's a really fascinating character study of three siblings.
I also, I mean, I, I want so badly you to just read this and me not give anything away, but I think you should know that it is a very quiet [00:17:00] novel, and then. If the book is around 250 pages around page 200, I gasped aloud and like had to put the book down for a second. So if you like twists or. Intense. This book is not a thriller.
I read it. I started it thinking it would be, but it is not a thriller. It is quietly suspenseful. I keep saying the word quiet, because that is what it felt like to me, it felt very wintry. If that makes sense. A lot of these. So I'm comparing it to The Dinner because The Dinner there is this deep sense of like, what is going to happen next, but it is a quiet novel that kind of takes it.
This book takes its time, but it's short. And so again much like we are not like them. I finished this one in one sitting was very glad to have read it very original in terms of plot. And then also, I just love a complicated sibling relationship [00:18:00] and learning about these three brothers and kind of where they came from and who they wound up becoming and their relationships.
Their mom was really interesting. And plus you get this really gas for the. Plot twist. So I just don't want to give too much away. So anyway, this book, we are not like them Cubs out October 5th and The Survivors does as well. I am concerned that this is going to be billed as this. Fast-paced thriller. And I, I just want you to know it's not a thriller to me.
It is just a suspense novel in that the suspense builds as the pages turn. And so don't go into it thinking it's like Gone Girl or something like that, but go into it, thinking of it more like The Dinner. And I think you'll be really pleased. Okay. On a very different note. I next picked up Blue Skinned Gods.
This is by SJ Sindu. SJ Sindu is a graduate of Florida state university's [00:19:00] creative writing program. I believe so I was fairly familiar with her work. She wrote a debut novel called marriage of a thousand lies. This is her sophomore work and I loved it. So the plot is Kalki is a 10 year old little boy.
Born with blue skin. And he lives in India with his two parents and his father believes Kalki to be a God. And so Kalki is being raised to believe he is an incarnated version of the God, the Hindu God Vishnu. And. On his 10th birthday, he has to pass three tests in order to prove his divinity. And so the book opens at Kalki his 10th birthday, but the book follows cocky into adulthood.
And the book I think is really cleverly. Actually, several of the books I read this month were just cleverly, plotted and organized. This one is organized in sections, based on cockies, relatives and friends. [00:20:00] And so. The book kind of unfolds as Kalki grows up. And it, it definitely is a linear novel in that way, but each section kind of features a different person in cockies life who influenced him, who came alongside him.
So the first section is devoted to cockies 10th year to him being a child who thinks he's a God. The character kind of tying this section together is his cousin Lakshman who is a year younger than he is. And so naturally this nine year old little boy and playmates of khakis is a little reticent to believe that cocky is divine.
So, okay. Here's what I love about this book aside from just the organization and the writing, which is I think really original and really well done. Loved the themes in this book. So I read a lot of books about [00:21:00] faith and belief and. At some points. This book reminded me of A Place For Us, which is one of my favorite books of the last few years.
And then there would be a turn or a twist, and I would feel like I was reading or filled with the same feelings of, um, uh, burning by mega mudroom, dark. That's kind of the sense of this novel, where you're dealing with faith and belief. But when I read a book that centers around faith or belief, I'm not reading about a kid who thinks they're divine, right?
And so that was to me, what set this book apart, it's definitely about belief and doubt, but what. What do you say about a book that isn't about faith in God, but it's about a faith in the higher power and the higher power is you. Like, I found that to be really fascinating. And so the first section is kind of brought together by khaki's younger cousin.
The second section [00:22:00] I believe is tied together by his mother. Who's this really lovely character. The third section is his father. I think I'm getting this right. Anyway. It's a different person in khaki's life who kind of those sections of the book center around, I thought the first three quarters of this book, or like a five-star novel, I will say the last quarter of the book was harder for me.
And I think that's because by the time we get to the last quarter of the book, cocky is an adult and he is coming to terms with who he may or may not be. And he visits New York city and things begin to unwrap. And I just had a harder time with that section of the book, but the first three quarters I thought were outstanding.
And the way I feel about the last quarter may be entirely subjective. I'm just telling you that I found the first, the first three quarters to be stronger for me than the last quarter. However, as Jay Sindu is doing some really interesting things. With the first quarter as [00:23:00] opposed, I mean, with the last quarter, as opposed to the first quarter.
So it also kind of comes full circle in a way I really did appreciate. So if you liked the book, A Place For Us, or if you liked A Burning, I think you really will enjoy this. I think at the very least you should try this because of ten-year-old Kalki and we obviously continue to see him grow up. The first couple of sections in this book where he is a kid trying to be a kid, but also trying to be the God who his father believes him to be is really, oh, it's really, um, stunning and, and kind of.
Clutches at you. I just, I found it to be really thoughtful and I really liked this book. It's called Blue Skinned Gods by SJ. Sindu it releases in November. Okay. Next I picked up The Sentence by Louise Erdrich. This book also releases in November. [00:24:00] I have never read a Louise Erdrich book before. And I feel like that's one of my bookseller confessions.
I feel like occasionally I will get on here. And confess to this microphone with no one else in the room, the books I have not made time for, or the authors I have not made time for Louise are just one of those. So I have not read any of her previous works, which I will definitely be correcting because I loved this book.
This is her new one comes out in November. Prolifically puts out books on a more regular basis than I would expect, especially out of someone writing literary fiction. I can't compare this to her other works because I have not read them, but I thought this was very compulsively readable while also being quietly literary.
The book is about Turkey. It is set between all souls day 2019 and all souls day 2020. I love a book that has like. Timeframe. I really [00:25:00] do, because I think it's so creative and you can do so much with it, especially with that span of time. So Turkey is an indigenous woman who has been released from prison.
Um, I'm going to keep her crime spoiler free, even though it said in the first chapter two, I just thought. Fun to watch unfold. So I want that feeling for you. So, so anyway, she has been released from prison. She marries a childhood high school, classmate and friend who happens to be a cop who happens to be the cop who arrested her to begin with, and they are living.
A lovely life together. And then all souls day 2019 happens and Turkey who works at birchbark books, which is a real bookstore that Louisa owns in Minnesota. Tookie works there and she discovers that she is not alone while working her shift. And instead she is being haunted by their most annoying [00:26:00] customer flow.
Who died on all souls day. So this is a little bit of a ghost story. I don't know if you can hear my voice. I'm smiling because I think this plot is so original and creative and interesting. I love the timeframe in which it's set and. Yeah. What's not to love about a haunting in a bookstore. I just feel like, I just feel like it's so clever to, to think about your, your most annoying bookstore customer haunting you and their death.
And so flora kind of follows Tookie around Turkey, cannot understand why flora is not leaving her alone, not leaving the store. And so this book has so many. So many realistic portrayals of bookstore life and bookstore ownership and bookselling so I love that part. I think it's also kind of interesting.
It'd be so curious to hear once this book releases, I'd love to read an interview with Louise or [00:27:00] judge, because she is in the book. Like she is referenced as the owner of the store. So I'm dying to know like is two key, real are the characters in this book? Real was Florida real names changed to protect the innocent.
Like I really am dying to know, but. Anyway, the book also is set in Minneapolis in 2019 and 2020. So you watch the bookstore and you watch Tookie and her family go through a pandemic, which I know. Some of us feel, I think a lot of us, aren't quite sure how to feel about books dealing with the pandemic already.
And at first I wasn't sure how I was going to feel. I'm wondering if it would be too much to read a book set in such recent history, but instead I almost found it cathartic to read about a bookstore who pivoted in the way we also pivoted and whose staffers were tired and exhausted in the way. Our staffers were tired and exhausted.
So I actually found it to be kind of cathartic to read a book set in such recent memory. Again, the book is [00:28:00] set in Minneapolis, so it's also dealing with the death of George Floyd and his murder and the fallout from that specifically in the community of Minneapolis and specifically in the indigenous community of Minneapolis.
I felt like there is so much to love about this book. If you are a book lover, if you are a bookstore lover, if you're a reader, meaning like an avid reader, I think you will love this because of the bookstore component that store plays and is such a vibrant character in this book, it's kind of a character in and of itself.
If you like dysfunctional family stories, I think you'll appreciate this because Tookie and her husband and her husband's daughter from a previous marriage kind of form this family. And because the pandemic hits, they all wind up isolating together. And so there's a little bit of this people thrown together who aren't normally together kind of element that I also really appreciated.
And then you've also got this kind of supernatural ghost story element, and you also have racial injustice and [00:29:00] what the community of Minneapolis endured. In the last two years, but also in its, in the entirety of its history, it's just, I just felt like it was all handled with such care and which I'm, I'm truthfully a little bit shocked by, because Louise Erdrich just published a book, she just wrote one.
And so I will be honest. I thought the plot of this sounded super interesting. That's why I picked it up and I liked the bookstore element and the ghost story element. So I picked it up, but I didn't know what to think because I almost thought, well, maybe she rushed through this. Which was just my naivete to Louise Erdrich and her genius.
And so anyway, I was completely stunned by how brilliant this book could be when it feels like it must've been written quickly, right. Because it takes place late 2019 until late 2020. And anyway, the timeliness of it, I thought was could have been terrible and awful, but instead was [00:30:00] cathartic and thought.
And I really just loved this one. It's another rave for me. It is The Sentence by Louise Erdrich. Then I picked up on a whim. Apple's never fall. This is the new one by Leon Moriarty. I love Leon Moriarty, but the past few, the last, maybe three of her books I've thought were fine. So I did not really particularly enjoy truly madly guilty.
I. Liked nine. Perfect strangers. Here's the good news. I loved apples. Never fall. I loved it. Absolutely loved it. I'm going to pass it along to Susie B. That's my mom. I was going to pass it along to her. I really liked this book a lot. There were. Moments where I was laughing out loud. And then there were also moments where I could not put this book down because I needed to know what happens, which I think is what Liane Moriarty is really good at.
She is really good at building suspense. [00:31:00] And this book is full of short chapters. Let me tell you, this is the kind of book where I downloaded the audio book. So when I wasn't reading it, when I couldn't be reading the physical copy, I was listening to it. And I think I wound up just listening to. Three or five chapters because I just made myself sit down and read it because I liked it so much.
So I think this is the best one she's publishing. It is about the Delaney family, specifically joy Delaney and her husband, Stan. They are kind of former tennis stars who become kind of famous coaches in their part of Australia. They have four tennis, loving kids who don't really become great in the sport, but they all kind of had the potential to be great.
And so now we get to see them as adult children of Stan and joy. Joy is really the protagonist of this novel. I love an older female protagonist. I just feel like we don't get that enough, or at least I don't get that enough in my reading. And so it's about Stan and [00:32:00] joy in their retirement and what their retired, married life looks like.
And the premise is pretty simple. And I think again, standard Liane Moriarty. So you've got this family, you've got this adult couple with four kids seemingly kind of picture, perfect Australian family, and then joy goes missing. And they can't find joy, and this is no spoilers, but the children kind of remember, and they tell the police that, oh, by the way, a year ago, a woman mysteriously showed up on our parents' doorstep and she lived with them for six weeks and we can't find her either.
Like, so, so you essentially have two missing women at the heart of this book and. Much like, oh, some other books I read this month, this book kind of goes back and forth, I guess, kind of like survivors, like it goes back and forth in time. So now where joy is missing and the police are obviously investigating Stan, the husband, and then it goes [00:33:00] back in time to when this young woman has showed up at their doorstep and she stayed with them for a few weeks and kind of the drama that unfolds in the family during her stay.
I think this one. Like, it never felt too long, even though this book is long, let me be clear. Like I finished it very quickly, but this book is long and probably didn't need to be this long. And, and yet I didn't, I also didn't feel like stuff could be called away. Like I also was very convinced all of the perspectives and pages were worthy of my time and I just, I loved it.
Gosh, I loved it. It's been a long time since I've just enjoyed it. Meaning, I really liked the Matrix, not the Matrix. I actually hate the Matrix movies. Is that a, is this a safe space? I really loved Matrix. I really loved blue skin gods. I loved The Sentence, but if we're talking about like enjoyable commercial fiction, this is hard to beat it.
If you liked. I mean, it's got more of a suspense [00:34:00] element, obviously we're dealing with a missing a missing wife. Um, but if you liked, oh, Katherine Heiney or Amy Popel, or if you liked those books earlier this year, I think here's your fault. Here's your fall version of that, but there's an element of suspense to it and an element of thriller to it.
I really liked it. I also loved the parts about tennis. I love. You know, I love a sports adjacent book and I do love a book where I kind of am learning something at the same time. So in Blue Skinned Gods, I felt like I was learning about Hinduism in a way I had not ever learned before. And Apple's never fall.
I was learning in a much lighter way. Obviously tennis is not a world religion. I don't, I don't think, um, but I was learning a lot about tennis and the passion with which people play tennis, which I find fascinating because I do. Have that passion for tennis, but I just really liked that element as well.
So there's a lot to like about this one. If you have been on the fence about the last couple of Liane Moriarty books, you are not alone, but I think you [00:35:00] can trust this one. I really, really liked it then all month long, I was reading Graceland at last. This is by Margaret wrinkle. You may recognize her name from the book last migrations, which came out a year or two ago to rave reviews.
This is a collection of columns and essays. Most of which had already been published in the Tennessee in the newspaper that Margaret wrinkle kind of writes a. Column four. So these are, these are all kind of previously published works. They're organized by subject matter, which I thought was lovely and made this a really fun book to be reading kind of all month long.
I love newspaper writing. I love journalism writing. I love feature writing and Margaret wrinkle is just a really talented storyteller and a talented writer. I think somebody asked me if these were like Rick Bragg's feature writing pieces. And I don't think so. I love Rick Bragg, but I love Margaret wrinkle for different reasons.
[00:36:00] And so I definitely think you can read, you can read and appreciate both of those authors, but I don't think. Then the fact that they are Southern, I don't think they're doing the same thing. Margaret wrinkle writes a lot about politics in the south. I think she's also trying to shed light on the nuances in the south, which is obviously something I can appreciate as somebody born and raised here and feel, I feel like I'm constantly trying to remind people of the nuance and complications that exist.
In our neck of the woods. So I appreciated that part of Margaret wrinkles writing. The first section of this book is her columns consists of her columns on nature and right in the middle of kind of reading one of the columns I texted my brother, like this is a book I can easily. Ashley, my cousin will love this book, Chet.
My brother will love it. There's just a lot in here. Kind of no matter what your interest is, because all the columns are kind of about something different. Like some of them are about religion in [00:37:00] the south. Some of them are about race in the south. Some of them are about nature in the south. And so there's a lot to be interested in and love if you are, if you're a southerner and you, and maybe you're outside the south, but there's a, an online magazine, an online.
World called the bitter southerner. If you're a bitter bitter southerner reader, I think you will like Graceland it last. Yeah. This is just a really great book and really good for picking up and putting down. So if you've been struggling to read just straight prose, if you have been struggling to get lost in a linear kind of narrative story, then I think you should try reading some journalistic pieces and some feature writing.
I think you might enjoy that. So I really liked this. The columns are great. They gave me something to think about. I've already marked my copy all up. It is called Graceland at last by Margaret Renkl. Last but not least. I also read throughout the month, the book, and I think this wins for the best title of the month.
[00:38:00] Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket by Hilma Wolitzer . I came across this book purely again because of the title. I saw it on the shelves at The Bookshelf, and I started reading it because at the beginning of this month, I was having some trouble. Like I could not get into anything. I knew I was about to work on the literary lunch guide and I was feeling morose about everything.
And I just, I don't know, I just felt a little black about all the books and I picked this one up because the title made me laugh and turns out homo Wolitzer is, this is maybe not surprising to you at all the mother of Meg Wolitzer. So she is in her nineties. The, I even had to double check because, um, Meg Wolitzer, his father, I think died during COVID.
So he, I think he died within the last couple. Yeah. So she kind of convinced her mom who has been a writer for a long time. Many of these stories had already been published elsewhere, [00:39:00] but she convinced her mom, she needed to release a collection of her short stories that she published when she was a younger writer.
And I am so glad she did. These stories are laugh out loud. Funny they're witty, they're biting their. Smart. I really I'm trying to think what I could compare them to the opening foreword or introduction is written by Elizabeth Strout. Hilma Wolitzer does not remind me of Elizabeth Strout. Um, maybe she reminds me a little bit.
Ooh, ever so slightly. Nora Ephron ever so slightly that the stories are just really witty and biting the collection is not very long. And so again, if you are struggling with getting lost in a good book, which by the way, you're not alone, we've got a podcast episode we're going to do in a couple of weeks, just about pandemic reading and how I don't know about y'all, but my reading life has changed.
My, the things I pick up are different than what I was picking up before. My attention span is different. [00:40:00] I don't like saying that out loud, but it's true. And so if you are like me and reading has been difficult this year, and if you're not great, good for you, but like truly some of us are struggling. And so if you're like me and you have been struggling a little bit this year, I think the essay collection by Margaret wrinkle or the short story collection by homo Wolitzer might be just what the doctor ordered.
So it is called today. A woman went mad in the supermarket. If nothing else, you should read that one story. And there's also a really great interview with Helma Wolitzer and Meg. We'll try to link it in the show notes. I think you'd really appreciate it. I thought it was lovely. So those are the books I finished in September.
I again, was so shocked to see September should come to a close. So then it was kind of surprising and delightful to me that I was able to read so many good books in a month. That felt a little. September felt a little bit like a lot. And so it was really nice to realize, oh, I read some really great books this month.[00:41:00]
I'm so eager to see what October holds. I'm also eager to see what you have been reading this month. If you'll go to our Instagram page, Instagram. Dot com forward. Nobody goes to instagram.com at bookshelf TiVo. That's our, that's our handle on Instagram. If you will find the post that talks about this podcast episode, I'd love for your comments about what you read and finish this month.
What you loved. Eager to hear what other people are finding, holds their attention in this weird season we're living through. So find us at bookshelf t-tell and share what you read this month
[00:42:00] 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, I’m reading Bewilderment by Richard Powers.
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 for $5 a month on Patreon, where you can follow along as Hunter and I conquer a classic and participate in live video Q&As in our monthly lunch break sessions. Just go to patreon.com/fromthefrontporch.
We’re so grateful for you, and we look forward to meeting back here next week.