Episode 383 || July Reading Recap

This week on From the Front Porch, Annie is talking about all the books she read in July. As always, we’re offering a July Reading Recap Bundle, which features Annie’s three favorite books from the month. You can purchase the bundle at this link.

The books mentioned in this episode can be purchased from The Bookshelf:

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 Dinosaurs by Lydia Millet.

If you liked what you heard in 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 and follow along as Hunter and I conquer a classic. Just go to patreon.com/fromthefrontporch.

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

Our Executive Producers are... Donna Hetchler, Angie Erickson, Cammy Tidwell, Nicole Marsee, Wendi Jenkins, Laurie Johnson, and Kate Johnston Tucker.

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Transcript:

Annie Jones [00:00:01] Welcome to From the Front Porch, a conversational podcast about books, small business and life in the South.  

[00:00:24] "In truth, we will only perform any action a certain number of times and to know that can never be helpful. There is, in my opinion, no use in demanding to know the number, in demanding to know upon waking the number of boxes to be ticked off every single day. After all, why would it help to be shown the mathematics of things when instead we could simply imagine that whatever time we have is limitless?" Julia Armfield, Our Wives Under the Sea.  

Annie Jones [00:00:59] I'm Annie Jones, owner of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in beautiful downtown Thomasville, Georgia, and this week and recapping the books I read in July. As promised, we launched our new website earlier this year, and wow there have been a few kinks, we are grateful for each and every order you all have placed, and perhaps more importantly, we're grateful for your patience as we navigate these new systems. It was always our goal to have a new point of sale system and a new website in good working order by the fall, and I think we're on track for that. That meant, of course, that we had to launch now, even though we knew things might not be perfect and things have not been perfect. But you all have been patient and gracious and kind, and we're really grateful for that. From the Front Porch is first and foremost a part and parcel of a small business and I am grateful for every way you choose to support our independent bookstore by listening to this podcast, by supporting us on Patreon or by purchasing books through us long distance from our website. Aaron, our online sales manager, is continually working alongside our website developers to ensure your customer experience is excellent and to ensure the new site is an accurate reflection of our store in Thomasville. We want that to be seamless for you. I hope you'll browse the new website.  

[00:02:19] All of today's titles are available for purchase there and thank you again for bearing with us through these changes. Good things take time and that sentiment rings especially true as our store adapts to these new systems. You can view and shop the new site at www.bookshelfthomasville.com and stay tuned to the end of this week's episode where I'll reveal what our titles are for our July Reading Recap bundle, which can also be purchased on the new site. Now let's get started. So July held way fewer books than June, and I was trying to analyze why that is or was because I'm an Enneagram five and I like to figure things out. And it's because I listen to way more audiobooks in June, which I found really fascinating. I think in June I wound up reading 12 books, which is for me a little absurd. Like that's a lot of books, and if that's what you read on a average basis, great, good for you. But that is not really typical for me it feels like, and I think that is because I had a little bit more free time in June. As mentioned above, the new point of sale system and the new website have been just a smidge stressful, and so I think I can see that reflected in my July reading. And I listened to far fewer audiobooks in July. Before I do a recap, a deeper recap of all the books I read in July, I did want to mention that after I recorded our June Reading Recap episode, I did finish three books. I finished them in June, but they missed the June episode deadline, and I don't really want to recap them in July because I didn't read them in July. I read them in June. So if you ever want to see what I'm reading, like as I'm reading it, you can follow me on Instagram that's @anniebjones05 .  

[00:04:08] You don't have to there's no pressure but that is where I review books regularly, and so if you feel like you want to keep up with that, you can either follow me there or I'm pretty sure there's a way you can follow a hashtag. And the hashtag is Annie Reads 2022, I'm pretty sure. So anyway, that being said, I did finish three books in June that were too late for that episode and I don't really want to include them here because I didn't read them in July. And those books are now is Not the Time to Panic, which will be one of my favorite books of the year. It's the new Kevin Wilson. I love Kevin Wilson. I read The Family Fang years and years ago and then I'd never read Nothing To See Here, which I am definitely going to fix because I loved Now Is Not The Time To Panic. I absolutely loved it. It's out in November, five stars, top 10 of the year for me. I also read The Bartender's Cure, which I was told would be a little bit like Kitchens Of The Great Midwest, but for cocktails, I don't think that's entirely accurate. I think probably a more accurate comp is sweet, bitter. It's a great look at a cocktail bar and I really did have a blast reading it. I think if you like cocktails, you will probably love it even more, and then I also listened to Acts of Violet, which was recommended to me by Olivia. It was one of her favorite books that is written by the author Margarita Montimore, who wrote Oona Out of Order. And I really liked it. I especially liked it in audiobook format.  

[00:05:35] So if you are going to read that one, I know Olivia read the physical copy, but I think the audiobook experience is the way to go for that particular title if you're interested. So that is Acts of Violet by Margarita Montimore with a really great audiobook narration done by a wide cast of characters. Like it's like listening to an old fashioned radio show. So those are the three books that I finished in June, but I didn't get to review. I reviewed them in more detail on my Instagram. If you want to go look at those there. Now the books I read in July. My July kicked off with our annual July 4th trip that we take with our friends every year we meet. If you've been listening to the podcast for a while, you know that last year we met in Jackson, Mississippi. We just kind of meet in random cities across the southeast because that's where we live and we try to meet up with each other. Our friends moved to Texas. We decided to kind of fly out to be with them, though they do not live in Austin. They drove in Medicine Austin and we celebrated July 4th in Austin. That meant a plane trip for us, which is not always a regular thing, and so I think plane travel requires a very different kind of book. So when Jordan and I are taking a road trip, we think about what audiobooks we want to listen to. You'll hear a review of one of those later in the episode. But plane books are a different beast. When I am looking for a plane book, I don't want something heavy, literally or figuratively. I don't want it to weigh a lot in my bag. I also don't really want anything that I'm going to cry about on a plane. Now, I have cried about a book on a plane, but that's not my ideal situation, and so I want something a little bit lighter. It has to be fast and I'd prefer to finish it before I land, because typically I like to leave those books, like leave them in the airport, leave them at the Airbnb because I buy books when I'm on vacation.  

[00:07:25] And so I like to travel lightly with books so that I can leave ARCs or leave paperback copies and then bring new books home with me. Maybe that makes me sound like a monster. I don't know, but that is what I want. So that being said, I picked up the book Every Summer After, this is by Carley Fortune. I had seen it everywhere. It felt like it was on bookstagram everywhere. It's got this very nostalgic, summary looking cover. I had just finished watching the Summer I Turned Pretty series and one of my online friends slash real life friends, but we've never met. Marci had posted about this book and her review was so lovely that I thought, I'm going to finally do it. I'm going to take the time and I'm going to read this book and I'm going to take it on this plane trip with me, and Marci even messaged me and she was like, hey, and she kind of tempered my expectations a little bit. This is why it's so important to find reviewers that you trust and or know, because they can tell you if a book is for you. Just because a book is for everybody else might not mean it is for you. So it's important to have readers that you trust who know your tastes and who can help you evaluate. Because I think Marci massaging me helped me temper my expectations a little bit. Anyway, Jordan picked this book up for me at a local bookstore in Tallahassee because we were sold out at The Bookshelf and we took it on our plane trip and guess what? Finished it in my two flights left the Airbnb perfect. This is a debut novel by Carley Fortune. I liked this book. I appreciated it even more after reading the author's note, which, by the way, is almost always the case. I am a sucker for an author's note and acknowledgments. I just like reading about where the author received their inspiration, who helped them get there. The more gracious an author is, the more that book goes up, in my estimation, and Carley Fortune's author's note is really lovely. Every Summer After is about Percy, Sam and Charlie.  

[00:09:25] They all grew up kind of going to this lake house, these lake houses side by side. They were neighbors at this lake in Canada. If you are looking for, I keep saying nostalgia, but I don't really know what other word to use, but like nostalgic. Almost canmpy vibes. Not camp like we've talked about before. Not weird campy. I mean, like Parent Trap campy. If you're looking for Parent Trap vibes and like, cabins in the woods. This is a fun. I loved the setting of this book. To me, the setting is what wins this story, and Percy, Sam and Charlie are all kind of secondary to the lovely feeling you will get reading about this place. And for someone who does not actually enjoy lake water very much, and for someone who does not have a family home, I really enjoy reading about family homes by the water. I guess I'm living vicariously. Percy is our main character. She grew up every summer, going to this lake home next door to Sam and Charlie. We, the reader, can tell that something must have happened with her and Sam, her best friend/love interest. And so we get kind of these flashbacks. We see Percy, Sam and his brother Charlie in the present, and then we also go back a little bit in the past to kind of get a sense of who they were as kids and how they grew up.  

[00:10:50] I love that this felt very much like a lot of books, and I don't mean that. I really don't mean that in a negative way. If something works, it works. If a trope works, it works. If a plot device works, it works. But this did feel like things I have read recently. I'm thinking of Emily Henry books. I think Emily Henry even blurbed this particular book, but I'm thinking of Emily Henry's books, particularly perhaps beach read. I'm thinking of The Roughest Draft. Like a lot of these stories felt a little similar. Now there are no publishing. There's nothing happening in the publishing world in this book. I have a friend who was like, no more publishing tropes. This one's for you. There's nothing in the publishing world happening. It's very Dawson's Creek, which is one of the things I think Marcy used to describe this to me. I love Dawson's Creek. I'm of that age, and so I really loved this kind of sort of love triangle. What it really reminded me of, though, all the Emily Henry comparisons aside, it reminded me of The Summer I Turned Pretty. It Is The summer I Turned Pretty for grown-ups. So if you read that series and were left wanting more, or if you watched that series, that television adaptation, and you wanted something else, here you go. Like, truly, I felt like I was reading The Summer I Turned Pretty fanfiction. I felt like the two guys were similar-ish in terms of personality. Their story of kind of growing up going to the same place every summer was very familiar, and so if you liked The Summer I Turned Pretty, you will probably really love love this book. It is the adult version of that story. I'm pretty sure when I read the author's note, Carley Fortune even references Jenny Han and Jenny Han's writing influence in her life, which made a lot of sense to me.  

[00:12:41] So this is why we read authors' notes. I liked this book, it fit what I needed it to, which was I needed a book that I would start and finish in two plane rides, and it totally did that. I also had no qualms about leaving it at the Airbnb for someone else to discover, because I think for me it was a one time vacation book and I will now move on with my reading life for other people, I think this was a five star book. That is fabulous. That is wonderful. I'm glad you found a book for you. I liked this book. It fit what I needed it to fit. It gave me what I needed it to give me that's Every Summer After by Carley Fortune. Then while I was in Austin, I of course went to book people and I picked up three books and a bandana, I believe. It feels right. So one of the books I picked up was Jaws by Peter Benchley. So I love the movie Jaws. I discovered it in middle school. I'm pretty sure my aunt and uncle showed it to me one summer while we were at the beach. I fell in love with it, made my best friend watch it. Something odd about me is that I made my best friend watch it, and we rewound. We rewound to the bloody parts of. Scott, you can't see me. I'm red in the face right now. But that is just too. I was, I guess, as a middle schooler. Anyway, I love that movie for some reason had no idea it was a book. I don't know why I've never picked up on that in the credits. I have watched this movie countless times, probably once a summer since I was 13 or 14. And so while we were in Austin, I had already kind of made a mental note like, I don't know about you all, but I keep tabs on my phone, like lots and lots of tabs, and one of the tabs open was a copy of Jaws because I thought, I'd really like to read that.  

[00:14:32] I think that'd be fun. Maybe even it would be a fun audiobook to read with Jordan. While we were in Austin, I was headed to check out. I was only going to buy two books and a bandana, and then there was Jaws on the shelf and I thought it's meant to be, and so I grabbed Jaws by Peter Benchley. This was published in the seventies, published before the movie came out, obviously, it became a movie sensation. It did not do well in hardback, is my understanding, but it did very well in paperback because the paperback release was kind of sort of timed to promotion for the upcoming film. There's all this kind of interesting stuff in this edition of the book I bought, because the book I bought was obviously not published in the seventies. It was published much later, and so you get all these kind of interesting tidbits about the role the movie played in the book's success. Peter Benchley, by the way, went on to become a kind of conservationist for sharks and for oceans, and that also was really fascinating. I loved this book. I had a blast reading it. Now it is very much of a time. So this was published and written in the seventies. There are things in here that are, there are descriptions in here. There is verbiage in here that I do not espouse and I would not promote. It's of its time and we'll leave it at that. So it's a very seventies book with seventies sensibilities.  

[00:15:53] The delightful thing is, if you love the movie like I do, the book is just different enough where you are not going to be bored while reading the book because that was one of my concerns, was like, I'm going to read this book and it's going to feel so familiar because I watched the movie every year. But no, there were enough twists and turns and differences from the movie adaptation where I really did enjoy it and I can totally see how somebody read this and was like, we need to make this into a movie. I thought it was great. The description I think I gave in my Instagram review was like, this is exactly the kind of book I would want to stumble upon if I had an old family beach house with like nooks and crannies where mildewed books were kept, and this is one of the mildewed books I would keep. That's a really weird description, but it's very vivid in my mind. Like I would want to curl up under a blanket while watching clouds roll in over the ocean while reading Jaws by Peter Benchley. I thought it was really fun, a very fun summer read and very important. I bought it while I was in Austin and read it on my two flights back. So every summer after took me the two flights to get to Austin and Jaws by Peter Benchley gave me the two plane rides coming back home and so it definitely fit the bill for a vacation book and I really did enjoy my reading experience. And if you're like me, maybe this will be a fun surprise for you that this movie that I think a lot of us really like.  

[00:17:18] I know I at least have a lot of fond, nostalgic memories for the movie Jaws, and it was very fun to get to experience that in literary format. So that's Jaws by Peter Benchley, published in the seventies. It's not out of print. You can find it. I found it at Book People in Austin, Texas. Then I read, We'll Always Have Summer. This is by Jenny Han. It's the end of The Summer I Turned Pretty trilogy. If you did not know, we have been doing a young adult book club this summer just for Jenny Han. It's our Jenny Han Summer Book Club we read The Summer I Turned Pretty, I think May, June, July. So we ended in July with the final book in the series, We'll Always Have Summer. I want you to know I loved To All The Boys I've Loved Before. I loved the movie adaptation and then read the book series after watching the first movie. So I watched the first movie, read the trilogy, loved those books, thought they were really, really something sweet and special. I fell in love with the main character, Lara Jean Covey, like I liked her sisters. I loved those books. I liked that trilogy a lot. I have had a hard time with The Summer I Turned Pretty. Now I read them all, watched the show, but I did not love these like I loved To All The Boys I Loved Before. And there are occasions where I read a young adult novel where I realize, I am not the target audience for this. I think that's one thing to consider when we're reading a book like, was this book written for me? Honestly, no, no.  

[00:18:56] The Summer I Turned Pretty was not written for me, and yes, it has beach house vibes that I really love. Again, I like the trope of this family home. The setting is one of my favorite parts about this series, this beach house valley and her kind of sort of brothers friends like they all return to every summer. I love that. I loved that in the book and in the film adaptation, I think they did a great job of creating this really beautiful summer home. Much like the TV adaptation, I really fell in love with Laurel. Laurel is Bailey's mom. Laurel to me is the hero of the books, and therefore there's not much of her in Book three, and so someone said, I don't want to give spoilers or anything because I know some people are reading this series because of the TV show, but somebody said Book three gave them Gilmore Girls vibes when Lorelai and Rory aren't speaking. And I totally I thought, yeah, because the third book was my least favorite in the trilogy. That's for all kinds of reasons. Again, I really want to be careful of spoilers because people are Team Jeremiah, or Team Conrad, and I do not want to ruin it. All I will say is that there is some serious character development that happens in We'll Always Have Summer the third book and it's character development that does not always feel true to the characters it feels like it was a choice that had to be made, a choice that perhaps Jenny Han was forced to make that did not, in my mind, ring true to the characters themselves. It will be interesting to see because the TV adaptation is so different. If you have just read these books, you'll understand.  

[00:20:32] Like I think they're true to the vibes, but they are not necessarily true to the plot points. I think they're true to the major plot points. But I was left a little disappointed by this third book. I'm glad I read these. It was very fun to read them in a group. During the summer, I don't have I don't know why I don't have a ton of bandwidth. It's almost like fall to me where fall is very busy and so my reading life looks a little weird. There have been weeks in the summer that have felt similarly and so it was nice to read these in a group to kind of snark on them but also talk about how much we loved them. We had some actual young adult readers in the book club and they love this book. They loved these books and they loved this trilogy, and so it was good to hear their perspective to kind of counteract. I don't know, my mid-thirties petulance, maybe at these books that were not even written for me. So it was good to temper my cynicism with pure enthusiasm and enjoyment about this series that these teenagers really loved. So I loved reading it in a group. I'm glad I read them. I don't need to reread them. They will not be comfort books for me. They were fine and I think some people, they are probably just right for some readers and I think that's great. It was fun to talk about these I've done with them. However, I will be watching the future television episodes so that is We'll Always Have Summer by Jenny Han. That was the end of The Summer I Turned Pretty Trilogy and I'm glad I did it.  

[00:22:04] Then, though, this is when my July reading got really good. So the first part of July was all about vacation reads, deadline reading like I needed to read We'll Always Have Summer by a deadline. Then got to the part where I got to kind of read what I wanted to read a little bit. I wasn't reading for shelf subscriptions, I wasn't reading for podcast episodes. I just got to pick up what I wanted to, and so I finally picked up Our Wives Under The Sea. This is by Julia Armfield. Olivia and I talked about this book on a new release roundup episode for July, I believe. And on that episode I think I previewed that book and I knew, I knew Olivia would be intrigued, and so true to my word, I gave her ARC because she was headed out of town and I was like, you read this first. I started it like read a few pages to prep for that episode and loved it. But I wanted Olivia to read it because I was curious, was this going to be an Annie Olivia crossover book? So she took it with her on her vacation. She came back, left it on my desk with a Post-it that was like, this was so good. So I took it home and it is so good. To me this is a five star book. It is deliciously weird. Look, there are some weird books that are too weird for me. I think of the Jenny Slate book whose name I cannot remember. That one just went a bit over my head and I did not love that one like I wanted to. But there are some weird books. I'm looking at you, Hurricane Girl, and I'm looking at you, Our Wives Under The Sea that I love.  

[00:23:33] So Our Wives Under The Sea is about Miri and Leah. They are wives. Leah works as a marine biologist as a scientist. She's going on a submarine expedition. She's supposed to be gone for three weeks. When the book opens, she's back home. But we, the reader, realize that she has not been gone for three weeks. Instead, she was under the sea for six months. Something went wrong with their mission, with their study. And so she was under the sea for six months now she has come home to her wife, Miri, and she has been behaving strangely. I don't want to give anything else away, but I was totally right. This is an Annie and Olivia crossover. Olivia commented, there's just enough action for her. It's short chapters and there's a lot of science sci-fi elements happening, but it's got character development for me and it's beautifully written, like beautifully written. It reminds me the closest comp I can come up with is The Harpy by Megan Hunter, which is another very weird book that I loved. So if you like deliciously weird books, if you find yourself maybe going back and forth between Annie and Olivia, if you're a shelf subscription person and you find yourself going back and forth between an Annie pick and an Olivia pick. If you love character development, but you also need plot twists. But, and this is important you also like. Some elements of sci-fi, some elements of magical realism, which is normally, as you know, a no for me.  

[00:25:09] There's just enough of it here. There's just enough of it here that it is so, so good. And Mary and Leah are really interesting characters, and the book alternates between their two viewpoints, which I really liked. And so there's enough that keeps you grounded in very real world tangible elements, and then there's enough weird stuff happening, I think, to hold those of you who might be more like Olivia and more open to sci-fi or more open to magical realism, there's enough to hold your attention to. I loved this book. It may be in my top 10 of the year. It's definitely a contender. I don't know why I'm not hearing more about it. I think maybe because it is weird, but I guess I would encourage you. It's weird, but it's grounded. It's rooted in something. It's rooted in something practical and tangible, and so if you're ever hesitant, I think this could be a weird book that you could pick up and try. I adored this book, Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield. Five Stars for me. Olivia loved it as well. Can't wait to hear what you think about it. Then I picked up a book that also was previewed in the July new release Round-Up episode. That's A Lady's Guide to Fortune Hunting. It's a debut novel by Sophie Irwin. I previewed this and was struck by all the blurbs I read in preparation for that episode enough where my curiosity was piqued. So when I saw us get copies in because we didn't get ARCs of this one. When I saw our physical copies come in, I decided to take one home for the weekend and I loved it.  

[00:26:43] I really did. Regency era novels are not always for me. It kind of depends on which direction we're going. I am hit or miss on the Bridgerton show. I've not read the novels. I'm hit or miss on the show. So I picked this one up and it was a little slow at first, but not in a bad way. I just want you to know it's not like this action packed romcom. The book is about Kitty and Radcliffe. Really? Those are your two main characters. But basically, Kitty is a young woman whose parents have died and left her and her sisters in debt, and she is the oldest daughter. And of course, as the oldest daughter of this time, she knows if she doesn't marry someone rich, she and her sisters will be destitute. They will probably be separated, and so she has to find a husband while also kind of sort of keeping this all under wraps, because it's kind of this, no, no of that time, that she is in debt and that her parents have left her in debt, it's kind of stigmatizing. And so she heads to London for the season and immediately meets Radcliffe, who kind of sniffs out that she is a fortune hunter, that all she is is kind of this woman who is playing these men until she finds the richest one. This is no spoilers. What I thought was a really lovely twist is that instead of revealing who she is to the High Society of London, Radcliffe decides to kind of take it upon himself to help her navigate those waters and find a really rich mate, really rich husband.  

[00:28:27] I really liked Kitty and Radcliffe. This had just enough nods to, Jane Austen-esque literature that I thought was really fun. Also, it is important to note I am a PG, relatively PG reader when it comes to romance and sex scenes. You know this, I know this and a lot of modern Regency era lit or modern llit that is paying tribute to the Regency era plays on that by being really open door and that is great and fun and I have friends who love that. The Bridgerton novels come to mind, but also I think I read one of these books. Martha Waters has a series called The Regency Vows, and they're, I've read To Have and To Hoax. And I liked it, but I didn't love it, and I think that's mostly because of my own readerly preferences and what I enjoy and what I don't. This is closed door PG. My mom could read this. My mom probably will read this and I think she'd really like it. There is innuendo. I'm not opposed to innuendo. I just don't want the doors flung wide open. And that's just me. Whatever floats your boat, guys. Good for you. Not for me. This book was for me because it was PG, because it was closed door, and I thought Kitty was really smart. Her relationships to her sisters, I think, are really interesting. It would not shock me if there are more of these books coming down the road. It wouldn't shock me if Sophie Irwin decides to write more of these more about these sisters.  

[00:29:55] I really liked their family and I thought Radcliffe was, I think a lot of these male love interests can tend toward the not just the Darcy trope, but almost like a caricature of Darcy, and I'm not really here for that. I thought Radcliffe was his own interesting person, and I was into his relationship with his brother and his family as well. Like I thought that was equally compelling. If you liked season two of Bridgerton, not season one, but if you liked season two of Bridgerton, I think you would like this book. If you liked season one of Bridgerton, you probably should go read the Bridgerton books or Martha Waters, because I think you're going to like the sensibility of those books better. But if you liked season two better, I think you'll really like this book. Plus, I don't know if you-all have seen this cover. It is gorgeous. The cover is beautiful. I took my copy back to the bookshelf, but I think I'm going to buy it and put it on my shelves because I really I liked it a lot. I think it could potentially be a comfort book and the cover is fabulous. So that is A Lady's Guide To Fortune Hunting by Sophie Irwin. Thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyable. Quiet enough, and this is what I'll say. When I said it started off slow, what I really mean is I did not fly through it in one sitting. Instead, I read it over the course of a weekend. I truly read it. I read some on Friday night, some on Saturday and some on Sunday. Delightful. Highly recommend. Thoroughly enjoyable for over a weekend. I just really liked it.  

[00:31:22] That is a Lady's Guide to Fortune Hunting by Sophie Irwin. Then I'm going to close out with my two audiobooks of the month. So I listened to Upgrade by Blake Crouch. Blake Crouch is beloved at The Bookshelf. We've talked about Annie Olivia crossovers. There's also the Erin component of it all. Erin is our online sales manager. She reads very widely, and so it's always hard to pinpoint down what her genre really is. But what I will tell you is Olivia, Erin and I all read this book and loved it. We feel the same way about Andy Weir, where we all read his books and love them. I think I like Blake Crouch better now. I loved Project Hail Mary. Like, loved it a lot. I love these Blake Crouch books because again, I am not opposed to science fiction. You just have to ground me in something else. Our Wives Under The Sea did a great job of this. Blake Crouch always does a good job of this. I am never overwhelmed by the sciencey details. Even if I don't fully understand what's going on. I understand enough. He helps the reader, the perhaps nonscientific minded reader, understand enough. I love this book. I think it's a great audiobook experience. So the audiobook is narrated by Henry Leyva and I think of Blake Crouch's three books. Erin, Olivia and I all agreed this is our favorite. And that's saying something because I really liked Dark Matter and Recursion, but I love this book. Perhaps because as Olivia said, it feels weirdly timely, like it feels like something that could happen.  

[00:32:55] It was not hard for me to wrap my brain around the science of all this. The main character of this book is Logan Ramsay, and this is taking place sometime in the near ish or feels to me near ish future where he works for the government almost the like I think they call it the GPA. It's the genetic police essentially. And they're really working against genetic scientists who are trying to reformat our genes. Do I sound like I know what I'm talking about? I definitely do. So anyway, that's kind of the premise of the book, is that Logan Ramsay is on assignment. He walks into this building and winds up then in a coma or in a medical situation because he has been exposed to something that has reformatted his genes and then the book proceeds from there. Did you all watch the show Upload? It is great. Very funny. It's by Greg Daniels, the guy who did The Office. We love that show. It is very funny to us. Very like laugh out loud funny. To me, this is weirdly and bear with me, but it feels a little like Upload meets The Fugitive. That great Harrison Ford movie that I also watch every year, just like I do Jaws. I love a nineties era action movie, and that is how Blake Crouch reads to me. I've always said this when I first read. I think Dark Matter was his first book. I thought this gives me the same vibes as a Harrison Ford TBS marathon. Like, which is really all I ever want.  

[00:34:33] And so I was listening to this book when I drove to the theater to see The Gray Man, which is starring Chris Evans and Ryan Gosling, and I don't know what other people will think about it. I don't think critics liked it very much. I thoroughly enjoyed it because it felt like a summer action blockbuster. That's all it was, and that's all I was looking for. Blake Crouch is the same thing to me, but smarter. And so that's why to me, their Upload sensibilities with this, like there's stuff going on with technology that I can wrap my brain around, but it's also kind of a fugitive story. Loved this book. Blake Crouch consistently does accessible science fiction. I think I could sell this to almost anybody and they would enjoy it, and that is really hard to do in the year 2022. And so for that, we think Blake Crouch and I also really appreciated the audiobook that is Upgrade by Blake Crouch. The audiobook which I got through Libra FM is narrated by Henry Leyva. Loved this book. And then the book that Jordan and I downloaded for some of our road tripping around and that we are not quite through with but I'm through with enough of it that I feel like I can review it. The book is directed by James Burrows. By James Burrows. So and the audiobook which we listen to is narrated by James Burrows. Here's what I will tell you. I personally am reading this with Jordan, and I loved listening to it with Jordan because it's fun to kind of laugh at the same things. We are familiar with James Burrows works. We've watched Cheers twice through. We're on our third viewing this summer. We finished you-all we finished?  

[00:36:12] We finished Law and Order SVU which I don't know if you knew we were doing that, but we were watching every episode of Law and Order SVU, which wow took a lot of dedication. I do think we skipped a couple of episodes here and there because they got bad. But now we've moved on to a rewatch of Cheers. So every night before bed we watch an episode or two of Cheers. We are fans of Frazier, of Friends, Taxi. He also did some. He did. We have not watch that show, but he did many, if not all the episodes of Taxi. So that is who James Burrows is you are familiar with his work, even if you're not familiar with him. I love listening to this audiobook. I would get the physical copy. James Burrows is obviously very talented, good at many things. I am not sure that audiobook narration is like his best thing, that he does. And so I will just say that if you're trying to decide between the two, I think the physical book would be the way to go. This book got great reviews from critics and readers alike. I can see why I love it because I'm familiar with his work and a kind of interesting quirk about me and my entrepreneurial life slash reading life is that I don't love a ton of business books. That's probably not that surprising. I don't love a ton of business books.  

[00:37:22] I wind up reading a third or a half and then moving on. But I really love reading books about shows, showrunners, directors. Movie producers. I love reading books like that because I weirdly learn a lot about management and management styles from books like that. And I don't know if I'm an outlier or if that's true across the board. The book that comes to mind is The Office by Andy Greene. That's the oral history of The Office. And I learned so much about how Greg Daniels worked and some of it felt really similar to running a small business like running a show, I think has some real similarities to what it's like to run a small store. And so while listening to this book by James Burrows, I am struck so much by how directing. Often can look a lot like running a team or helping to manage a team. I don't know. I'm listening to it and mentally taking notes about how he collaborates and how he brings out the best in his actors and his actresses. And so, anyway, we're really loving this book.  

[00:38:34] If you are not familiar with James Burrows work, then this will probably not be for you. But we love it. I would like I said, put it in the same vein as The Office by Andy Greene or I'll Have What She's Having, which is that great book about Nora Ephron and her films. And so if you like pop culture, if you liked the SNL oral history book, that's what I'm talking about. The Friends, there was a friends book that came out a few years ago, I think, called I'll Be There For You. Anyway. I love books like that. I love this book. I'm really enjoying the audiobook experience with Jordan. It's very fun to reminisce and laugh about different Cheers episodes because we're pretty familiar with those by now, and so it's been very fun to listen to this. It is directed by James Burrows. That's the name of the book directed by James Burrows. By James Burrows, and it's really lovely. And perhaps if you're a pop culture aficionado, you might like it too.  

Annie Jones [00:39:29] So those are the books I read in July, as we have done this year. We are offering a reading recap bundle for the month of July. So this is a bundle that's available for purchase on the website. That's bookshelfthomasville.com. And the bundle is at a discount. So if you buy the bundle, you do get a discount that's kind of included. So this month's bundle is $73 and it includes Our Wives Under The Sea. That's the book by Julie Armfield that's like an Annie Olivia crossover. Deliciously weird. A Ladies Guide to Fortune Hunting. PG Regency Era Wit and Upgrade by Blake Crouch. So those are the three titles that are being offered as a bundle for $73. They were by far my favorite books I read this month. You can find the July bundle online through the link in our show notes. Or just go to bookshelfthomsville.com and there's a whole section for podcast picks and reading recap online and you can find those pretty easily now on our very easy to navigate new website.  

[00:40:30] This week I'm reading Dinosaurs by Lydia Millet.  

[00:40:36] From the Front Porch is a weekly podcast production of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in Thomasville, Georgia. You can follow The Bookshelf’s daily happenings on Instagram @bookshelftville, and all the books from today's episode can be purchased online through our store website. Bookshelfthomasville.com.  

[00:40:52] A full transcript of today's episode can be found at fromthefrontporchpodcast.com.  

[00:40:57] Special thanks to Studio D Podcast Production for production of From the Front Porch and for our theme music, which sets the perfect, warm and friendly tone for our Thursday conversations.  

Executive Producer(Read Their Own Names) [00:41:06] Our executive producers of today's episode are Donna Hechler, Angie Erickson, Cammy Tidwell. Nicole Marsee, Wendi Jenkins, Ari Johnson, Kate Johnston Tucker. Thank you all for your support of From The Front Porch.  

Annie Jones [00:41:21] If you'd like to support From The Front Porch, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Your input helps us make the show even better and reach new listeners. All you have to do is open up the podcast app on your phone, look for From The Front Porch. Scroll down until you see, write a review and tell us what you think or if you're so inclined you can support us over on Patreon, where we have three levels of support. Front Porch Friends, Book Club Companions and Bookshelf Benefactors. Each level has an amazing number of benefits, like bonus content, access to live events, discounts and giveaways. Just go to patraeon.com/fromthefrontporch. We're so grateful for you and we look forward to meeting back here next week.  

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a weekly conversational podcast on books, small business, and life in the South