Episode 460 || Into the Backlist, Vol. 1
This week on From the Front Porch, we have a new episode series: Into the Backlist! Today, Annie changes her focus from new releases to dive into the backlist: the books that came out years ago, the books that didn’t get enough attention, the books you may stumble upon while browsing in an indie bookstore like The Bookshelf.
To purchase the books mentioned in this episode, visit our website (type “Episode 460” into the search bar and tap enter to find the books mentioned in this episode) or or download and shop on The Bookshelf’s official app:
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
Frances and Bernard by Carlene Bauer
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
Fire Sermon by Jamie Quatro (unavailable to order)
Dear Regina by Flannery O'Connor
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney
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 One in a Millennial by Kate Kennedy.
If you liked what you heard in today’s episode, tell us by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. You can also support us on Patreon, where you can access bonus content, monthly live Porch Visits with Annie, our monthly live Patreon Book Club with Bookshelf staffers, Conquer a Classic episodes with Hunter, and more. 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...Ashley Ferrell, Cammy Tidwell, Chanta Combs, Chantalle C, Kate O’Connell, Kristin May, Laurie Johnson, Linda Lee Drozt, Martha, Nicole Marsee, Stacy Laue, Stephanie Dean, Susan Hulings, and Wendi Jenkins.
Transcript:
[squeaky porch swing] Welcome to From the Front Porch, a conversational podcast about books, small business, and life in the South. [music plays out]
“Your face says so much in so little time, you let everything you're thinking bloom upon your face, and I can't think of anything else I'd rather watch than you pass through five moods in five minutes. What glorious weather.” - Carlene Bauer, Frances and Bernard
[as music fades out] I’m Annie Jones, owner of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in beautiful downtown Thomasville, Georgia, and this week, we’re launching a monthly podcast series we’re calling Into the Backlist. This month officially begins our 2024 Conquer a Classic program, where Hunter Mclendon and I are reading the American classic Lonesome Dove alongside hundreds of other readers. Our monthly bonus podcast episodes recapping the book publish to Patreon on the last Friday of the month, which means you still have plenty of time to join us. You can grab your copy of the book from the link in our shownotes or by shopping at www.bookshelfthomasville.com. Patreon supporters just need to join at the $5 to head our monthly conversations, and you’ll receive a free copy of the reading guide, too. Visit patreon.com/fromthefrontporch and support us at the $5 level; our first episode drops on January 25.
[00:01:41] Annie Jones Now back to the show. So because From the Front Porch is a podcast very much wrapped up in the comings and goings of The Bookshelf, many or most of the books we feature are new, or many times they're not even yet released books which I know drives you all mad. And so backlist titles can get lost or overlooked. If this term is not super familiar to you, backlist titles just means books that are published more than a year ago. Books that are not considered new releases are considered backlist titles. And I feature a few of those on Reading Recap episodes. But generally speaking, this is a podcast that very much deals with new or up and coming books. And as I began to think about 2024 and the different podcast episodes I wanted to feature, I got to thinking about the magic of independent bookstores and how we try to replicate that in-store magic for you, our long distance customer and podcast listener. I know some of you are local, but a lot of you are long distance, so some of you have never even been to The Bookshelf. And one of the most magical things to me about shopping in an independent bookstore is the serendipitous nature of it. Like how you might stumble upon a book you've never seen before and be inspired to read it or buy it because of an in-store recommendation, or simply because the book begs to be read straight from the shelf.
[00:03:07] Now, don't get me wrong, I get that serendipitous feeling from new titles all the time. I hope that you hear that level of magic and enthusiasm in my voice when I talk about books I love here on From the Front Porch. But often that serendipitous feeling seems to come especially from like an unsung book, a hidden gem of a book, a book that's been out for a while, or a book that only that particular indie bookstore seems to know about. I have a feeling a lot of readers get this feeling from used bookstores, or maybe even from the library, where it feels like you have to dig a little bit to find what you want. The Bookshelf is a highly curated independent bookstore. A lot of independent bookstores that focus on new books are because we're limited on space and on what we can carry. But what that means is that the backlist titles that we choose to carry on our shelves are often books our staff really loves. And so I think customers can come in and look among the shelves, shop among the shelves and find something really special because we've really curated that selection for you. So this year on the podcast, I thought I'd dig through the imaginary bookshelf vaults, not unlike the Disney vaults, and highlight the backlist titles I think are special. Books we keep on our shelves at the Bookshelf, even though they were published years ago. Books we secretly hope a customer stumbles upon, asks us about, and eventually takes home for themselves.
[00:04:38] Okay, so I wanted to start this series with Carlene Bauer's, Frances and Bernard, which released way back in February of 2013. Before the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, before Jamie Quatro's controversial but beautiful Fire Sermon, there was Frances and Bernard, a quiet debut novel from an author who at the time had previously only published a memoir about growing up evangelical and finding herself as an adult in New York. Believe it or not, I have still never read that book. I have it on my shelves. I will pick it up probably after recording this episode, because now I've convinced myself I need to read it. Frances and Bernard, though, was one of the first advanced reader copies I ever received as a bookseller. I have a note in my copy. I used to write-- and sometimes I still do, if I remember, but I used to write in all of the books I finished and kept just a little note that said, when I read it, if I liked it, how long it took me and stuff like that. So in my copy of Frances and Bernard, it says, "Love, love, love. First read January 2013. Reminded me of me and Jordan." So as I skimmed through the pages in preparation for today's episode, I wondered if those initial feelings of literary love at first sight would hold true all these years later. That was a relatively romantic thing for me to put in the front of a book. But the book itself begins with a quote from Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, and it claims to be an homage to the real life friendship between Flannery O'Connor and poet Robert Lowell.
[00:06:14] I've kept it on the shelves at The Bookshelf for the last 10 years for those reasons alone, like just for that Flannery O'Connor connection, and for the fact that inevitably a reader enters The Bookshelf looking for an epistolary novel, a novel told in letters, and more often than not they've never heard of Frances and Bernard. More often than not, I sell them on it. It's my favorite part of the job. So Frances and Bernard begins briefly in the summer of 1957. So it might seem like an odd book to recommend in January, but the novel was originally released in the winter months, and its cover, which has not changed over the years, is a blurry black and white photo of a man and woman drinking cocktails among twinkle lights, and it just screams winter to me. And the letters too quickly become wintry in nature. So it kicks off in the summer of 1957, when Frances and Bernard meet at a writers colony, I believe, in upstate New York. And they write not just to each other, but to their friends, to family members back home. And then the letters quickly become fall and winter and follow year after year. So Frances and Bernard write one another across continents and then between their two homes in New England. And it is an epistolary novel, but not just between Frances and Bernard. The letters begin with the ones they wrote, and sent family and friends while they were at this writer's colony, and then they eventually become the letters they write each other after. They kind of struck up a really basic kind of acquaintanceship while they were at this writer's colony. But Bernard was struck by Frances and wanted to write her letters, and wanted her to write him letters.
[00:07:51] So each letter is super funny and charming and almost captures or encapsulates the arrogance that we all felt like freshman year of college. Obviously, the people in this book are adults. They're at a writers colony. But that arrogance of like being around people who, I don't know, trying to seem even smarter than they are. Do you know what I'm talking about? Am I making that up from my freshman year of college? Where we all sat around and debated things, but then when I look back, I'm like, we didn't even know what we were talking about. That's how these letters come across where there's these two writers trying to figure out what they think, what they want to say, how they want to say it. And so the letters to me come across as really charming. We'll talk about what the critics had to say about this book later, but I really liked the tonality or the tone of these letters. I really liked what these writers had to say to each other. Frances's letters were clearly very inspired, now that I've read them, by Flannery O'Connor's own letters like the ones I loved last year in Dear Regina. Frances and Bernard also clocks in at just under 200 pages, and it's slimness is one of its gifts to me. Its other gift is perhaps unsurprisingly the way Frances and Bernard's conversations start with, well, for example, a question about the Holy Spirit and then morph into a treatise about why everyone has a crush on Cary Grant.
[00:09:16] Okay, this is exactly the kind of friendship I want to have. I love that their letters belie hoards of insecurities. You can see both of them tiptoeing around their love for one another. And even though we just get their letters, we immediately know exactly who they are. Frances is a witty, perhaps introverted Catholic who longs to be a writer, but who also feels she might not have what it takes in talent or in education. She's close with her family, trying to do them proud, but maybe they're also slightly confused by her. And then Bernard is a slightly arrogant, professorial type with a curiosity for the world. He is a recently converted Catholic. And now he has this deep curiosity for Frances and what makes her tick. Okay, let's go through every episode. I'm going to kind of toy around with this format, but I want to go through some basic sections. So first of all, I want to talk stats. So this book released for the first time in hardcover on February 5th, 2013, right around my birthday, which might be why I love it so much. And it technically clocks in at around 208 pages. When you take away acknowledgments and things like that, it's a little under 200. Okay. Critics consensus. Kirkus hated this book. I was stunned. I was shocked. Normally, Kirkus and I agree on things, but the Kirkus Review hated this book. Here, let me quote you a little bit of the review. "Debut novelist Bauer pins an epistolary novel whose protagonists lead insular, self-absorbed and very dull lives. The characters are too wrapped up in themselves and totally ignore anything outside their narrow personal spheres. How can they not once mention one word about the space race, Elvis, the Beatles, JFK's assassination, or Vietnam, just to name a few of the social and political events that occurred during their 11 years of correspondence?".
[00:11:12] With all due respect to Kirkus, I have some thoughts on this. Now, look, as we have already established in years of reviewing books on this podcast, I love books without a plot. I like books where people are just talking to each other. If Aaron Sorkin could have written the book version of it, I'd probably love it. I just love characters talking to each other. I like Sally Rooney. I like these people who just talk to each other about big ideas. And Frances and Bernard is definitely that book. Is it a valid complaint to talk about how they don't talk about anything other than themselves? Sure. I would argue that when you're seeped in-- especially those early letters, now maybe the latter years and the later letters, this is a more valid concern. But in those early letters, I feel like when we were in school or college or summer camp somewhere that really did feel insular-- the Kirkus use that word, but I think it's absolutely true that at this writers colony, they probably actually literally were insular living on a compound together. And so, sure, I don't think their letters have to address the fact that Paul McCartney and his best friend started a band. Like, I think it's fine. Now as they become adults and you would hope grow out of their insularity-- maybe this is a more valid complaint, except I don't write letters to my friends very often. I write cards sometimes, but mostly what I do with my long distance friends and I have many of them, is I correspond with them via Voxer.
[00:12:49] And this is not going to become a podcast about how I keep in touch with my friends, but I almost daily am talking to my friends in voice memo format, and occasionally we will talk about a political debate or the latest act of gun violence in our country, or something like that, especially if it hits close to home for one of us. But generally speaking, our correspondence is filled with our day to day mundane lives. And my friends are not thoughtless people. They are not people who are only self-centered and wrapped up in themselves and lack self-awareness. But we are busy people who are catching up with each other, and we don't always reference what Joe Biden said today, and I think that's okay. So with all due respect to this Kirkus critic, I just would argue, what are you talking to your friends about? Now, my friends I see regularly, who I'm talking to you all the time, maybe we talk a little bit more about current events or pop culture or something like that. But for my long distance friends, we're only occasionally delving into those topics because we so rarely talk to each other that we want to know what's going out with your kids today, or how's your job going, or something like that. So all due respect to Kirkus, but I believe this is believable. Now, the New York Times was slightly kinder and saw the novel with much the same view I did. Okay, here's a quote from that review: "It would be a pleasure," Frances informs Bernard, "to talk to you in letters." Bernard, more ambitious, tells her he is, "envisioning our correspondence as a spiritual dialog." Frances, as always, deflates such highfalutin talk. "Christ would not have taught the disciples by correspondence course, I'm fairly sure.".
[00:14:32] What Frances and Bernard has to offer is a fresh voice, thinking seriously about what a religiously committed life might have felt like, and perhaps in our own far from tranquil period might feel like again. And the book got 3.68 on good reads. Look, I can understand some of the critics complaints or concerns, but I tend to agree with the New York Times critic, which is this is a book about two people thinking deeply about things or trying to think deeply about things. They think they're thinking deeply about things. And I really like that kind of book. If you do not like that kind of book, then you will not like this book. I think that's very clear. So depending on if you're a plot driven reader or character driven reader, depending on if you like books truly where the first, I don't know, five pages are correspondence talking about how people feel about the Holy Spirit, if that may not be for you, it is very, very much for me. And what I have to remember about myself is I read this not shortly after graduating college. I graduated from college in December of 2007, and I read this in January of 2013, when I was in the middle of running The Bookshelf as a manager in Tallahassee. And I think when I wrote in the front of my copy that this book reminded me of me and Jordan, yes, Jordan and I met in a great books class, so we really did sit and discuss, probably a lot like Frances and Bernard, these kind of high minded ideas. And we lived in a really insular, tiny college campus. And so it's not surprising to me that 27 year old Annie found a lot of similarities between herself and Frances, or between Jordan and Bernard.
[00:16:22] But the book, I flip through it, I reread portions of it before recording this episode because I wondered, well, did I just love it because back in 2013 I missed college? I was still in my 20s, still occasionally romanticizing my collegiate experience. I hope I'm not the only person who did that. I never or rarely romanticize my high school experience, but I frequently in my 20s would romanticize and miss-- I have a real fondness for my college experience. Now I'm in my late 30s. It is 10 years later, almost 11 years later, and I don't necessarily have that a fondness or nostalgia for college anymore. And so I wondered, would this book hold the same appeal? And I'm pleased to report it does. I know I referenced already, but it reminds me a lot of Sally Rooney's book, Beautiful World Where Are You. I think that's the name of it. I'll put it in the show notes. But it reminded me a lot of that book, because the very things that I loved about that book were these characters who you see developing over the course of the book. Frances and Bernard takes place over 11 years. So you watch these people become adults, but only through letters. And so you're only getting snippets of their person-hood or their personalities, and you're really getting a glimpse of what they believe and why they believe it. And I love asking myself those questions. I love asking myself, why do I believe what I believe? Do I still even believe those things? So that's the critic's consensus. That's my consensus. Now, let me give you the one sentence handsell. So when you stumble upon this book at The Bookshelf or when somebody comes in the store-- and really any good bookseller will tell you, the customer dictates what you recommend to them.
[00:18:03] So when you walk in The Bookshelf, Olivia doesn't just recommend her most recent favorite book, she'll do that if you're a mystery thriller reader. But first, what most if not all of the booksellers on our staff do is ask, what are you reading right now? What did you just read and finish and love? Because that helps us know what we're going to recommend. So it's only a certain kind of person that I really feel like I can recommend Frances and Bernard to. If you come in looking for a plot driven book, if you're easily bored by characters diatribes, then I'm not going to hand sell you this book. But if you come in and I sense a curiosity about you, or if you're a reader who typically reads nonfiction, maybe even Christian nonfiction or spirituality, this feels like a book that I could sell you on. Like my brother, who really shies away from fiction, (which irritates me to no end; I'm constantly trying to sell him on good fiction) this is a book I would hand sell him. So the one sentence hand sell a man and woman began exchanging letters after their time at a writer's colony, and their budding friendship remains platonic while occasionally veering into the romantic. So I think readers who like a romantic relationship will like this book. There are definitely, definitely hints of romance, but one of the things I really love about this book is that, for the most part, this is a book about two people who are platonically in love with each other. And we don't often read books or watch movies that highlight the beauty and the romance in platonic relationships. And maybe by saying there's a romance in them, I'm dismissing it. But I mean romance in like the old fashioned sense of the world. There is sexual tension here. I think especially Bernard really romantically is interested in Frances. She is, I think, less so in him.
[00:19:51] But for the most part, these are just two people who are in love with each other's brains and they want to maintain this talky friendship because they found soulmates in one another. It'd be a great book club book. You could debate all day. Well, are Frances and Bernard made for each other romantically or are they just made for each other platonically? I think that's a valid question. So those are the things that might come up while you're reading this book. Okay. We've talked basic stats. I've given you the critics consensus. I've given you my one sentence hand sell. Now let's talk about who I would put this book on a shelf with. At the Bookshelf, we're constantly designing end caps, trying to pair different books with each other. It's one of my favorite leftover tendencies, I think, from the aforementioned Great Books program, is I'm constantly putting books in conversation with each other. So who would I put this book on the shelf with? Well, 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff immediately comes to mind. That is a beloved classic. And if you love that book, which is essentially a book about books in epistolary novel where two book lovers, a bookseller and a reader, exchange letters. I think you would really like this book. This one's a little bit longer. The subjects they are covering are slightly different, but above all, Frances and Bernard love words and you can definitely sense their love of the written word in their letters. I already mentioned Fire Sermon, but it begs to be mentioned again.
[00:21:11] Now, look, you've heard me mention Fire Sermon many times. That is another backlist title. It's by Jamie Quatro. I loved that book when it came out. Maybe it's time for me to revisit it. I really did adore it, but it also stands so starkly in my mind, so clearly in my mind, because it is the book that I received probably the most flak for when I sent it out as a Shelf Subscription. It's a pretty steamy book, although I will tell you when I was reading it, yeah, I noticed it had sex in it, but not really because there were other things I was more concerned with, which I think speaks to who I am as a person because it is definitely open door. But it never bothered me. It definitely bothered some of my shelf subscribers. And so that's why we have a Nancy/Susie Shelf Subscription now. We can thank Fire Sermon for that. The reason I'd put Fire Sermon on a shelf with Frances and Bernard is because while Frances and Bernard's relationship stays mostly platonic, Fire Sermon is what happens when that relationship becomes sexual and becomes romantic. And you could read both of these books kind of back to back or in the same flight and really compare, and try to figure out, well, what do I wish would happen? Like, do I wish Frances and Bernard had become romantically involved? Do I wish the two people in Fire Sermon had not become romantically involved? There's a marital affair that also takes place in that book. And so I think you could easily put these books in conversation with each other. And the reason they're falling in love is because they're falling in love with each other's minds.
[00:22:38] Dear Regina by Flannery O'Connor is very obvious choice. But if you're going to read Frances and Bernard, I think one of the critics said-- and I will agree with this criticism, because in the book Frances is not southern, and so it does feel a little silly. I think when I was reading it I knew about the Flannery and Robert Lowell connection, it's on the back of the ARC. But I remember reading it and immediately it's almost like how Hello Beautiful was an homage to Little Women, but once you started reading it, you kind of forgot about the Little Women of it all. You knew that Edward was Teddy/Laurie-- no, William. Somebody was yelling at their radio. I fixed it. William. So William was supposed to be Laurie, but the more you read almost immediately you forgot about Laurie and you were focused on William. So I think as you're reading Frances and Bernard, you might think to yourself, oh, yes, this is Flannery O'Connor. I understood the homage, but also because in the book, Frances is not southern. And when you read Flannery O'Connor's letters, her southern heritage comes out in all kinds of ways. And I mean that. In all the ways I mean that. And so Frances in Frances and Bernard is not southern. And so as you get to reading, even if you've never read Flannery O'Connor before, or even if you're not familiar with Robert Lowell, there is plenty to like about this book. It's Frances and Bernard's book. It's not Flannery and Robert's book. And so I would put it on the shelf with Dear Regina, because I think it would be fun to read Flannery's actual letters after reading what they inspired.
[00:24:18] Okay. And then another, perhaps obvious choice, but I would put Gilead by Marilynne Robinson here, because so much of what Frances and Bernard are discussing is wrapped up in religion and in their Christian faith. That's one of my favorite parts about Gilead, is how this minister on his deathbed is thinking about what he believes and why he believes it. And that's exactly what Frances and Bernard are talking about. And then last but not least, is Beautiful World Where Are You by Sally Rooney. Again, all of these characters are just dealing with a lot of the same things. So that's who I put this book on a shelf with: 84 Charing Cross Road, Fire sermon, Dear Regina, Gilead, Beautiful World Where Are You? Coincidentally, if you came in The Bookshelf and were asking me about Frances and Bernard, I would ask you how you felt about these other books. If you didn't like them, I would not recommend this book. If you did like them, I very obviously would recommend this book. Now what's my favorite quote? Well, I started the episode with a quote that I really loved. Look, these are letters between two writers and so the one liners are aplenty. There are so many good quotes in this book. I mean, that's one of the reasons I loved it. It's so well-written and smart and funny. This is a quote that I liked it. I don't know if it will qualify as my favorite, there are just so many, but this is a quote that I enjoyed.
[00:25:39] This came from a Frances letter. "I think many religious folk mistakenly championed the importance of being ramrod, especially religious folk who have coagulated into a group." She's so smart. Okay, so read this book if you like talky books, like if Aaron Sorkin was a Catholic, where nothing happens. You like reading about big ideas. You like to laugh out loud at the pretentious nature of writers. If you like any of those things, I think you will enjoy revisiting the backlist classic or visiting for the first time the backlist classic Frances and Bernard by Carlene Bauer. You can purchase a copy of Frances and Bernard at Bookshelfthomasville.com. There's a direct link in the show notes, or you can search for today's episode number, that's episode 460. And tell us what you think about this new series. We're going to try to do this once a month. You can visit The Bookshelf Instagram @bookshelftville. Find the post that corresponds to today's episode and tell us what you think. This week I'm listening to One in a Millennial by Kate Kennedy.
[00:26:45] Annie Jones: 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 at @bookshelftville, and all the books from today’s episode can be purchased online through our store website: bookshelfthomasville.com A full transcript of today’s episode can be found at:
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.
Our Executive Producers of today’s episode are…
Cammy Tidwell, Chantalle Carl, Kate O'Connell, Kristin May, Linda Lee Drozt, Martha, Stacy Laue, Chanta Combs, Stephanie Dean, Ashley Ferrell Executive Producers (Read Their Own Names): Nicole Marsee, Wendi Jenkins, Laurie Johnson, Susan Hulings Annie Jones: 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, support us over on Patreon, where we have 3 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: patreon.com/fromthefrontporch We’re so grateful for you, and we look forward to meeting back here next week.