Episode 413 || February Reading Recap
This week on From the Front Porch, Annie recaps the books she read and loved in February. As always, we’re offering a Reading Recap Bundle, which features Annie’s three favorite books she read this past month.
You can get the books mentioned in this episode on our website (type Episode 413 into the search bar to easily find the books mentioned in this episode).
The Sweet Spot by Amy Poeppel
Now You See Us by Balli Jaur Kaswal
Everything’s Fine by Cecilia Rabess
Orphaned Believers by Sara Billups
Black Ball by Theresa Runstedtler
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
This week, Annie is reading The House Is On Fire by Rachel Beanland.
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.
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Our Executive Producers are... Donna Hetchler, Cammy Tidwell, Chantalle C, Kate O’Connell, Nicole Marsee, Wendi Jenkins, and Laurie Johnson.
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] Jess stares at the ceiling and wonders what he sees when he sees her. How much of her he sees. Wonders if, to him, she's fully real. Wonders whether the aperture of his mind is wide enough to accommodate her in her entirety. Cecilia Rabess Everything's Fine.
[00:00:47] I'm Annie Jones, owner of the Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in beautiful downtown Thomasville, Georgia. And this week, I'm recapping the books I read in February. Next Thursday is our March from the Front Porch Book Club meeting. I will be leading a Zoom conversation alongside our marketing manager, Caroline, All about Stealing by Margaret Verbal. This was my February shelf subscription selection. Our from the Front Porch Book Club meets on the first Thursday of each month and our selections come from our Shelf Subscription service. To join our monthly discussions, join our Patreon at the $20 a month level. You'll receive access to those Zoom book club meetings, which you can watch live or later, plus our monthly Q&A sessions and our Conquer a Classic episodes.
[00:01:35] Just go to Patreon.com/fromthefrontporch to find out more. We'd love for you to join us.
[00:01:43] I am here to tell you all about the books I read in February. But before I do that, I feel like I do have to be transparent and honest and tell you I am recording this episode much earlier than I typically like to record Reading Recap episodes. They're typically the last episode of the month, and so I like to record them toward the end of the month to give a full account of the books I've read. But by necessity, because February is so very short, I am recording it feels like a lot earlier than usual. The good news is I read a lot of good books in February and I'm very comfortable reviewing those for you. And then I also, at this point in the month, am about 50 to 75% through a couple of other books. And so, I'll be sure to kind of let you know which books those are. I do like to be honest in my reviews and in my recaps, but I also have to record when the schedule tells me to record. And so, this month feels a little different, a little earlier than normal, but that's okay. We're doing it and it's going to be great. I read a few books in February. It doesn't feel like it was my best reading month, but I think that can easily be attributed to the fact that we hosted our February Reader Retreat, our Winter Reader Retreat, and that took up a whole lot of time and energy and planning. I also spent part of my month at Cheer Her on Weekend up in New England in Massachusetts, celebrating the work of Little Women and as a result, again, just not a ton of reading time. I'm a person; you're a person, and so we may not have reading months where we read a ton of books and that's okay.
[00:03:29] I did read some good books this month, including what felt like my first true five-star book of the year. I think I read Katherine Heiny's Games and Rituals in January, and that was a five-star book. But this was my first like, in the month it was published, five-star read. Took me by surprise, I think it's pretty memorable. It is The Sweet Spot by Amy Poeppel. Here's what I want you to know about The Sweet Spot. I really like Amy Poeppel and I trust her. I read musical chairs during peak pandemic times, and it was a comfort to me and a book I really enjoyed. I think prior to reading that, I read Amy Poeppel’s Limelight and really liked that book, had an enjoyable time. I got this ARC months ago and I picked it up thinking, "Yes, please, I need Amy Poeppel in my life. I need her characters in my life." And I started reading it and thought, this is fine. So, I put it down. I think that was kind of at the holiday season maybe and-- I don't know, I put it down. And then I picked it back up after seeing my friend Betsy post about it on her Instagram and she raved about it. And I thought, "Oh, that's so weird. I really like Amy Poeppel. Let me go back and see what maybe I missed," because I was reading during the holidays and holiday chaos certainly affects our reading lives. So, I restarted The Sweet Spot and immediately got back into the rhythm of the story. It didn't take me long to remember where I had left off, but I remembered why I put it down. Which is there are so many characters in this book, and Amy Poeppel does a good job of introducing you to those characters. But there comes a moment when it almost feels Dickensian, like I almost felt like I needed a chart. And I was not accustomed maybe to doing that kind of work for an Amy Poeppel read. However-- and I made a note of this because I wanted you, my fellow reader, to know-- once I reached page 74, I was absolutely hooked. I was like, okay, now I have a sense of who everybody is. I know who they are, who they're related to, how they relate to the themes of this book.
[00:05:55] I think partly I was done a disservice by reading the blurb on the back of the book jacket. Once I just started letting myself get carried away by the plot, by Amy Poeppel storytelling, once I kind of trusted her, I was completely sold. So, I had to get to page 74. And I know that sounds like a long time, but I want you to know it's not really because the whole time I was laughing, I was having a good time. I just was having a hard time remembering who people were until page 74. And that's when all of the characters I felt like, "Oh, yes, I know all of them. I understand their quirks, I understand their relationships. I'm in." And then I realized, oh, dear, I hate one of these people. I hate one of these characters. What am I going to do? Can I read this book where I hate one of these characters? And I am here to tell you that you can. You can, in fact, read a book where you hate one of the characters, because if the author is as gifted and as talented and as empathetic and tender as Amy Poeppel, by the end, the character you loathe will be the character you love. And I could not believe she was able to do that. I really couldn't. I finished the book and thought, I cannot believe that at page 150 I hated this person, and now I feel such kindness toward her and love her. That's how good Amy Poeppel is, and it's how good this book is. So, if you have not read Amy Poeppel before, I really do think she is a combination of Katherine Heiny, who I already mentioned, and Emma Straub. I think if you like those two authors, you will like Amy Poeppel's books. You will like the characters that she creates. This book, really it belongs to so many characters. But you do have three women that eventually kind of become almost the triangle around whom this book is built. Their names are Olivia, Melinda, and Lauren. They all live in and around Greenwich Village in New York. So, this is very much a New York centric book.
[00:08:07] The title of the book gets its name from a bar where Lauren and her family live near kind of next door above this bar that has been in their family. They don't run the bar, but they rent out this space to this bar called the Sweet Spot. And so, the Sweet Spot also becomes this really delightful character in the book. I really fell in love with the Sweet Spot. And you have Olivia, Melinda, and Lauren, each kind of occupying a different age bracket, a different generation. And I liked that. The book is very multigenerational. It feels like I could put this book in the hands of almost any reader. Perhaps, yes, primarily a female reader. But I like the multi-generational-ness of it. And I liked that all three of those women were unique and interesting and complicated. And not one character-- in this book with a lot of characters-- was one-note, which I think is a pretty remarkable accomplishment. This is a paperback original. I absolutely adored it. I had a great time reading it. Once I was in, I was fully in. And so, if you have started this one and you're like, "Oh, no, I'm not sure I'm going to like it as much as her previous work," I think you will. I think you will. In fact, Musical Chairs is so good. This could be my favorite Amy Poeppel book-- I don't know. It's between Musical Chairs and this one. I don't know. I was completely on board. There are some really great kid characters in this book. Remember how Nora Goes Off Script had such great kid characters? This has great kid characters. This has really great settings. The Sweet Spot, the Brownstone that Lauren and her family live in. There's a really high-end almost Anthropologie esque pottery studio that plays a role, kind of an art gallery type situation. There's a school. All of the settings in the book are also very memorable and rich and interesting. So, I really liked this one. I think it would be very delightful spring reading. It almost might be better spring reading than winter reading. I adored it. I hope you like it too. It's the Sweet Spot by Amy Poeppel.
[00:10:26] Next up, I read the book Now You See Us. This is by Balli Kaur Jaswal. You might recognize her name from the book Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows, which I'm pretty sure was a Reese Witherspoon pick a few years ago. I never read that book. I heard a lot about it, got a lot of buzz. We sold a lot of copies at the Bookshelf because of the Reese factor, I think, but I did not read it. I picked up Now You See Us because I think I mentioned it in Winter Literary Lunch and sold myself. I think I sold myself on it. So, I moved the ARC to the front of my stack. And I'm so glad I did, because this book was wonderful. I know I just talked about the memorable characters in Amy Poeppel's book, but I loved the women in this book. And much like The Sweet Spot, Balli Kaur Jaswal gives us three really distinct characters, again, kind of inhabiting different generations, different worldviews. And I really loved that because so many of my relationships are not one-note. None of my relationships are one-note and many of them are multi-generational. And so, I like reading about that in the books that I read. This book has Corazon, Donita and Angel, and they are Filipina domestic workers who have immigrated to Singapore for the distinct purpose of working as maids, as caregivers, as housekeepers. And their stories kind of collide because of the work that they do. And this is kind of what I loved, and then there's almost an element of mystery because a Filipino worker who all of these women kind of know, but they don't really know her, they just kind of know of her and the role that maybe she plays in their community. This woman is accused of murdering her employer. And so, Corazon and Donita and Angel all wind up kind of on this group text thread, communicating and trying to figure out did this woman that they know really murder her employer or is there something else going on here? And if so, can they fight for her innocence? So, there's an element of mystery.
[00:12:47] I do think the publisher is really billing this as these three women work to solve a mystery. The mystery to me is a very subtle part of the plot, and it's definitely a part of the plot, but it is not the core of the book. To me, the core of the book is the relationship among these three main characters, and you get each of their distinct points of view throughout the book. So different chapters are devoted to these three different characters and they're different narrations and they're different perspectives. I really loved that. I think this is immediately and I'm pretty sure this is even on the jacket language. This is very much Crazy Rich Asians vibes because you get this very wealthy portion of Singapore and you kind of get this class struggle between these Singapore women who have hired these domestic workers and these immigrants who've come here from the Philippines to work. I thought that was interesting. My understanding from the author's note in the ARC I received is that Balli Kaur Jaswal kind of envisioned and imagined this book after seeing a news story about Filipina domestic workers, and particularly a domestic worker who had been accused of killing her employer. And so, you get really great insight into that culture. And it was a culture I really knew nothing about. And so, I loved that about it. I think I mentioned this on last week or maybe an episode two weeks ago, the publisher is also billing this is as Crazy Rich Asians meets The Help, which interesting choice in 2023. What I'm going to say is this had elements-- sure, it had basic elements perhaps maybe of The Help.
[00:14:37] But I was really reminded of the great narration that you get in How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water, and this idea of class and race and the immigrant experience, moving to a country, trying to find work, and then the relationship that you wind up having with your employer. Particularly Corazon, one of the characters in the book, it very much reminded me of Such a Fun Age, the Kiley Reid book, that kind of same kind of complicated dynamic. I wound up loving all three of these women, all three of their varied perspectives. There were parts of this book that were actually really funny about these women and their work experiences. I also had my hackles up and was tense as I watched these women try to navigate some of their working relationships. And then watching all three of them come together to kind of try to solve or work toward the solution of this mystery, I thought was great. I really did like this book. I think readers and book clubs are really going to enjoy this book. It was very readable. I loved it. Read it over the span of a few days, was very invested in the characters and their story. I think you'll like it too. So, it's called Now You See Us by a Balli Kaur Jaswal.
[00:15:55] Okay. Up next is a book I also really liked, but I don't know if everyone will. So, the next book I read, I picked up the day of Reader Retreat. I was in my office paying bills and I thought, "I'm going to be laundering tablecloths this afternoon. Is there anything in this office? Is there any ARC that I might be able to read in one sitting while I wait for Reader Retreat to begin?" I grabbed this book. It's called Everything's Fine by Cecilia Rabess. This is a debut novel. And I picked it up partly because of the very striking cover. I can't wait for you to see it. It's this bright white, stark white cover with this smashed strawberry on the front. It's very eye catching. And I read the blurb. I read the description, and I thought, yeah, let me just see, because I kind of thought I would know. And I do typically know pretty quickly if I'm going to like a book or not. So, I started it on Friday morning of Reader Retreat, went home, started laundering tablecloths and read the rest. Did I love it? I don't know, but I really liked it and I was very invested. Let me tell you the premise. The premise is Jess, a black woman, recent college grad living in New York and working in finance in a predominantly male white workplace. She is politically liberal, and when she walks in to her workplace, she sees this guy that she recognizes from some of her college courses. She kind of rolls her eyes. He is white, conservative and kind of was like a thorn in her flesh during her collegiate years. They would interact with each other, run into each other in class. His name's Josh. And so, she would frequently run into Josh and they kind of butted heads in classes, in debate, things like that.
[00:17:59] I think we all know what this is like, right? I think we all know what it's like to be in these collegiate classrooms where we all think we know everything and really, we know nothing, but we like to pretend we know everything and so we get in these debates, right? You get some really great tension and some scenes between Jess and Josh almost right off the bat. We get some flashbacks to their college experience, but she walks into her workplace and she sees Josh there and she's kind of relieved because at least it's a familiar face, but then she can't really tell where they stand. She is a black woman with liberal political leanings. He is a white man with conservative political leanings. And this book is being, I think, maybe wrongly marketed and billed almost as a romance. That's what's some of the language--- I don't think it's what all the author blurbs are suggesting, but some of the language around the book feels like this is Seven Days in June or something like that. And I am here to tell you, no, that is not what this is. This, I think, is a really well-written debut. This is really good storytelling. I finished it in a day, and that is because I was very hooked and invested immediately from the first page and it's because of Jess. It's because of her character. Now, Josh is interesting and complicated, so is Jess. But I think Jess is the reason I kept reading. Yes, there is a romance here, but I don't think that's what this book is about. This book is uncomfortable. Jess and Josh meet in 2012, so you, the reader, know what is coming, right? They meet in 2012. They are working in finance together. And you, the reader, knows. You know what's coming. You know what's going to happen.
[00:19:49] And so, the whole book has this kind of underlying tension to it, which is why this is not some meet cute rom com This is the story of a black woman and the parts about finance and her navigating this predominantly white male dominated workforce, I thought were some of the best parts of the book. I loved reading about her work experience, her kind of struggles to feel whether her work was valuable or even ethical. She has a really interesting relationship with her father. I just found her character to be really compelling. Her relationship with Josh definitely plays a huge role in the book, but I'm afraid that if people read this as a romance, if this is a romance, it's a toxic romance. Do you know what I mean? I just don't think this is supposed to be some cutesy novel. I think this is supposed to be about one woman's adult coming of age. It almost reminded me of the book Everybody Rise, which I think is by Stephanie Clifford. And I really liked that book. Where Jess is trying to figure out her space and her place in the world, and she's also trying to figure out in a relationship what parts of you, if any, are worth sacrificing. I loved it. I thought it was complicated. I just said I loved it. And I wondered at the beginning if I loved it; did I? Hmm. I really liked it. I really liked Everything's Fine by Cecilia Rabess. It is a debut. It's out on June six. You will get to judge for yourself then what you think, but I liked it. I thought it was complicated and tense and absolutely worth devouring. I devoured this book. And that's why I hesitate to say, like, oh, did I love it? I don't know. But I devoured it and found it to be a really great page turner that was thought provoking and pretty original. Yeah. Well, that's where I'll leave that. Everything's fine by Cecilia Rabess out on June six.
[00:22:02] Okay. For a much kind of quieter, thoughtful read and this is one of the titles-- I literally looked at it today-- I'm literally 50% of the way through, is Orphaned Believers by Sara Billups. I somehow started following Sara on Instagram years ago. I do not really remember how, but I started following her and was interested in her work, particularly around religion and Christianity and belonging. And what do we do when we watch our religion also become an idol a little bit? She writes about white nationalism and, anyway, I find her writing online really interesting and applicable to me, as somebody who is a Christian and who is constantly wondering what that means in 2023. What does that look like in America in 2023? So, here's what I will say about Orphaned Believers. My copy is completely like ripped up and highlighted, underlined. I took it with me on a silent retreat I did at the end of January, and it was like sitting across the table from a really wise, well-researched friend. I think that's what I found most delightfully surprising about this book is I thought it was going to be memoir, and instead, I think it's a little bit memoir. You get a little bit about Sara's upbringing and her relationship with her dad and the Christianity that she was raised with, but you also get a lot of journalistic nonfiction and research about American Christianity. And so, in all of those ways, it reminds me of Jesus and John Wayne, except I think you read Jesus and John Wayne-- and if you're like me or my dad, we both finished that book and thought, "Oh, great. Okay. But also, now what?" That book is so truthful, but also disheartening. And we finished it and we're like, well, yes, but what are we supposed to do? Or where do we fit? Or is it important for us to fit? Probably not. And so, that is to me what I think those are the questions Orphaned Believers is answering. And so, if you are a Christian reader and you are curious and you are confused and you are wondering where you belong, where you fit the national conversation around Christianity and how it affects you or how you affect it, if you have any feelings around all of those things, I think you will really appreciate and see a little bit of yourself in Sara's story and in her research.
[00:24:58] I do not have entirely the same background that Sarah has. She talks a lot about being raised by a father who believes fervently in the rapture and an end of times theology. And I grew up a little bit with that in my school. I did not particularly grow up with that in my home or in my church life, but enough of that is familiar to me that I, like I said, it was like talking to a friend. And I need sometimes to talk or to listen to a wise friend who thinks similarly. There was actually a line I want to say in Everything's Fine, the previous book I just talked about, where the main character Jess is talking to a black friend of hers, and he gently tells her, "Don't you think it would be nice to have at least a few people in your life for whom you don't have to explain anything?" And that is a little bit how I feel about reading books by people like Sara Billups or books like Orphaned Believers. I think, yes, I want to challenge myself. I want to ask good questions. I want to be surrounded by people who are testing me and asking me good questions. But I also want to be around people who look at me and say, "Yes, me too." And so, reading a book like Orphan Believers helps with that. So, if you like journalistic nonfiction, if you have questions around faith and American Christianity, then I think Orphaned Believers would be worth trying. I haven't seen as much buzz around this one as I did around Jesus and John Wayne, which I think is interesting. But, to me, if you read Jesus and John Wayne, this could be a natural follow up. And it's in paperback. It's out now. That's Orphaned Believers by Sarah Billups.
[00:26:43] Throughout the month of February, I was also listening to on Libro.fm the book Black Ball. This is by Theresa Runstedtler. I really liked this audio book. I think also it would be a very good, easy book to read the physical copy of. The narration was good, but I think you could easily enjoy the physical copy as well. It's not out until March 7th. I read this through Libro.fm as an advanced listening copy. But one of my New Year's resolutions was to get into the NBA. And I don't mean the National Book Award. I mean the National Basketball Association. I grew up playing basketball. I use that term loosely, but I played a lot as a kid till seventh grade and have a life changing moment where I did not make the junior high basketball team. It's fine. I'm not bitter, I'm over it. But I grew up in a basketball loving, basketball playing family. And, of course, because I grew up in the nineties, my brother was really into the NBA. He collected basketball cards. We watched the NBA together and Space Jam, that kind of thing. And I just thought last year was kind of my year of the Beatles. And I kind of deep dived the Beatles and listened to their music and got to see Paul McCartney in concert and just had this really fun year having this interest other than books. And I like sports, I like college basketball. We do March Madness every year, but I thought would be kind of be interesting to get into the NBA. Getting into the NBA is also hard, as I have learned. As I speak to you to the middle to end of February, I've had a hard time trying to figure out, well, how best do you get into it? Should I just be watching games? I don't really live near any pro teams. I think that's part of the reason I've never had a ton of interest. My grandparents lived in Orlando and so I did pay attention to the Orlando Magic back when I was a kid, but I've had a hard time. So, my brother and I have texted back and forth. I've messaged with Kindred Adachie to try to see how do I lazy genius getting into the NBA.
[00:28:44] I say all that to say one thing I, an Enneagram 5, know how to do is research. And so, this ALC (advanced listening copy) came up on Libro.fm and I thought, "Here is where I will start." So, I started reading Black Ball. The subtitle is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Spencer Haywood, and the Generation That Save the Soul of the NBA. And this is all about 1970s pro basketball and it's about the culture of pro basketball-- really almost pro sports in general, but specifically basketball-- and how these black athletes, black basketball players influenced the game and how they were treated for changing the game and for perhaps by white people's perspectives, like upending the game and maybe overtaking the game, and what that looked like and what that kind of coded racial language meant here. Here's what I find super interesting. Theresa Runstedtler, the author of the book-- this is why I was also intrigued, because she's a woman writing about sports and I feel like that's rarer than it should be. Anyway, she was a dancer for the Toronto Raptors and she talks in the introduction, in the preface a little bit about what it was like to be a dancer for the NBA and how that changed and morphed over time and what it started out being and what the costumes used to look like and what the dancing used to look like, and then how it morphed and really became more white culture. I found it fascinating. I think she is super interesting. She clearly has a passion for and an appreciation for the game, but also for history. This is a rich text, so if you are a newbie like me some of the chapters will be a little overwhelming maybe to you, but it's just like reading a history book. It's just like reading a nonfiction book about, I don't know, the American presidencies or something like that. Only this is about 1970s basketball.
[00:30:40] I am learning all about not only the NBA, but the American Basketball Association and the role those two things played. I'm just getting in. I've read a lot of Spencer Haywood chapters. I'm just getting into the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar of it all. I really like it because it's giving me what I wanted and what I needed. And so, if you-- I don't know. I don't know what the crossover is between From the Front Porch listeners and sports fans. This is not a sports podcast. I don't know if you are listening and you're a huge pro basketball person, but if you are, I think this is worth trying. It's really interesting. Even the parts that feel a little bit over my head because I'm not super familiar, some of it I am familiar. Some of it I remember my dad talking about. I think that's the other thing, it's while I'm listening to it I'm also thinking about the culture my dad was raised in. My dad played basketball through high school and through parts of college and then ultimately became the manager of the FSU Basketball team when he was in college. And so, I'm thinking all about that. And I just find it really interesting. I don't know if everyone will, but I am. And I think if you are an NBA fan, a sports fan, a basketball fan, I think you will too. So, that's called Black Ball by Theresa Runstedtler. I'm listening to the audio book, but I think it would be equally enjoyable and worth reading in physical copy as well. It's out on March 7th.
[00:32:05] Okay. And last but not least, I finished Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. Look, Little Women is one of my favorite books of all time. I've talked about it many, many times before. I think it is my favorite Louisa May Alcott book. I think I find An Old-Fashioned Girl, and Eight Cousins, and Rose and Bloom all more comforting. Because the thing about Little Women is it is so much more sad and complicated than I think the overarching narrative would lead you to believe. Little Women is full of complex storytelling. And there is something comforting about an Old-Fashioned Girl, which is just a happy story. There are some complications, but the stakes are low. Whereas, I think in Little Women, the stakes are quite high. I think Jo's desire for ambition and of course, yes, the Jo and Laurie and Amy romances and the birth of it all, I just think it's a lot heavier than people remember or want to remember or want to give it credit for. So, I read this, as you may or may not know, alongside Jamie Ivie and Melissa Saldivar. Melissa works, she's an author. She works in book publishing, and then she works also part time as a tour guide at Orchard House, which is the Louisa May Alcott home in Concord, Massachusetts. And I got to go there last fall as a guest, like an attendee of Cheer Her On weekend. Cheer Her On is the podcast hosted by Melissa. And we started talking, and I think she kind of discovered how much I love Little Women and how much I love Louisa May Alcott, and I love the history of that book. And she invited me to read along with her and Jamie and do this Little Women Book Club.
[00:34:04] So on December 24th, on Christmas Eve, we began reading Little Women one chapter a day, and I stayed with that schedule for I think about a month. And then this past month has been a little sportier. But the chapter a day reading was so delightful and life giving, particularly in the first part of winter. It may be something I do again. I just had such a lovely time and it was very fun to start it on Christmas Eve, which is when of course the story of Little Women begins. It begins on Christmas Eve. It was so fun to kind of read through the holidays and to just read one chapter a day felt so good, it felt so comforting. Then we would do these book club conversations together on Zoom, and so to read alongside all of these readers was so fun. Melissa is clearly an expert in the history of Little Women, in the history of Louisa May Alcott. And so, I loved her perspective. I loved Jamie Ivy's perspective because she had never read the book before. My mom read it for the first time, which I think was surprising to some people, but it was just not a book my mom had ever read and finished. So, my mom read it. My aunt read it. It was just a delightful community activity and I am thrilled to have finished once again. And, in fact, I've read Little Women in adulthood before. It's hard to say, but I believe it could be my sixth, seventh, eighth reading. It's hard to know, but I've read it since being an adult. But this time I found it so rich. And is Little Women preachy? Sure. It's a little bit preachy. It's a little bit moralistic. It's also way more nuanced than I think we give it credit for. I think we've talked before either on this podcast or maybe back in the day on the Novel Pairings podcast, where we talked about Little Women and we talked about the kind of the preachiness of it. And Marmee [sp] can in some ways feel like almost too perfect of a character. But then the more you read it, the more you realize, no, she's experienced and she's learned some things. And she still is not a perfect parent or a perfect character. She makes mistakes. All of these characters do.
[00:36:26] And there is an element of moralism and preachiness, but there's also at the heart just these really complex women and some pretty complex storytelling. I think part of the reason so many of us either grew up or now read this book and kind of identify, are you a meg? Are you Beth? Are you a Joe? Are you and Amy? I think that's because how refreshing to read a book with so many different kinds of female characters. It's like all of these women are really different from each other, and I just don't think you got that at all back in the day. And I think it's still fairly modern feeling. So, I just had a great time rereading it. I had a great time reading alongside Jamie and Melissa, and so many of you read along with us. I believe, as of this recording, I think there is still time to buy some Little Women merch if that's your thing. There's a link in the show notes where you can get sweatshirts and t-shirts to celebrate your reading of Little Women. I am so glad to have read this. It felt like a miniature Conquer a Classic within 2023. And it was just a lovely thing to kind of close out my day with. A lot of the days I read a chapter right before bed, and I just found it so grounding and soothing, and I think I'm going to miss it. So, I read Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.
[00:37:54] Those are the books I read in February. As usual, with our Reading Recap episodes, we are offering a reading recap bundle for this month. Our February reading Recap bundle is $60 and it includes Amy Poeppel's The Sweet Spot, Sarah Billups' Orphaned Believers, and then Balli Kaur Jaswal's Now You See Us. Now You See Us does not release until March 7th. And because of that release date, this bundle will ship out beginning on March 7th. So, if you order this on the day these releases, those books won't ship today. They won't ship tomorrow. They'll ship by March 7th. You can find more details and the February bundle; you can find all of that information online through the link in our show notes or go to Bookshelfthomasville.com. And if you just type in today's episode number it's 413 in the search bar. Erin has been amazing and has organized our website and our podcast links and all that kind of stuff. So, if you just type the episode number in the search bar at Bookshelfthomasville.com you will see the Reading Recap bundle for February.
[00:39:01] Don't forget, you can also follow us @Bookshelftville and you can tell us what you read in the month of February. I'd love to know what your reading life looked like in the month of February, mine felt a little bit all over the place. So, I'm curious to see what you are reading this month. Please go to @Bookshelftville on Instagram and tell us what you were reading.
[00:39:22] This week, I'm reading The House Is on Fire by Rachel Beanland.
[00:40:24] 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: fromthefrontporchpodcast.com 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 are…
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