Episode 426 || May Reading Recap
This week on From the Front Porch, Annie recaps the books she read and loved in May. As always, we’re offering a Reading Recap Bundle, which features Annie’s three favorite books she read this past month. You automatically get 10% off your books when you order your Reading Recap Bundle!
You can get the books mentioned in this episode on our website (type “Episode 426” into the search bar to easily find the books mentioned in this episode):
The May Reading Recap Bundle ($55) includes:
Better Than the Movies
Monsters
Life Council
Better Than the Movies by Lynn Painter
Kala by Colin Walsh (Releases July 25)
Monsters by Claire Dederer
Excavations by Kate Myer (Releases July 4)
Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll (Releases October 3)
The Life Council by Laura Tremaine
The Celebrants by Steven Rowley (Releases May 30)
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 Kala by Colin Walsh. Olivia is reading Lay Your Body Down by Amy Suiter Clarke.
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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.
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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]
“I’m the wrong side of thirty and I still love it when summer bursts over this town. That school holiday vibe. First hint of sun cream or cut grass hits the air, and I get the tingly bellyflut feeling. It’s always a surprise like. As if every year I forget those smells exist, and bam! The world’s young again.”
- Colin Walsh, Kala
[as music fades out]
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 May.Are you following The Bookshelf on Instagram? It’s a great way to learn about upcoming events, to find out about all the new books that release each week, and it’s where you can share your thoughts on this week’s podcast episode. Hop over to Instagram and make sure you’re following us @bookshelftville. (And, if you’ve been missing my book reviews on my personal Instagram account, you can follow my paid-for private account: anniesfivestarbooks.) If you want, you're welcome to start following me there, and that is where you can find all of my 2023 book reviews. That's Anniesfivestarbooks.
[00:01:36] So my May reading felt a little bit all over the place. Felt pretty eclectic. I was reading for our Summer Literary First Look. Maybe I was trying to read some for Shelf Subscriptions, but mostly it felt like my reading life was very much dictated by what I was bringing home from the store. What I had time and space to read. I read more audio books this month, I think, than in previous months, which was nice and I think definitely helped my reading. I still think April and May are hard months. I just feel like they're really busy in store and then also personally. And so my reading life is very much affected. As I mentioned last month, it's very much affected by what's happening in my real life, which makes sense. I'm sure the same is true for you.
[00:02:22] So, I'm going to start with the first book I finished, which was an audiobook. I listened to Better Than the Movies. This is by Lynn Painter. It was narrated by Jessie Vilinsky, who is a narrator. I will read again. I will listen to her again. I really liked her narration. I decided to download Better Than the Movies, honestly, I think because I saw somebody on Instagram post about it. And as much as romances maybe let me down in 2022, and I've been really purposeful about which ones I tried in 2023, There's no denying that they're a great solution when you're in a reading slump or when life feels like a lot. And I forget what I had just finished, but I immediately downloaded this book and thought I would give it a go. And you know what? Nearly five stars for me. I really loved this teen romcom. It had been a minute since I had read a young adult romcom, and I forgot how much somebody like me who really likes the more fun side of a romance, the funnier side of things and who really likes closed door, I forgot that young adult romantic comedies are great for that. So our main character is Liz Buxbaum, which I don't know if it was an homage to one of my other favorite YA writers, Julie Buxbaum, but I pretended that it was, and I loved that. So, Liz is our main character. She lives next door to Wes. They have known each other their whole childhoods, their whole lives. Now they're in their senior year of high school. Liz's mother died a few years previous and one of their other best friends, Michael, moved away. And so, Liz and Wes are not really even friends. They're just neighbors. And Michael moves back to town. And Liz's mother passed down to her. A deep love of love, a deep love of romance and romantic comedies, specifically romantic comedy films of the nineties and 2000s.
[00:04:20] And Better Than the Movies is just a lovely tribute to a lot of those movies and a lot of those films. This is a little bit off topic, but I just watched a movie on Disney Plus called The Prom Pact, and it was so delightful and fun and a great tribute to eighties teen movies. And that is the movie that I kept thinking about as I was reading and listening to Better Than the Movies, because it just felt like these authors and creators really know what there is to love about those other works and also what there is to improve upon. I highly recommend the movie The Prom Pact, if you're looking for a cute little movie. Better Than the Movies is basically a love triangle between Liz, Michael and of course, Wes. You the reader, immediately know, of course, Liz has chemistry with this next door neighbor character. And Liz recruits Wes help in trying to get her to date and to get Michael to fall in love with her. And I just felt like it was not only a tribute to great romcoms, but a tribute to great teen movies and kind of flipped some of those she's all that moments on their head a little bit. And I really thoroughly enjoyed this book. I never do this, but I found myself when I was having trouble falling asleep a couple of nights this month, setting Libro.fm to sleep mode where it would turn off after 30 minutes. So I would listen to this book before bed because I just thought the characters were so comforting and I thought the narration was so great. It was just such a charming romantic comedy and made me smile. It makes me smile even thinking about it now. I just had such a great time listening to this one and reading this one. So, it's Better Than the Movies by Lynn Painter. If you are a fan as I am of nineties and 2000 romantic comedies, I think you'll enjoy this. If you like the author Julie Buxbaum, I think you will enjoy this. If you're a closed door romance reader, I think there is really something to enjoy about this book. I think the other book or the other movie vaguely reminded me-- it was also a book, but the movie adaptation, The Duff is one of my favorite movies and this definitely has those vibes because of the next door neighbor aspect. I really liked this. Better Than the Movies by Lynn Painter, narrated by Jessie Vilinsky.
[00:06:48] Next up is Kala by Collin Walsh. Kala releases on July 25th. So this would be a preorder or an early hold request at your local library. I really liked this book. It had been a minute since I had read a ton of French type suspense mystery. And if you like Tana French, I think you will really like this one. It is a quiet suspense novel, as I find pretty typical of Irish novels, but I loved that aspect of it. So our main characters are Helen, Joe and Mush. They are grieving in various ways the loss of their friend Kala. Kala went missing in 2003, back when they were all in high school together, and now it's 15 years later, 2018, and Kala's body has finally been found. There is a lot of drama mystery suspense at play here. But I think part of the reason I want to compare it to a ton of French book is because the book is about so much more than the crime aspect. It's really about Helen, Joe, and Mush and their growth over those 15 years and kind of what happened to their friendship after the disappearance of their friends. I kept turning the page. I was definitely compelled by this book. This is not a plot-driven mystery book. You are not necessarily going to just read this in one sitting. Instead, it's like an afternoon thunderstorm kind of book, like cozy up on a rainy day at the beach type of book. The book Mid Coast that I read last year is a great comp. Tana French is a great comp. I was not bored. I feel like I'm making it sound like it's a slow moving book. That's not it. But it's just not like an American suspense novel. It's just not. It's very much an Irish book. I feel like I didn't do the quote at the top of the podcast justice, because I'm definitely hearing it in my head as an Irish narrator would kind of say those words. So the book is definitely of its place.
[00:09:02] It's set in a small town in Ireland. Joe one of our main characters, he dated Kala and he is now like a famous musician. Helen has become a writer and lives in America and has come home in part after finding out that Kala's body was found. And then Mush is the hometown guy who has stayed home over the last 15 years. He's not left this small town. And so the three of them kind of reconvening and reeling after the findings of Kala's remains. The way Colin Walsh paints those characters, I think is so really well done. I really love this book. There's another book that I'm going to talk about at the end of the episode. It's about a group of friends, and this felt like the suspense version of that, where it's dealing almost with a friend like reunion. But the reunion is being held because of something awful and something hard and something negative. I really like this one a lot. I hope I'm selling it well. I feel like if you like Tana French, you'll like this one a lot. Beautifully written, very atmospheric, very enjoyable. And I think as much as I'm saying, oh, you could really hunker down with this one, this book should be read in the summer, not in the fall, because it's really set in the summer. And the quote at the top of the episode hints to that. It's very much set over the course of one summer in this Irish town. So I highly recommend reading it after it releases on July 25th.
[00:10:46] Okay. While I was kind of reading that book, I was listening to Monsters by Clair Dederer. At this point I feel like I have mentioned this book over and over and over again, and so I hope I'm not overselling it or overhyping it. But I really did love this book. I listened to it. It's narrated by the author, by Claire Dederer, and I actually thought the audiobook was great. I do kind of wish I had read the physical copy only because there are things I would have wanted to underline or marked. There was just so much in this book that I really appreciated and really wanted to think more about, and I think will think more about as the weeks progress. So if you're not familiar, Monsters is a cultural critique. It's a work of cultural criticism. Kind of analyzing the question that I think has been plaguing us. It feels like it's been plaguing us for the last few years, but I think it's been plaguing us for millennia, which is what do we do with art when the artist disappoints us or when the artist is a monster? In the words of Claire Dederer. What do we do with beautiful art, beautiful music, beautiful books that have been written or created by horrible people, and in many cases, horrible men. Although, I will say Claire Dederer does kind of address the horrible nature of women creators as well, which I appreciated. Here's what I loved about this book. I think one of the questions Olivia asked me, because I was talking about this book at work one day, Olivia asked, but does she reach any conclusions? And I said, well, she does. She definitely reaches some conclusions, but it's not some cut and dry stop reading this or stop going to see those movies or watch those movies, but then critique them afterwards. There's no homework you can do to be a good person. There's no homework you can do, at least in Claire Dederer's mind, that you can do to be a good consumer of art. And I certainly think she suggests some ways that we could critique things, that we could talk about things. I think she references it as a stain that we could reference the stains that are caused by these monsters in the work that we love. But she doesn't reach really specific conclusions. And I think that's wise because I'm not sure there is. I'm not sure there is a cut and dried answer to this problem, and so I appreciated her grappling with that. And she addresses it with real seriousness and also with humor and honesty.
[00:13:32] One of the more interesting turns the book takes is she talks about our own monstrosity, which just is a perspective I had not yet heard, at least in most of the conversations I'm having or the conversations I'm overhearing. And so, I appreciated that aspect. This would make a fantastic book club book because if you are a book club, you have probably read books by so-called monsters, right? Books that have been written by people who have done horrific things. And probably your book club has talked about that, or I hope your book club has talked about that. And if they have talked about it, what better way to continue that conversation than by reading a book together that kind of addresses it and pushes the conversation forward? This is the kind of book that I read, and I'm like, I wish this would be required reading somewhere. Because this is something I think about a lot as someone who stocks a bookstore and who wants a well-rounded bookstore full of all kinds of works of literature written by all kinds of people. But believe me, I have questions. And it's so funny, I think a lot of us are asking these questions, but it feels like we're answering them alone. And I think that contributes to our feelings of isolation, because she uses one specific example of like sitting at a diner and eating her lunch, and all of a sudden a Michael Jackson song comes on and she's bebopping along to it, and then she catches herself like, "Am I allowed to do that?" Like, is that something I should be doing? Should I ask them to turn the song off at minimum? Should I stop bebopping being in my chair? Like, what is our role as consumer? And that is literally a question I have grappled with as someone who really likes the song Man in the Mirror. I really do wonder, should I like the song anymore? Is this allowed? Jordan loves The Cosby Show. We've talked about do you watch The Cosby Show anymore? And then, obviously, as a reader, I'm asking this question all the time with books I stock, with books I read. So anyway, I appreciate the questions that Monsters is asking. I also appreciate the way that it's answering the question. And I really would encourage you to try this one. I feel like I've seen it all over the place since I downloaded it a few weeks ago. It's a great audio book I think would be equally great in print format and would make for excellent conversations in your book clubs amongst your friends and family. It is Monsters by Claire Dederer. That one is out right now.
[00:15:59] Okay. Next I picked up the book Excavations. This is by Kate Myer. It releases on July 4th. I picked this one up solely because, as I was reading the blurbs and the descriptions of a variety of different books releasing this summer, this was a description where I thought, why haven't I heard of this one? I've not read anything like this recently, which can be hard when you read a lot. I think some of those plots tend to sound the same, and this was one where I thought, no, I don't really know anything else like this unless you did nonfiction like We Keep the Dead Close or something like that. This is a book about four different women. More characters at play here, but our main characters are four women: Elise, Kara, Z and Patty, and they all find themselves on an archaeological dig in Greece. Set in the modern era, I believe it's 2023 or something like that. But they are digging at the site of the first Olympics. Elise is a well-practiced archaeologist. She goes on digs all over the world, and she comes back every summer to do this dig in Greece. Kara works the lab. Z is this down on her luck millennial who helped at this dig site as a student many years ago. And because she is down on her luck, she's decided to return to the dig site to see if she can kind of reset the course of her life. And then Patty is a college student who has never been on an airplane before and is just so excited to be here. She's just so excited to be on this dig. And they are all working under the watchful eye of kind of this larger than life, vaguely misogynistic, super macho site leader who is an archaeologist. He very much prides himself on his athleticism, his history of discovery, and that's partly why they're digging at this site, is because of his own love of sports and athletics, and particularly men in athletics.
[00:18:15] And this book is so unique. There's kind of a subtle other voice that plays a role in this book. And I would rather not tell you who that voice belongs to because I think that would be a bit of a spoiler. But all four of these women wind up kind of coming together. They're a little bit at each other's throats all summer long, but they also wind up coming together as they proceed digging on this site and making various discoveries. And that is all I kind of went in knowing, and that's all I really want you to go in knowing. I did not think this was like the most perfect book ever written, but I did think it was original. There were parts that made me laugh out loud. And frequently at the Bookshelf we get requests for books that make you feel like you're on vacation, books that will take you somewhere. And sometimes people will even tell us, "Hey, I'm going to Mexico. Can you tell me a book that that is set there? Or, "I'm going to Hawaii. Can you tell me a book that is set there?" I loved the Greek setting so much and how much I learned about the field of archaeology I thought was really interesting. And so, those parts of the book and obviously the tie in to the Olympic Games, I loved. I am a long time lover of the Olympics, and so I appreciated all of that. So there are vague ties into sports and I like that aspect of it. I just thought this was a fun summer book and I would recommend picking this one up. I really enjoyed it. I like that it was unlike anything I'd really ever read before. It's not perfect. Not all of the characters are maybe as fleshed out as I would have wanted them to be, but it's pretty good and pretty fun. That's Excavations by Kate Myer that releases on July 4th.
[00:20:06] Okay, then I interrupted all my other reading. I had another book that I was in the middle of-- actually, I felt like several books. This month definitely felt like a month where I started and stopped a variety of books. But I really was in the middle of a book I was thoroughly enjoying. But I was at the bookstore last Saturday minding my own business, and we got a box of advance reader copies, most of which did not appeal to me. But I saw this new book by Jessica Knoll. Now, Jessica Knoll wrote Luckiest Girl Alive, which just blew up a few years ago, and I am 98% sure became a Netflix movie with Mila Kunis. I'm pretty sure that's right. I did not watch that movie because I did not love that book. I read it and thought it was fine, but everybody else loved it. And I think that's great. I had no intention of reading this book because I just thought, oh, she's probably not for me. I felt Luckiest Girl was fine. But then I read the back and I realized, oh, this is the book I had been hearing murmurings about particularly from my Tallahassee bookselling friends. This book, Bright Young Women, is a fictional-- I hesitate to say re-telling. I'm not even sure what to call it, but it is a fictional look at the true crime phenomenon and the killings of Ted Bundy, and particularly the sorority killings that took place at Florida State University in the seventies. I was born and raised in Tallahassee. My mom was raised in Tallahassee. And so all my life, the Ted Bundy murders have loomed large. And not just in like the way that white male serial killers loom large in our culture, it just felt so very close to home. We know where that sorority house is. We know where he stayed. Those are real landmarks to me. Those are real places to me, to my mom. Those were women her age or women just a little bit younger than her. And so, I grew up knowing about that story and that crime and those proceedings.
[00:22:23] And over the years, if you've been listening to this podcast for any period of time, you know a few years ago I finally read A Stranger Beside Me, which is the Ann Rule true crime book about the Ted Bundy murders. I watched those documentaries on Netflix. What I know Jessica Knoll is trying to do because she never names Ted Bundy, he's always called the defendant in the book. And what I know she is trying to do is center the voices of the women at the heart of the story. All of this is fictionalized, but it is very true to the events as I know them from from reading other books and from watching documentaries or what have you. So our main character, more or less, is a young woman named Pamela. Pamela is this president of the sorority where her sisters were murdered by Ted Bundy, and she becomes the sole eyewitness who testifies against Ted Bundy in his trial in Florida. Then we have a young woman named Ruth who lived in Washington state, which if you know the Bundy story, you know that he was in Washington State, he was in Colorado. He hit several states before he came to Florida. And so, we get her perspective. And Pamela's voice, to me, is the strongest in the book. It is the story that I was most interested in reading. But we go back and forth to the story of Ruth, who is this young woman living in Washington. Something has happened to her, but we don't know what, although we all of course do know what. But her disappearance has never been solved. Although Tina, Ruth's partner and someone who took an interest in those crimes, believes she knows what's happened to Ruth. And Tina winds up meeting Pamela and trying to convince her, Hey, the person who murdered your sorority sisters also murdered the love of my life and I want to solve her disappearance.
[00:24:37] So, those are kind of the three voices at the heart of the book. I believe the book is mostly told from Pamela and Ruth's perspective. Tina looms so large in the book but I don't think she ever actually is a narrator. The book also goes back and forth in time, which I appreciated. So, you get the 1970s, you get the trial itself, and then you also get Pamela in 2021 returning to Florida and trying to figure out what what happened to Ruth and how we could close out Ruth's story. Jessica Knoll, I believe, is trying to center the women's voices. She's also, I think, really trying to debunk what has been the modern language around Bundy for so long, which is like he was a handsome, brilliant man, like he was in law school. And she is quick to to punch holes in that theory. He was not a great student. He was not actually enrolled in any law school of reputation. His defense of himself was meager and poor at best. So I appreciated all of that. I think some of my fellow reader friends were worried that she was going to maybe overly romanticized the story or just reopen-- the fact of the matter is, those women who lived in that sorority house, the women who were Ted Bundy's victims, I believe she even references it in the book, they they would be around Sandra Bullock's age. This is not something that happens so very long ago. I appreciate what Jessica Knoll is trying to do. I can't decide if she accomplished it. I read the whole book. I think it's very compelling. I think it is better written than Luckiest Girl Alive. I think it is an improvement on the craft. I think the storytelling is great. I just don't know how I feel and I think that's fine. I don't think we have to know how we feel after we finish a book. It's going to take me a little bit to process. I think I finished it and thought, "Was this necessary?" I liked it. Meaning I thought the writing was good. I thought the storytelling was good. But when it's all said and done, did we need to rehash this again? I know what she was trying to do, but did she accomplish it? And I don't know.
[00:26:51] I don't fully know that. But I'm telling you about it in case you want to read it. It's out on October 3rd. That is why I am flummoxed. I mean, I picked this up and I should never have read it because I have so many other things I need to be reading right now. But I was just so curious where this was going to fall. And the truth is, I don't know. I don't know where it falls. Hopefully by the time it releases on October 3rd, I will have a more formulated opinion about it. But for now, what I will say is it is a better book, I think, than Luckiest Girl Alive, but I do not know if it adds value or adds a different perspective to Ted Bundy's victims. Because even Pamela is a victim in her own way. Ruth certainly is. But even now, who am I naming over and over again? Even though he goes unnamed in the book, as if he's some kind of Voldemort character. I still don't know if she's written a book that really does justice to his victims. I don't know. I can't answer that yet. Perhaps I will have a more formulated opinion later, but I really did love the book, and I don't know that other people did. But I love the book Notes on an Execution, which I think he actually did try to do this a little bit and did it perhaps better, where really trying to center a different voice than the voice of the murderer himself. Yeah, I don't quite know what to think about this one, but I hope I'm putting it on your radar. And if it's one that might interest you, I certainly think for those of us who grew up in Tallahassee and who-- I mean, that's really why I read it, quite frankly, I'm not sure I would have been as intrigued if it had been set in Washington or something like that. I think I was really intrigued with how Jessica Knoll was going to portray Tallahassee and the surroundings, and I did think that felt really accurate. Anyway, that's Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll. I've talked long enough about it. It's out October 3rd.
[00:28:47] Okay. All month long I was also reading The Life Counsel. This is by Laura Tremaine. She wrote the book Share Your Stuff I'll Go First, which I really loved. I mailed copies to my girlfriends. I thought it was fantastic. What I think Laura Tremaine does really well is she writes a book that makes you want to either go out with your girlfriends or pull out your journal. It's rare that I read a book that immediately makes me want to process and immediately makes me want to converse or even converse with myself about how I'm feeling about something. And I think Laura Tremaine does a really good job about that. She did a great job of it and share your stuff. And then I'm always worried about second books out of a two book deal. How's that going to turn out? But I really did think this was so great, particularly if you are interested in female friendships. So, one of the first books I read after I graduated college-- I'm pretty sure I was in my early twenties, I read a book called MWF Seeking BFF, and I don't even remember the author's name. I just remember I loved that book because I was determined to make friends. I was determined to get an A-plus in friends making in adulthood. And you know what? I'm proud of past Annie, because she did do a good job of making lifelong friends in early adulthood, women that I am still in touch with today. But I think all of us in adulthood know that friend making as a grown up is actually pretty hard. And Laura Tremaine writes about that. The subtitle of the book is Ten Friends Every Woman Needs. I don't want you to get hung up too much on that title because I believe some people will read this book and maybe feel like, "Oh no, you know, I don't have these people, I don't have these friends. I feel a lack, I feel a scarcity." I certainly don't think that's Laura Tremaine's intent. And, in fact, I found the opposite to be true.
[00:30:39] What I found so gratifying about the book was adulthood to me, and finding real true friends in adulthood has been about acknowledging the reality that exists beyond the best friend definition, beyond the best friend relationship. So if you're like me, of course I'm highly introverted, so I'm naturally drawn to just a small group of people anyway. But I think I assumed adulthood would be about finding the best friend who you would raise your children alongside each other and you would share meals. And I even had that a little bit in my early twenties, but then we all moved. And so, now what do I have? Well, now I have a really vibrant tentacles of friendships kind of all over the place. And they all do different things and they all contribute to my life in different ways. And that's what I loved about the Life Council, is I felt like I have friends who help me with my business. I have friends who have known me since I was a kid. I have friends who we are only friends because we're friends and a couple. Like it's me and Jordan and then they are good friends. I have other friends who really are that best friend level, my kind of ride or die friends. I have my book club friends. I feel like I just am so lucky and I think adulthood is moving beyond the best friend binary. That's what I'm trying to say. And Laura Tremaine does a good job. Even if you read this book and you think, "Well, I don't have these 10 friends that she says every woman needs," okay, But I bet you have 10 different kinds of relationships in your life. And I bet you could name them if you thought about it. I think this book is great if you are a highly introspective person who likes analyzing and likes reflection and likes looking at her life and wondering and evaluating it. What do I have? What am I missing? Which I want more of? I really liked this book. Jordan saw it on my nightstand and was like, "Oh, tell me all about that one." He was very curious about it. I just finished it and we're going on a vacation together at the end of this month, and I'm going to be anxious to talk to him about it because I'll be curious to see if he thinks the same type of friendship definitions work for men. I'm just going to be curious about that. But I really like this one. I read it. I did not listen to it. I read the physical copy and I liked the physical copy because, again, I think Laura's books really lend themselves to writing in the margins, to journaling later, to kind of keeping on the shelf and then next time you move or next time you're in a new season of life and you're trying to rebuild some relationships, I think this one would come in handy. That is the Life Counsel by Laura Tremaine, and it is out now in paperback.
[00:33:54] I finished out the month listening to the Celebrants. This is the new book by Stephen Rowley. It's out on May 30th. You will, of course, recognize Stephen's name from the Guncle, which was a much beloved book. It felt like the book he was born to write. I've read a lot of Stephen Rowley books, but that one felt like, oh, yes, this is the book that he was meant to write. It was so charming, so fun, so funny. If you've not read it, I would encourage you to pick it up as a backlist title this summer. It makes for great summer reading. I think the Celebrants makes for good summer reading too. I listened to this one on Libro.fm. Stephen narrates it and I think he's a good narrator. I do think I would have preferred the printed version. So if you're keeping track at home and you're trying to figure out what am I going to listen to versus what I'm going to read physically, I think this one I would read physically. Part of the reason I was intrigued by it is because the publisher is billing it as the big chill for this generation. And boy do I love the movie The Big Chill and anything vaguely like it. I love friendship reunions stories. So when I was talking earlier in the episode about Kala and how it's like a friendship reunion, but it's obviously around a pretty horrific incident. And it's obviously more more suspense and murder mystery than feel good story. This is a similar plot point. So you've got five friends and I'm going to say their names to you throughout the book. Their personalities become very clear because at first I thought, oh, my gosh, this is too many characters, but it's not. You quickly learn who they are.
[00:35:27] So Jordan, Jordy, Naomi, Greg and Mariel have been friends since college. They kind of became each other's found family and you get to meet them in college, but also in adulthood. So I was very curious about this one because of the big chill aspect. But I also was hesitant to read this one because of what I'm about to tell you. Jordan, in the opening pages of the book, you know that Jordan is sick with cancer and it is quite obvious from the opening pages that Jordan is sick and he's trying to keep it a secret. And so, at first I started listening to this and I thought, I don't know if I can listen to a book about someone who may or may not be dying, but instead I really just loved these friendships because I also felt it was realistic. So speaking of the Life Council, I was worried it was going to be these five best friends who've just been friends forever, and they get together every summer. That's not what it is at all. Although I might read that book too. This book is about five friends who were best friends in college, and then adulthood hit and now they see each other rarely. They barely keep in touch, which is honestly what happens. And so, Mariel, toward the beginning of the book, she has this incident in her life and she is desperate for her friends and for the friends who knew her best so long ago. And so they get together and Mariel's like, I want you all to have a funeral for me. And the reason she says this is because, just another sobering part of this book, the five of them used to be the six of them. They had a best friend named Alec who died while they were in college and like the last week of school. And so, right before they went out into the world as adults, their friend lost his life. And it has obviously profoundly affected them in varying ways and in different ways.
[00:37:36] And Mariel is like we gave Alec a funeral and wouldn't it have been nice if he'd been able to attend? Like, wouldn't it have been nice if he could have heard all the great things we said about him? So why don't we institute a pact now that we will do that for each other? And any time we need reminding, we'll get back together and we'll hold a funeral for that person while they're there, while they're alive. Which is kind of a cheesy, corny concept for a book, but I think it works. I kept reading it and sometimes I was like, "God, this is a little cheesy." And then sometimes I was like, "No, I think this is kind of lovely." So if you can turn off your cynical brain and maybe turn on the part of your brain that honestly I think we need to turn on more often, I think this one has something really beautiful to say. So throughout the book, and perhaps the realistic part is that these are not particularly close friends, but when something happens, when an emergency happens, when push comes to shove, they get back together and they roll their eyes through these fake funerals and kind of remind each other that they are loved and cared for and cared about, which is just deeply moving. But it is also very funny. And I think the way Stephen Rowley keeps the book grounded is because the characters are very self-aware, very self-deprecating. There's lots of kind of nagging at each other, which is why I do think the physical book would be better, because I prefer some of that banter in physical format rather than an audiobook format.
[00:39:18] There's a world in which this is Happy Place, the new Emily Henry book without the romance. There's a world in which this is kind of playing with that idea of what do we do with our college friends in adulthood? Do they really know us as well as we think they know us? Jordan and Jordy, they are known as the Jordans in the book. They wind up kind of falling in love after the death of Alec, and they are kind of at the heart of the book. So you get you get the Jordan's perspective, particularly Jordan as he is battling illness, and then Jordy loving him and trying to help him cope and trying to point him back toward these friends that I think Jordy thinks can help Jordan through these these hard moments that he really wants to keep to himself. So I like these characters. I found myself grinning through a lot of the book, just kind of laughing at these people. I think the Guncle is the better book. But I think Celebrants is worth reading because I think it has something to teach us. I really do. I really mean that. That book is out on May 30th. I listened to it, but I think you might prefer the physical copy. If you like Stephen Rowley, I do think you'll like this one. Even if the Guncle just blew you away like it blew me away. I still think this one is lovely and charming in its own right and is worth picking up.
[00:40:43] Those are the books I read in May. A lot of great summer reading, I think. As usual, with our Reading Recap episodes, we do offer a reading recap bundle for the month, so our May reading recap bundle is $55 and it includes Better Than the Movies. That's the Lynn Painter teen romcom Monsters, which is that nonfiction book about art and the artist. And the Life Council, which is the book about friendship by Laura Tremaine. So two paperbacks and a hardback for $55. You can find more details and the May bundle online through the link in our show notes. You can also find all of the books I talked about in today's episode by going to Bookshelfthomasville.com. You can just type today's episode number. That's 426 into the search bar.
[00:41:30] This week, what I am reading is brought to you by Visit Thomasville. Summer is a wonderful time to see Thomasville, Georgia. If it's time to hit the road for a quick getaway, we are exactly the town you're looking for. You can rekindle your spark, explore historical sites, indulge in dining out, shop at amazing independent stores, and finally relax and unwind. There's no better getaway than Thomasville. Whether you live close by or are just passing through, we hope you'll visit beautiful Thomasville, Georgia. It's worth the trip. Plan your visit at ThomasvilleGA.com.
[00:42:05] Look, y'all know I have talked about summertime in the South. And, yes, it is really hot in beautiful downtown Thomasville, Georgia, in the summertime. But we are just such a quintessentially small town to visit, especially if you're going ahead and making your way to the Gulf Coast of Florida. So we're a great pit stop on the way maybe to a bigger destination or where a place where you can come, relax, enjoy the summer breeze, enjoy the slower pace, and walk to restaurants, to your favorite shops. It's just a great time to visit Thomasville and to pretend like you live here.
[00:42:43] This week I'm reading The Three of Us by Audrey Agbaje Williams. Thank you again to our sponsor Visit Thomasville. If you want to plan your next getaway, visit ThomasvilleGA.com.
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:
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