Episode 514 || January Reading Recap
This week on From the Front Porch, Annie recaps the books she read and loved in January. You get 10% off your books when you order your January Reading Recap Duo. Each month, we offer a Reading Recap bundle, which features Annie’s favorite books she read that month.
To purchase the books mentioned in this episode, stop by The Bookshelf in Thomasville, visit our website (search “Episode 514”), or download and shop on The Bookshelf’s official app:
The Snowbirds by Christina Clancy (releases 2/4)
We Would Never by Tova Mirvis (releases 2/11)
Lucky Night by Eliza Kennedy (releases 3/25)
Playworld by Adam Ross
Back After This by Linda Holmes (releases 2/25)
Show Don’t Tell by Curtis Sittenfeld (releases 2/25)
Annie's January Reading Recap Duo - $52
The Snowbirds by Christina Clancy (releases 2/4)
Playworld by Adam Ross
**Please note your January Reading Recap Duo will ship after Tuesday, February 4, when The Snowbirds releases.
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, Tiktok, and Facebook, 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 Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy.
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Our Executive Producers are...Beth, Stephanie Dean, Linda Lee Drozt, Ashley Ferrell, Wendi Jenkins, Martha, Nicole Marsee, Gene Queens, Cammy Tidwell, Jammie Treadwell, and Amanda Whigham.
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]
“Men just barrel through life, and suddenly the kids are grown, and the productive years of their careers are behind them. That’s when they start to think about all the decisions they’ve made and they are shocked — shocked! — to realize their futures are shorter than their pasts…. But women? We constantly assess…. We’re always checking in with ourselves and each other.”
- Christina Clancy, The Snowbirds
[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 January. Before we get started, a thank you to anyone who’s been leaving reviews for From the Front Porch. iTunes reviews and ratings are how new listeners can best find out about From the Front Porch and — as a result — find out about our indie bookstore, too. Here’s a recent review: Best roadtrip ever! My daughter and I have loved listening to the From the Porch Podcast for years! Earlier this year she surprised me with a trip to Thomasville! My daughter and new reader granddaughter loved coming to see the Bookshelf in person and meeting many of the wonderful staff who made us feel right at home. The podcast and The Bookshelf are so special and we can't wait to go back! Thank you all for putting great books in our hands
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[00:02:15] Now, back to the show! Friends, you don't know this. And I was trying to decide do I disclose this on the actual recording of the episode? But because of batch recording, this is my first recording of the new Year, which is wild. I cannot tell you how grateful I am to past Annie book for recording in the chaos of the holiday season so that I could have a few weeks off, even though it hopefully didn't feel like a few weeks off to you because we kept having new episodes. But I was able to spend the holidays with my family, get my bearings in the new year because 2024 was a doozy. And I also went to market in Atlanta, so I was so grateful that I did not have to sit down and record podcasts until now. Thank you for listening to the episodes that we've put out so far this year. We are back with a pretty traditional format. This is our Reading Recap episode where I am going to review the books I read actually in latter December and January. So playing a little bit of catch up so I can review some books. I wanted to talk about that I finished at the end of last year, so this is going to cover mostly end of December and then January reads.
[00:03:28] I'm still very much in a wintering state of mind. Not only does that mean a lot of my reading is seasonal, but it also means I haven't done a ton of reading. And I thought to myself, why is that? Because January normally feels like a time where I hunker down and read good books and read quite a few books. But I think even though January has not been nearly as chaotic as November and December, it has brought its own chaos. So right now, as I am recording this for you, it is snowing outside my window, which we are so sick I know of using the word unprecedented, but truly, truly I cannot stress enough how unprecedented this is. My parents have lived in Tallahassee. My mother's lived in Tallahassee her whole life, and no one on my mom's side of the family has ever seen anything like this. It snowed in 1989. We had a dusting of snow here in 2018 in Thomasville. I remember that. I have video footage of that. I still have the pictures on my phone, but nothing like this. We got out and measured today and we think we got about five inches here in Thomasville. We'll see what the meteorologists say.
[00:04:42] But as a result, the store has been closed. Then I went to market in Atlanta last week, which normally I don't do in January, but I was trying something new. And so I was gone from the store for a week. So it just feels like I've not had as much opportunity as you would think to hunker down with a good book, which is what I associate with Winter. So I hope you have had the chance to do that, even if I had not. All of that being said, I have read some really good books, including the book I mentioned at the top of the episode, The Snow Birds. This is by Christina Clancy. It does not release until February 4th, so you could preorder it. Not too much time now left to wait. Well, actually, I was about to say I hadn't read anything by Christina Clancy, but that's not true. Christina Clancy is the author of Shoulder Season, which came out a couple of years ago. And it was historical fiction. I mean, a historical setting, I want to say 70s, or 80s, set at a Playboy resort, as I recall. And I really liked it like. It was a different kind of historical fiction, but it was really interesting and I enjoyed it.
[00:05:54] But I until I just sat down here to record, I'm not sure I would have put these two books together because The Snow Birds is not historical fiction. I don't think it is inspired by anything. Whereas, I think Shoulder season was and so this is totally different. So I at first was going to say I hadn't read anything by Christina Clancy, but that's not true. So Christina Clancy wrote Shoulder Season. This is her new book coming out in February called The Snow Birds. It is about Kim and Grant, an older, empty nesting couple based out of, I think, Wisconsin, the Midwest. The chilly Midwest. And they decide that in their empty nesting season they are going to spend the winter in Palm Springs, California. And this is mostly Kim's idea, not Grants. Grant is a retired college professor. He's kind of been forced into retirement. The small college where he was employed had closed. And so he's at a crossroads in his life. Kim is at a crossroads in her life. Kim and Grant have been together forever, but they are not married. They remind me in the book of like Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell. So they've been together forever. They have daughters together, but you can tell there's some tension as the pages of the book Open.
[00:07:14] But really what opens the book and the reason I picked this one up is because from the beginning that Grant is missing. So they've moved to Palm Springs. They've started their winter season there. They're having a great time. But Grant goes for a hike one day and doesn't come home. And Kim is trying to pick up the pieces and to some extent put the puzzle pieces together to find out what happened to Grant. Did he get lost in the woods, in the mountains? Did he intentionally maybe do something to harm himself? Did he lose his way metaphorically or literally? It's kind of what it boils down to. And so the premise, at least at first, almost sounds like could this be an Olivia book? But you really know from the cover vibes, if you Google the cover, it's very bright and fun and frothy looking. I would not describe this as a frothy book. I actually think the cover is a super interesting choice. It's going to look very fun on a shelf, but I'm not sure it's an accurate portrayal of what's inside because this isn't an Olivia book. It's not a thriller. It's not a mystery, although you do want to know what happens to Grant. But it's about a marriage and it's about a relationship-- a partnership, I guess since these two these two aren't technically married per se.
[00:08:39] But it's about the autumn of our lives or what happens especially to women when maybe their children are grown and maybe they've made sacrifices that they look back and wonder, should I have made those sacrifices? Should I not have made those sacrifices? Kim is really reflecting on her relationship with Grant. And so what you get in the book is present day finding out what happened to Grant. A search party goes out throughout Palm Springs to try to find him. And the Palm Springs setting is great, by the way. And so you get that part of the story and then you get Kim looking back at their lives and she's thinking about their role as parents, their relationship with one another, the different times that maybe Grant has wandered away. And is this just another time where Grant has wandered away? I really wound up liking this book, so I picked it up because of the premise. Certainly the book does deliver on that initial premise, which is Grant is gone. What happened to Grant? So you definitely get that part of the story, but it does become a more reflective novel and kind of a quiet novel about Kim and Grant's relationship.
[00:09:55] So I think it has a good mix of character driven and plot driven fiction, but I think you'll especially love this one if you're drawn to really interesting characters, especially in this season of life. Perhaps it's literature I wind up picking up, but I don't often read a ton of stories about an empty nesting couple. I know those stories exist, but they don't often cross my path. And so that was kind of refreshing. And the writing is great, the storytelling is great. Kim and Grant are interesting people, so they were interesting to read about both separately and then together as a couple. If you liked the book I adored last year (I probably should have made my top 10) Leaving by Roxana Robinson, I believe the author's name is. If you liked that book, I suspect you will find something to like about this book. This one was a win for me. I really enjoyed this one and it kind of surprised me because from the front it looks almost like a poolside beach read. Certainly you could read this book by the pool or at the beach, but that's not what I got once I got into its pages. So that is the Snowbirds by Christina Clancy.
[00:11:09] Because The Snowbirds didn't quite scratch the mystery thriller itch-- and at the end of December I was looking for a book that I could finish. I just wanted a book I could finish. Do you ever get that way where you maybe have fallen out of your reading rhythm and you just need to finish something? And typically thrillers are good for that for me. So I picked up the ARC We Would Never. This is by Tova Mirvis. It releases on February 11th. And the moment I started reading We Would Never, I thought, wait a minute, this sounds familiar. So this is a work of fiction about the Gelman family. Hillary Gelman is a young mom. How much do I want to say? Well, I'm about to say a lot. So Hillary returns home to her family after her ex-husband is found murdered. And murdered, they think, potentially by a hitman. And so she returns to her family home. The book is definitely a suspenseful novel, but it is also very much a dysfunctional family novel. And so as I was reading, pretty immediately I was like wait a minute. And I reread the blurb on the back.
[00:12:28] Basically, the blurb says something like Hillary and her ex-husband have gone through a contentious divorce. They've had a custody battle, and now her ex is found murdered. And some fingers are pointing at Hillary herself. And I do think the final copy is going to say something like inspired by true events or something like that. But if you are a Tallahassee, Thomasville area local or even if you're just really into true crime and maybe you listen to a lot of podcasts or you watch a lot of Dateline, you might be familiar with the Dan Merkel case. He was an FSU law professor, an attorney in Tallahassee, and he was found murdered right outside his upper middle class neighborhood home. And no one could figure out what the motive would be, why would this happen? Then they found out he had been through a contentious divorce. And this is just true life. This is not a spoiler. This is real life. They found out he had been murdered by a hitman who was hired by his ex-in-laws, specifically his mother in law and brother in law. Okay. So that's the Dan Merkel case. You can go look that up. I think it did captivate the nation. I believe there's been a couple of podcast series about it.
[00:13:57] There has been at least one Dateline episode about it because the case is kind of drawn on and on and on. In Tallahassee people still talk about it because he was local to there. He wasn't originally from there, but he'd been there a long time. He was a pretty well-known and well respected FSU professor, and so this was a case I felt super familiar with, which is why when I picked up this book, I thought, wait a minute, this story feels very familiar. So Tova Mirvis, I think, was inspired by this story. But now we're really getting the focus on Hillary, the ex-wife, the woman who is still alive. In this fictional account her family loves her. She is beloved. She is loved by her brothers. And she returns home after her ex-husband's death to try to kind of get her bearings and maybe even start over. And then as the book unfolds, some of it unfolds a lot like the Merkel case did. And so if you're not familiar with that case, I think this book would probably be extremely interesting to you. It's a suspenseful book, but it is not a whodunit necessarily. This is not a mystery novel. This is more suspenseful, psychological what would make someone do this? Why would someone's family do this? What does a family who would do this look like?
[00:15:26] And I really liked it. I flew through it. It did not take me long at all to finish. But if you are familiar with the Tallahassee case, then I also think that this is just fascinating, almost like reading Bright Young Women or something like that. And I do wonder if that's what has inspired Tova Mirvis. I think the jury is literally still out on whether Dan Merkel's ex-wife had any role to play in the hiring of the hitman and his ultimate murder. And I think this book is trying to figure that out. Anyway, I really liked it. Don't go into it thinking it's a mystery. Instead, go into it thinking it's going to be about a dysfunctional family and a psychological suspense-- it's suspenseful. It's not a suspense. It's suspenseful, but it's not a suspense novel. And because you already know who's been murdered.
[00:16:29] And you can see the writing on the wall. Even if I didn't just tell you all the things I told you, you would see the writing on the wall. You immediately know something's up with this family. It's fascinating. I thought it was fascinating. Not maybe your traditional suspense thriller, but suspenseful and relatively fast paced, maybe in the same vein as a suspense novel by Jocelyn Jackson or something like that, where you're dealing a lot with a variety of characters. Again, great mix of plot driven and character driven. The characters, I think are really well developed and they're what propelled the story along. But it is suspenseful. You want to know what happens to Hillary, what happens to her young daughter, and what ultimately, if any, price the family pays for the decisions that they've made. Thoroughly enjoyable, especially feels like a weird thing to say when you know that the book is based on the actual events. But I liked it. That is We Would Never buy Tova Mirvis and it releases on February 11th.
[00:17:31] My first official book of 2025 was Lucky Night by Eliza Kennedy. This does not release until March 25th, so you do have time to wait. I would preorder this one, but let me tell you about it first because it might not be for you. But, man, I was immediately-- the cover is great, but the blurb or the description on the back is why I picked this one up immediately. We have a giant stack of 2025 ARCs at The Bookshelf; and you know as a bookseller is want to do, I was going through them trying to figure out what am I going to prioritize in the new year. And I immediately picked this one up because I thought this sounds like super interesting. The reason it might not appeal to all of you is because it is about Nick and Jenny. Nick and Jenny are married to other people, but they have been having an affair for, I want to say, six or seven years. And they have this unspoken agreement that they don't ever spend an actual night together. So they've never done an overnight in bachelor terms. Flashback to when I watched The Bachelor.
[00:18:44] They've never done an overnight, but they decide to spend the night. Nick has splurged. They get a hotel room at this brand new, beautiful high rise hotel in midtown Manhattan. And this book I do need you to know-- so, first of all, we've got an affair at the center of the book. So if you don't like books about infidelity, you're out. And I get it. So that's the first thing to know. And then the second thing you should know is this book is relatively sexually explicit. And I say that if you've been listening to the podcast for a long time, you know that is something that my brain does pick up on, my writerly brain does pick up on. And so I do kind of notice when there's a lot of sex scenes in a book. There are a lot of sex scenes in this book. What I will say, and I know I reference this book all the time, but in a book like Fire Sermon or in a book like Leaving, the sex scenes are not the sole basis of this book. For me, I'm not a huge romance reader. I like a lot of romcoms, not necessarily a huge romance reader. This isn't a romance novel. The sex in this book leads to other interesting plot lines and points of view. So I'll say that.
[00:19:53] So there are some explicit sex scenes, but I would read this book. Pretty steamy, but that's not the point of the book. The point of the book is-- and this is not a spoiler-- that while Nick and Jenny are spending the night together in this hotel room, the hotel catches fire. And the book is set over the course of one night while Jenny and Nick, who are on the 36th floor, have to determine do we evacuate? Do we stay put? Are we allowed to evacuate? Is the fire real? This is a new hotel. Are the fire alarms just chirping because that's occasionally what fire alarms do in hotel rooms. And then through the course of that, they're also grappling with their relationship. Do we actually hate each other? Why are we even having this affair? What about our marriages? What happens if we survive this fire? Will our families find out about our affair? Do we want our families to find out about our affair? Should we self-sabotage this? It is just filled with fascinating psychological detail and analysis. These are two people who, in my opinion, make bad decision after bad decision, which I assume is what has led them to an affair. And then they continue to make questionable decisions this night in the hotel.
[00:21:19] Talk about suspenseful, this book had me on the edge of my seat almost as much as a T.J. Newman kind of book, where you know the book is set over the course of one evening; you want to know if these people survive; you want to know what happens to a high rise hotel? What are you supposed to do? This is a traumatic book. Meaning I think Eliza Kennedy, the author, does a really great job of detailing this hotel, the aftermath of the fire, the first responders, the response of the news crews, the Twitter response, the social media response. I think it's all so realistic and well-done. And then at the center of the book are Nick and Jenny and their affair and the reasons that have led them to this hotel room to begin with. I thought this book is great. It will not be for every reader as I have just laid out for you. But, for me, I was hooked. I finished it quickly. It was an extremely propulsive novel, partly because of just set over the course of one evening. I love when a book does that, when a book plays with timelines like that. Thoroughly enjoyable to me. Thought provoking. Interesting. Probably would make a good book club book if your book is open to that sort of thing. And now maybe you have an idea of whether this book is for you or not. But I loved it. Lucky Night by Eliza Kennedy, releases on March 25th.
[00:22:42] For months-- and I do mean months-- I have been reading Play World by Adam Ross and I finished it in January. This book is out now. You've probably seen it. I think it's been on Bookstagram. I've I was thinking I've definitely seen it in the store. But to me it has a very distinct, recognizable cover. It's got this goldfish yellow front with a black and white photo. I saw my friend Hunter @Shelfbyshelf-- shout out to Hunter. He posted about this recently and he said something like it's been a while since I've done a really big book and so I'm diving into this one. And I thought, okay, so I'm glad I'm not the only one who the page count. And now I wish I had it in front of me, but I don't. It was over 500 pages. So I started this in late October, mid-October, and I just kept picking it up and putting it down. Now, typically when I pick up a book I read it meaning over the course of a couple of nights, over the course of a couple of days. But I pick up a book and I finish it. I think because of the way my brain works, I don't like go back and forth amongst a lot of books. I'm typically reading one book at a time. One physical book at a time, and one audio book is typically my rhythm.
[00:23:58] So this was unusual for me, where I picked this book up. I really liked it. It's about a young man named Griffin. He lives in New York in 1980. This book is set, I think, over the course-- I don't know if it starts in 1979 and then ends in 1980 or if it starts in 1980 and ends in '81. But basically, the Carter administration is ending and the Reagan administration is starting. And Griffin is a child actor in New York, and this is his coming-of-age story. So I was immediately drawn to the premise. The setting is fantastic. The time period is super interesting. It felt especially relevant as we are in the middle of a changing political landscape, a transition period, and after President Carter's passing. And so it all felt serendipitous for me as a reader. But it did take me a while to finish. That is not because I did not love this book. In fact, I recall telling a friend she would maybe check in and see what I was reading. And I kept saying, "Well, I'm reading Play World." For a while I was considering it for a Shelf Subscription and I couldn't finish it in time. And it felt like it might be a little long, a little heavy to ship, quite frankly. And so I ultimately didn't pick it for my Shelf Subscription. Part of the reason I didn't pick it.
[00:25:17] So Griffin this is his coming-of-age story. He is a young man, child actor living in New York. His dad is also an actor and voice actor struggling to be successful; whereas, Griffin has already found success. He's on a famous fictional sitcom, and he's also a student at a private school that his acting money pays for. He has a brother, a precocious brother who is not a child actor and therefore goes to a different school because he can't pay for private school. And he's really the brain in the family. So you've got this great sibling dynamic. You just immediately know this parent-child relationship isn't great because this dad might be trying to live vicariously through his son's career. Griffin also just wants to be like a normal middle high schooler. He wants to be on the wrestling team. And what you notice over and over again is the horrible behavior of adults. And so part of the reason I chose not to send this out as a Shelf Subscription is I really did not finish it in time. It was long and it took me a couple of months to read it and that was fine, but did not meet the deadline for shelf subscriptions. But also, Griffin continues to encounter adults who, I believe, take advantage of his adolescence, his naivety and maybe his poor relationship with his own parents or his maybe less than stellar relationship with his own parents.
[00:26:50] So the wrestling coach is a particularly villainous, in my mind, nefarious character. Griffin also begins having encounters with a family friend, a woman whose kids are around the same age as Griffin, maybe a little bit younger, and she starts to flirt with Griffin and ultimately they have some sexual encounters. And so he is a victim of abuse and adult people who take advantage of him and who don't view him in right relationship. And it's a really gut-wrenching novel because you just watched adult after adult fail Griffin. At the same time, Griffin is an extremely humorous character. He is kind of almost a heroic character, although he's an adolescent male. And so he keeps kind of bumbling over himself. He's a little gawky. He constantly is focused on his weight because of the wrestling team and making weight and being too heavy for a certain weight class. And just like I don't read a ton of books about empty nesters, I guess, I don't read a ton of books about adolescent males.
[00:28:11] I saw my friend Claire Gibson-- she's a writer you may recognize; she posted on Instagram that she loved this book. And she said I think mothers of sons should read this book, which I thought was fascinating because I was in the middle of reading it and I thought I'm not sure I would have thought that. But now I totally see where she's coming from. For 500 pages you're inside the mind of Griffin, which means I didn't send out the book as a Shelf Subscription because I wasn't sure if the content would be for everyone, which sometimes the content of my selections is not for everyone no matter how hard I try. But one interesting thing is although what is happening to Griffin is despicable and horrible, you're also viewing it through the lens of an innocent child who's trying to figure out who are these grown-ups and why are they acting this way and is this okay? Or do these grownups behave this way with everybody else? Like is this wrestling coach-- or something happening with my friends or is this just with me?
[00:29:08] As I kept reading, the only book that I was like, "What is this book like?" was Catcher in the Rye. And I've read some critical reviews since finishing this one, and that is the comp that a lot of people say. So it's probably a pretty obvious one, but that's what I thought. I was like, my gosh, it's been a long time since I've read a book with a Holden type character. Griffin is a little bit younger and I think still has some of his-- he is not quite as angsty as Holden, but I loved it. Also, because I read part of this during the holiday season, it reminded me of the movie The Holdovers, which Jordan and I loved. That is a movie we love. We rewatched at this holiday season where you've got these boys at this private school and that is where Griffin goes. He goes to this private school and he's trying to navigate the cultural landscape of this high school. I wound up loving this book and it took me months to read it, but I read it little bit by little bit. I think part of it is the chapters are quite long and so it feels more like you're reading large sections than small chapters. So keep that in mind, perhaps, depending on what kind of reader you are.
[00:30:18] But I am so glad I power through this book. Powered through makes it sound like I didn't enjoy it, but because of its length I kept having to pick up other books. I kept having to finish other books so that I could feel like I was finishing something, and I would return over and over again to Play World. And now that I think about it, I'm not sure it's a book meant to be binged, and it was probably good for my brain to not binge it, to not just devour it in two settings or two sittings. So I'm glad for my reading experience. It was a fun book to kind of help kick off the new Year. I really liked it. If you are a literary fiction fan, I think you'll like this a lot. Griffin is a really memorable character. I think I may remember him at the end of this year. I don't know. It's way too early, but this book could be in the running for my top 10 of the year. I really liked it.
[00:31:13] After finishing Play World I did need a break, though. I did need something different and I knew I would be able to finish Back After This by Linda Holmes pretty quickly. I love Linda Holmes. I have followed her career forever. This won't be the last time I talk about this book. But Linda Holmes is the host, one of the voices on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour, which is a podcast I listened to religiously for a really long time. I think during the pandemic I stopped listening to just a bunch of podcasts because my brain was tired. But I love Linda Holmes. She's also the author of Evvie Drake Starts Over and Flying Solo- both books I really liked. Evvie Drake Starts Over is more romcom to me. Flying Solo feels more "traditional women's fiction" I loved both. I really did. If you are a closed-door romance fan and you like depth to your characters or maybe you're a big Annabel Monaghan reader, I think you would love Linda Holmes. So if you haven't read her, Evvie Drake Starts Over and Flying Solo are her previous two works. Most of you probably have read her books. I believe, were bestsellers. They were super popular when they came out.
[00:32:23] And it's not just because she's a popular podcast host. She's a fantastic, witty writer. Her books are great, well-written, closed-door romances, women's fiction, whatever. And they have women at their center. Do with that what you will. So the main character in this book is Cecily. Cecily is a podcast producer. She's been working in the podcast industry for a really long time. She is working at this kind of fledgling podcast, I guess, production group, and they are kind of desperate for a hit podcast. It's been a minute since they've had one. They're worried about the future of their business. Her boss is a little icky and basically he comes to her and says, "Hey, we've got this idea. We're partnering with an influencer named Eliza. Eliza does coaching and she's going to help somebody find love. And we want you to be the host. And if you host this, then you'll finally get the hosting gig, the show you've always wanted." So Cecily reluctantly agrees. And here's why I like Linda Holmes books. So Evvie Drake Starts Over had this great in my mind baseball subplot. And if you listen to Holmes on her podcast, you know she's got an interest in baseball and in sports. So that was super fun. In this book, you can see her expertise in the podcast world. There was so much in here about the podcast industry. And if you are fascinated by media, I think you will love those parts of the book. The book's setting is also in DC, which I appreciated. Its nice departure from a New York romance or something like that.
[00:34:06] And the character of Eliza, the Instagram influencer or the wellness influencer, she was fascinating. She so easily could have been a stereotype or a caricature, and instead Holmes really gives her some depth. And that's what I love about Linda Holmes books; I think all the characters have a lot of depth including some of the side characters, which is why she's a great romcom writer in my mind. So this is about Cecily as she tries to find love on this new podcast. She goes on a variety of blind dates set up by Eliza, all the while also maybe having her own flirtation because of just a random meet cute with a guy who lives in her neighborhood named Will. And so you spend a lot of the book, of course, kind of in true romantic comedy fashion wondering why don't you just date Will? But the way Linda Holmes addresses that I think is really well done. So this is fun. Great for this time of year. It releases on February 25th, so you have to preorder it, but it would be well worth your preorder. And in the meantime, you could catch up on her backlist titles. But this was a lot of fun. And I actually think the book is set over like January, February, March. So I think it'll be the perfect time to read it when it releases. This was one of my most highly anticipated books of 2025. I really do like Linda Holmes a lot, and I'm pleased to say it met my expectations. I really enjoyed it. That is Back After This by Linda Holmes.
[00:35:37] And then last but not least, another highly anticipated book for me is Show Don't Tell. This is by Curtis Sittenfeld. It also releases on February 25th. I love Curtis Sittenfeld. She wrote the book Prep, Rodham. She is a prolific writer. I was trying to see if I was a Curtis Sittenfeld completionist, and I think I almost am. So she wrote American Wife, which was the book more or less inspired by true events in Laura Bush's life; Prep, which I already mentioned; Eligible, which was like a retelling of Pride and Prejudice, which was great. I do think I read Sister Land. I definitely read You Think It, I'll Say It, Rodham, and Romantic Comedy. Of those, I think Romantic Comedy is weirdly my least favorite. But I love Curtis Sittenfeld. So this is her latest. This is a short story collection. I liked her short story collection You Think It, I'll Say It. I think that's a great title. So this is Show Don't Tell. Again, I read this in ARC format. The description I don't know if this will make it to the final blurb or final back cover. But the way Curtis Infeld apparently sold the book to the publisher or described it to the publisher was "This is a short story collection about women who are wrong about the most essential facts of their own lives.".
[00:36:55] I was immediately hooked. I don't know if it's where my brain currently resides in January 2025? I have to be in the right mood for a short story collection. But I was in the right mood for this, where I could read a story-- there's a really great story toward the front of the book that is about a Hollywood producer type who has to go to I think it's like Mobile or Fairhope, Alabama, and try to convince this evangelical pastor writer who's written almost like maybe a Gary Chapman; he's written some kind of marital help book and they're turning it into a movie and she's trying to convince him to have a same sex couple in the movie. And, gosh, it is such a good, awkward short story. It is fantastic. I am always impressed by short story writers who know what they're doing because I think it requires so much to be able to tell a complete story in just a handful of pages. And to be able to get you to connect with characters almost immediately while also sort of leaving you hanging a bit. Short stories they're not always tied up in a pretty bow.
[00:38:05] I loved this collection. It had been a minute since I'd read a short story collection, so you may not be able to hear it on my face, but I've got a giant grin. I've got a giant grin because it had been a long time since I had read a short story collection that I liked, and I really liked this one a lot. So if you're a short story collection reader, if you're a short story reader, I think you'll love this. If you are not, maybe give it a try anyway. The first story was fantastic, so if you just want to pick it up at your local bookstore library and read the first story and see what you think, to me, that's a great test. If you liked that one, I think you'll like what else is included. So good. Releases February 25th. Show Don't Tell by Curtis Sittenfeld.
[00:38:45] And those are the books I read in January. So, as usual, with our Reading Recap episodes, we are offering a Reading Recap bundle for this month. Because of release dates, (turns out I read a lot of advance reader copies this month) our January Reading Recap bundle is a pairing, so it's going to be two books. $52 Gets You Play World by Adam Ross. That's the book about Griffin and 1980s New York; and The Snowbirds, which is about Kim and Grant and their marriage in Palm Springs-- their relationship in Palm Springs. You can find more details and the January bundle online through the link in our shownotes or go to bookshelfthomasville.com and type today's episode number. That's 514 into the search bar.
[00:39:32] This week I'm listening to Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy. [00:39:34] 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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Executive Producers (Read Their Own Names): Nicole Marsee, Wendi Jenkins
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