Episode 336 || September New Release Rundown
In this week’s episode, Annie talks with Olivia and Lucy about the new releases you don’t want to miss this month
To purchase the books mentioned in this episode, visit our new website:
Matrix by Lauren Groff
Fault Lines by Emily Itami
Beautiful World, Where Are You? by Sally Rooney
A Play for the End of the World by Jai Chakrabarti
Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang
Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead
Black Girls Must Die Exhausted by Jayne Allen
Egg Marks the Spot by Amy Timberlake
Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune
Once Upon a Broken Heart by Stephanie Garber
Pony by RJ Palacio
Beasts of Prey by Ayana Gray
Last Graduate by Naomi Novik
Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki
Beatryce Prophecy by Kate DiCamillo
Three Girls From Bronzeville: A Uniquely American Memoir of Race, Fate, and Sisterhood by
Dawn Turner
Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
Wildland: The Making of America's Fury by Evan Osnos
Bewilderment by Richard Powers
Redeeming Justice: From Defendant to Defender, My Fight for Equity on Both Sides of a
Broken System by Jarrett Adams
Mennonite Valley Girl: A Wayward Coming of Age by Carla Funk
The Heroine with 1001 Faces by Maria Tatar
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 reading All of a Kind Family by Sydney Taylor. Olivia is reading Last Graduate by Naomi Novik. Lucy is reading The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles.
If you liked what you heard on today’s episode, tell us by leaving a review on iTunes. Or, if you’re so inclined, support us on Patreon, where you can hear our staff’s weekly New Release Tuesday conversations, read full book reviews in our monthly Shelf Life newsletter, follow along as Hunter and I conquer a classic, and receive free media mail shipping on all your online book orders. Just go to patreon.com/fromthefrontporch.
We’re so grateful for you, and we look forward to meeting back here next week.
episode transcript:
[00:00:00] Annie: Welcome to From the Front Porch, a conversational podcast about books, small business, and life in the south.
[00:00:24] “Only a fool would think that anything they’ve done was on their own, Tabby,” Ms. Gretchen said. “Nobody makes it on their own, at least, not anywhere worthwhile.”
[00:00:33] Jayne Allen, Black Girls Must Die Exhausted.
[00:00:37] I'm Annie Jones, owner of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in beautiful downtown Thomasville, Georgia. And today, Olivia, Lucy and I are back with September's New Release Roundup. We're discussing our favorite newly released titles of the month. Highlighting new books without overwhelming your maybe already daunting TBR list.
[00:01:04] Welcome back guys.
[00:01:06] Olivia: Hey.
[00:01:07] Lucy: Hello.
[00:01:09] Annie: I'm so glad you're back. As a reminder, Olivia is our retail floor manager at The Bookshelf. And Lucy is our online sales manager at The Bookshelf, and they also do Shelf Subscriptions and Young Adult Book Club and all kinds of fun things. And each of our individual reading tastes will shine through in the books that we're highlighting today.
[00:01:29] I feel like it's a lot of books. September is a big ole release month.
[00:01:34] Olivia: It is, it feels like a lot of well-known author releases.
[00:01:39] Annie: Yes. And I did, there are some really good debuts coming out, but I had a hard time. I really had to work to narrow down September and October are super big. They always are, but I still feel like we're facing delays from last from COVID.
[00:01:51] Like, I feel like we're still playing catch up in the publishing world, so, okay. I'm going to start. We're going to go round robin. My first one is, Olivia great segue. I should have really picked up on it. My first book is by very well known author Lauren Groff. Her book Matrix comes out on September 7th. I at first hesitated to put this on my list because I also think this is a Lucy type book.
[00:02:14] I, I started reading it this week. I do love it. I was worried. I kept putting my copy is from Winter Institute. Like my copy is a Winter Institute ARC that I just now picked up because I've been nervous. Cause I really love Fates and Furies. I also liked the short story collection, Florida. Lauren Groff is a literary fiction, National Book Award finalist.
[00:02:38] Like she is a stellar writer and I love what she does, but this does feel like a bit of a departure for her. So it is more historical fiction, deep, deep historical fiction set in medieval France. And it is about a young woman who becomes a nurse. Against her will. And her name is Marie de France. And I looked her up and she is a, that is a real person, but I do not know this whole book is obviously fictionalized and some historical characters are.
[00:03:08] True to history, but others have been wild, wildly fictionalized. The writing is so good. And what I have read that it is a lot about coming to terms with where she is living with the faith of these nuns, that this woman really doesn't hold. And so I think there's going to be a lot of themes that I typically am very much drawn to like faith and doubt and self.
[00:03:31] I love it. Lucy, have you read this? Because I do think you will love it.
[00:03:34] Lucy: I, I started it and I, it got lost too. Not going to be a shelf shelf, subscription pile, you know, full like, oh, nevermind. We don't have time for this right now, but I have to say. I'm so sorry, but I am just not a huge Lauren Groff fan.
[00:03:54] However, I did really enjoy the writing that I read. I think I got like three or four chapters. Yeah, I, it is promising to me. It is something that I would definitely pick back up.
[00:04:05] Annie: Yeah. Like I think I'm going to, so like you, I did not choose a first shelf subscription, right? I think I'm actually going to finish this one though.
[00:04:13] And there are other books that have gone by the wayside that I will not pick up again, but I'm going to finish this one. I think. I do think Lauren Groff is a fairly polarizing character. Like Fates and Furies- was either beloved by our customers or hated. I mean, I really didn't meet very many people who were ambivalent about that.
[00:04:30] And I, I loved it, but again, this was a departure and literary fiction, as much as I love it has not been my genre of late. So I was nervous, but I really, the writing is, is just flowery enough. So I think I'm gonna stick with it.
[00:04:45] Lucy: It's giving me Hamnet vibes You know, Maggie O'Farrell, just this kind of like foray into the richness of historical fiction from somebody who is like, known for this, like emotional.
[00:05:00] W, you know, emotional lives of characters in their literary fiction.
[00:05:04] Annie: Yeah. I'm excited about it. Okay. Olivia your turn.
[00:05:07] Olivia: Okay. On a different note this is probably going to be my number one of the year as, as this author did it last year as well. This is TJ Klune's newest book out on September 21st. It's called Under the Whispering Door.
[00:05:21] And I think we all know TJ Klune by now from house in this really ancy of which I was a huge proponent. And I will be again for this book. This is actually one of the ones I'm like most nervous about talking about, because I want to do it justice. This is he like put out housing there at the perfect time.
[00:05:42] Last year, we all needed something upbeat and that just had a spark of love in it. And that was perfect. And now he did it again, but on a different note where like, we are all now coming through the trauma of last year and we maybe just need a book to like cathartic cry too. And that was. But this is essentially about a man Wallis Price who dies.
[00:06:05] He reminds me of Elf's dad when he like tells the nuns that they can't get the books anymore. You know, we all know that scene in Elf.
[00:06:15] Annie: Great. The children love the books.
[00:06:20] Olivia: So like, it's like that type of character who just like grumpy makes a lot of wrong choices and then he dies and you see him in like a purgatory type situation.
[00:06:29] Where he gets sent to Hugo's tea shop. And Hugo is this like compassionate tea shop owner who just likes to help people justify and kind of come to terms with their life before moving on to the next place. And you see Wallace kind of freely turn his life around for the better. It was so perfect. I think honestly, in my opinion might be even better than House in the Cerulean Sea.
[00:06:58] It was beautiful.
[00:07:01] Annie: TJ Klune has the best character names. Honestly. Like every time you say a character name, I just think it's the perfect, like, I can picture the characters even though I know nothing about them.
[00:07:11] Olivia: Yeah. Well, he's great. I can't say enough about him. I love his work so much.
[00:07:18] Annie: It makes
[00:07:18] Lucy: me happy to see you so happy, Olivia.
[00:07:21] Olivia: You can thank TJ. He's kept me going these past two years.
[00:07:30] Annie: Oh, two years guys. Don't say it.
[00:07:36] Lucy: Okay. My first book is called Three Girls from Bronzeville. It's a memoir ish by Dawn Turner. It comes out September 7th and this is a really beautiful look into I don't know, I I'm gonna, I can be specific and talk about her life as a young black daughter of a single mother. Growing up in this neighborhood in Chicago called Bronzeville that during her time, The project across the street from her takes just like a huge dive in in terms of crime.
[00:08:17] And she kind of watches that happen to her neighborhood. And she deals with issues of, you know, like her father is abusive and she. Has this best friend who lives upstairs from her. And then she has a younger sister. And so the story is the story of three different young girls and how they all react to the, the decisions that are made for them in their lives, but then how they also make their own decisions.
[00:08:46] And she becomes a really successful. Writer based on the decisions she makes and the other two girls go different ways. And I don't know. It just had me really thinking about how we're set up to fail in some ways, how we're set up to succeed in some ways Obviously huge theme of race running through it, and just really beautifully written to look at three young girls lives growing up in the seventies in Chicago.
[00:09:15] Annie: I look this book up because we edited this week and I think I'm going to read this one and I wonder too, if it'd make a good audio book.
[00:09:23] Lucy: Oh, I think it probably would.
[00:09:26] Annie: Yeah. Okay. My next one, speaking of good audio books, this is actually a book that I have started. I have the physical copy, but Aaron recommended it to me because she listened to the audio book and really liked it.
[00:09:36] So this is Fault Lines by Emily Itami. This comes out on September 7th, this is a debut novel, and I'm kind of picturing, and I don't know if I need to credit Aaron for this or not. One of us came up with this description, which I think is accurate, which is in Crazy Rich Asians. There is a great character named Astrid.
[00:09:56] And this book feels as if Astrid had her own storyline. So it's set in Tokyo, Japan. It's a woman named Mizuki, who has to choose between two men. So almost themes too of Paper Palace, which I loved and is going to be in my top 10 of the year. In this one, Mizuki is happily, you know, or at least satisfactorily married with two children, but her husband's it's not the humus treats her, but she is struggling with contentment and her marriage.
[00:10:25] And then she meets a man and befriends him and I think is trying to decide. Which path do I take here? The writing so far is really unique. It's not really like I, in terms of themes, I think we're getting some paper Palestinians, but the writing is not really like anything I've read before. It's kind of snarky kind of sh short, choppy, snappy sentences.
[00:10:47] Like it really snaps on the page, which I think may be why it makes such a great audio book. I am very curious about this. I've started it. I'm a few chapters in, and it's not too long. If you're trying to read a debut, I think this would be a good one to try. This is Emily Tommy's first book. And I think, I think it's going to get some good reviews.
[00:11:08] So this is called Fault Lines and it comes out on September 7th.
[00:11:12] Olivia: All right. My next one is called Once Upon a Broken Heart. This is by Stephanie Garber and it comes out September 28th. And this is a break-off series from the care of all series that she did that. Has been one of my favorite wild fantasy series for like a while now.
[00:11:30] And this is following a van Julene who is like this hopeless romantic and she meets and makes a deal with the Ace of spades, the Jack. Oh, no.
[00:11:42] Annie: That is not where I thought this was going. I was fully prepared for you to say the devil. I don't know why.
[00:11:50] Olivia: Honestly would not be shocked for me. Probably not far off, either.
[00:11:55] Annie: Fully prepared, but instead it's a card.
[00:11:58] Like, a card?
[00:12:00] Olivia: Yes. She, she somehow did this amazing thing where she weaved in like these things. Which are like these God-like people, but they're from this like playing deck of cards. So like they each have like a face card that they associate with. And this is one of the ones who's like an evil character in the care of all series, but now is kind of getting his own redemption arc in this one.
[00:12:22] It was so good. I love the Caravel series. This is just as amazing. So if you read that, you will absolutely love this and she's doing another trilogy with this one. So I'm super excited.
[00:12:33] Annie: Okay.
[00:12:34] Lucy: Okay. I'm also skipping right to the end of the month. And I'm going to talk about Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr.
[00:12:42] It comes out on September 28th. This is it's also one of those books where I'm like, I don't feel like any description can really do it justice, but it takes place in a bunch of different time periods, like four or five, maybe five time periods. Sometimes multiple characters per time, period. And there's a lot of threads that get pulled together at the end, as you might imagine from Anthony Doerr and they, they are pulled together mostly by this through story of this Ancient Greek play that was written by.
[00:13:22] It, the play is fake, but the author is real Antonius Diogenes and you kind of follow the story of this play as it gets like found throughout time in the, I think 1495 in Constantinople, it gets found by this young girl who translate it, translates it. And then you're in 1950s and then you're in the 1980s and then you're in 2020, and then you're in 2140- something like very far future. And each of the characters has an experience with this play. There's themes of like I think he dedicates it to libraries and librarians and everybody who loves books. So of course, anybody like see to this podcast that would appeal to them. But there's also themes of like environmentalism and then just overall.
[00:14:11] He explores the things that connect us. And I think this is a good time to think about those things. I don't feel like I'm going to convince anybody to read this book. I feel like whoever likes Anthony, door's just going to read it, but it's just amazing.
[00:14:29] Annie: How do you think people who are Anthony Doerr fans or who came to him through all the light we cannot see are going to like, will they like this?
[00:14:37] Or is it like Matrix by Lauren Groff is a little bit of a departure. What is this?
[00:14:42] Lucy: It's a little bit of a departure. You have to be okay with extremely short chapters and a lot of bouncing around between time periods. So for me, that just meant it took me like a hundred pages. Get involved because you know, you have like two pages of a certain story.
[00:15:04] And so you you're just like getting to know the characters extremely slowly, but then once you're in it, you have another like 500 page.
[00:15:22] Olivia: Yeah. I'm super excited about reading this. Yeah.
[00:15:24] Annie: Yeah, I'm trying to decide. I'm trying to decide if I want to try it. I just love Anthony. Door's so much in the writing. His writing is so good.
[00:15:32] Olivia: Yeah. I just remember loving All the Light We Cannot See and now that this one also takes part of the place in the future.
[00:15:38] I'm even more interested in it. Oh, you
[00:15:41] Annie: loved that storyline for Olivia. I'm a little concerned. It might not be for me. I don't know. I don't know. I know Lucy's face makes me wonder.
[00:15:52] Lucy: I don't know. I don't know. I'm not going to tell you to not read it, but definitely.
[00:15:57] Annie: Okay. Okay. My next one is one of my favorite books of the year.
[00:16:01] I'm hesitant to say what my favorite book of the year is yet because I just, I don't know, but this is certainly going to be near the top. This is also by well-known author. Beautiful World, Where Are You? By Sally Rooney. Many people have already read the conversations with friends or came to Sally Rooney through normal people.
[00:16:20] And I know that Sally Rooney is another author. For whom people have feelings. So some people really love her work. Some people really don't. I just to give people context, I loved normal people. I did not finish conversations with friends. So if that gives you an idea of what I'd like about her, I'm really drawn to our character, to.
[00:16:42] And I think this is her best book yet. So the book features for friends, but it's really two women who are kind of at the heart of the novel. It's Alison Eileen, and the novel is really a pistol area in nature. So one chapter will be a letter between Alice and Eileen. And if Alice is writing the letter, the next chapter is about.
[00:17:03] And then the next chapter is Eileen writing to Alice. And then the following chapter is about Eileen. So it kind of goes back and forth. I was never confused. I was never confounded by it. The rhythm of it completely made sense. And those epistolary chapters where they're writing letters back. Yeah. Are so lovely.
[00:17:21] Like I love an epistolary novel, but we don't in 2021, get a lot of modern letter writing. I don't feel like, but they're writing these really lengthy emails and missives back and forth. And I just love it. I love what people are willing to say on paper that they might not say in person. And so the conversations are having a really tough.
[00:17:40] As is the case with Sally Rooney, there is lots of sexual content. So I do feel like I need to give that disclaimer, though hunter and I like to talk at length, I think about a sentence that Lauren Groff stated, which is something about when sex is a conversation, that's when it's at its best and literature.
[00:17:56] And so I do feel like. I am willing to kind of go through the sexual content and some of Sally Rooney's books, because there is always a point to it. And there's always a conversation between these characters happening. There is also a lot about friendship and faith and. Coming of age becoming who you are in adulthood and then dealing with the world we've created and what mess we've made.
[00:18:23] And, but also the beauty in it too. I love this book. I thought it was outstanding. It's my favorite one she's ever done. And I think at the end of the year, we'll be in my being my top two or three at least. So beautiful world. Where are you by Sally Rooney? On September 7th.
[00:18:38] Olivia: Okay. My next one is also a departure from a very well-known author.
[00:18:42] This is Pony by RJ palacio. And it comes out September 28th, all the rest of my books come out the very end of this month. This one, this is from the author of wonder and the wonder series essentially, but now she has gone and written a historical fiction Western about this boy named Silas who after his dad disappears with these.
[00:19:05] Old school, Western thugs, I'm going to call them Silas and his. Imaginary friend mitten will go after his father on this horse that they left behind me that they ended up naming pony. And it is this epic adventure following Silas, who he meets along the way coming to terms with his imaginary friend mitten wall, the ending ties everything together.
[00:19:31] It was so well done. Might end up in my top 10 because I just, it has been one of those where I'd continually go back and think about it. I mean, RJ Palacio's writing is just phenomenal to begin with. We all knew that from wonder, and now she does it again with pony. I do think this is like 10, 11 and up. I actually think adults will like this story more than kids will, because it is really a story about finding love wherever you are.
[00:19:59] It was so well done. Highly recommended.
[00:20:03] Lucy: So I am going to pivot to non-fiction. Wildland: The Making of America's Fury by Evan Osnos and it comes out on September 14th. Evan Osnos lived abroad for many years. He's among other things, a writer for the new Yorker and he moved back to America in 2013.
[00:20:23] And I think pretty much immediately moved to Washington DC and reports on over a period of, I think about six years, this kind of dissent, that American culture, especially American political culture has taken into extremism. Like the title says fury. And so he sets it between September 11th and January 6th, 2021.
[00:20:51] And he makes it really personal. He goes to three, three locations that have meant something to him in his history. Greenwich, Connecticut is one somewhere in Kentucky. Maybe, oh, sorry. West Virginia. And then Chicago. And what he does is he talks to just average people and asks them about the ways that their lives have changed during that time.
[00:21:18] And he kind of uncover some of the roots of this bubbling anger and trouble in American culture. And it's just a really extremely well-written. An eye-opening account and I really love how he makes it more personal. He doesn't actually set it in Washington. Although some of those things we lead through he is trying to talk to the people in, in America and see the ways their lives have changed.
[00:21:47] Really, really good. If you're interested in contemporary culture, that's Wildland by Evan Osnos.
[00:21:56] Annie: Hmm, that sounds good. My next one is A Play for the End of the World by Jai Chakrabarti. This also comes out September 7th, all of mine come out at the beginning of the month. This is another debut and what I find so interesting, it's a debut novel and Jai Chakrabarti is like some kind of tech guru, like he's, I think he works for Spotify or anyway, he's kind of been on the cover, I think of like Forbes magazine as a tech guy, like that's his background. So I find it fascinating that he's written this book. So he's also a writer of short fiction. So you may recognize him from that, like this isn't totally out of the blue where he lived, he works for Spotify, but then in his spare time has written this beautiful Melville He has written other things before.
[00:22:38] So this is a, to me, a different kind of historical fiction. It's set in 1970s, New York and India. And then you also get some flashbacks to world war II. Gerrick is the main character and he is a survivor. The Warsaw ghetto and he's living in alive in 1970s, New York, when he finds out that one of his childhood best friends has died in India of mysterious circumstances.
[00:23:04] So he goes back to India to kind of figure out what has happened to his, to his best friend and what happened there, but all at the same time, There is, and I really love this. I love how matrix by Lauren grafted this as well, but there is at the same time, the star, the book starts with Jerrick as a young boy in the Warsaw ghetto performing a play.
[00:23:26] And this is true that this educator who I believe he was a Polish educator who helped school and educate. Children in the ghetto, got them to perform this famous play that was written by an Indian playwright. And so they performed this play while trying to survive these horrific Holocaust experiences anyway.
[00:23:48] And so Jerrick now as an adult kind of revisit this place. So that's kind of the through-line. I feel like Lucy, you mentioned maybe it was the Anthony Doerr book that kind of is doing the same thing. I think if station 11, that kind of does something similar. So I really liked this concept and I'm very curious about it.
[00:24:04] I started it and really liked it. I do think it's going to be a slow burn, so you have to be patient with it, but the writing is good. And I think the story is really going to be quiet, but stunning it's A Play for the End of the World by Jai Chakrabarti.
[00:24:18] Olivia: Okay. My next book is The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik.
[00:24:22] This is out yet again, September 28th, and he's doing the beginning of the month. I will do the end. Lucy is working on the middle. It's great. We planned it that way. That's totally planned it. This is the second in the deadly education series. And I am halfway through it right now and absolutely loving it.
[00:24:43] I was actually a little bit nervous to pick it up. Cause series are always hard to follow when you have to wait a full year for the next month to come out. I think even a little bit extra with this one. But it was so worth it. I just picked up right where it left off. And you instantly remember everything.
[00:24:57] The writing. So well done. It is a dark magic, novel. Like this is a school for people who are gifted with magic, but magic actively tries to essentially kill you all the time, every, every second of the day. And so these students are basically learning how to like survive. Through their school. Like it is known that like freshmen will die at the school.
[00:25:22] It is so good, but in adults
[00:25:29] Annie: it is great. But definitely for grownups, though.
[00:25:32] Olivia: The main protagonist is L she's like this negative Nelly type character, very pessimistic, but she's like prophet prophesized, prophesied, prophecy.
[00:25:44] Annie: Prophecy
[00:25:46] Olivia: see about that. So she's going to turn into like the darkest sort of magical being that there is.
[00:25:54] And so she's actively trying to fight this. So she just gets really frustrated all the time because like these tendencies come out, but she's like trying to stop it. Oh, I love her. It's great. Please read it.
[00:26:06] Lucy: Well Ingram calls that series, the Skullamance series.
[00:26:11] Olivia: I know, I did know how to pronounce that, so I never call it that.
[00:26:17] There is a very reluctant romance. Yeah. I was going to say, honestly, just takes it up a notch for me. It was great when she's like, basically. Essentially boyfriend girlfriend with this guy, but she also like kind of hates, oh, that's great.
[00:26:38] Lucy: Okay. My next novel, I have not read yet, but I am really, really, really looking forward to it. Bewilderment by Richard Powers, this is the author of The Overstory and it comes out. Let's see, it comes out on September 21st. The description also a little bit reminds me of. Parts of cloud cookie land.
[00:27:00] It's a widower and his nine-year-old son, the main character's name is Theo and he's an astrobiologist. And his wife was, I think at like a ecological, like lawyer or lobbyists. And she, so she had this passion. Animals for the environment. And she dies in a car crash trying to avoid like an animal on the road.
[00:27:29] And so the, the main character Theo and his son, Robin are learning to live together. But Robin has some pretty severe emotional problems. He's been diagnosed with a bunch of different things. And so they go and search it. Some neurological therapy and they try this kind of cutting edge neurological therapy.
[00:27:53] It's kind of tied in with the astrobiology aspect and with the, the mother who's dead and it just looks like it's. A beautifully raw story about this relationship between this father and son. I really cannot wait to start reading this one.
[00:28:11] Annie: A lot of indie booksellers. I feel like I've been on, you know, some fall preview calls or whatever.
[00:28:15] Anybody who's read this book has loved it. Some people even have loved it more than overstory, which is high praise. I feel like.
[00:28:22] Olivia: Let's see. Astrobiologists I got me.
[00:28:26] Annie: Olivia is interested. Okay, Beautiful Country by Chan Julie Wong. I think I'm predicting it now. I feel like this is going to be a gentle shaker pick.
[00:28:38] I think it could be somebody. I think it could be another famous person's pick, but I feel like this is right up Jennifer Shaker's alley. If she would just let me be her personal bookseller. I think that'd be great at it. I have. I'm about three quarters of the way through this Chan. Julie Wong is a, she's an attorney and lives in New York.
[00:28:55] This is her debut minimum. I think there will be a lot of people who compare this to crying in H Mart. And I, I will understand that comparison. But the writing is so different. And so, and I loved crying at H Mart. It to me. This book is like crying in HR. If cardigan H Mart had a baby with educated, I think beautiful country is the books that would pop out.
[00:29:19] Olivia: Book babies
[00:29:23] Lucy: popping out.
[00:29:27] Annie: I feel like there should be a book babies podcast episode. So anyway basically this is her story of her family moving to and living in New York from China and her kind of her being, I guess, second generation American and just watching her parents go from. Being relatively like well-known, well-respected high ish socioeconomic status in their home country, and then moving to America for a better life for their family due to persecution in their Homeland, and then coming to New York and having to essentially start from scratch.
[00:30:05] And the way she tells that story is so profound and also eye opening. But again, I can't quite explain what it is about her writing that makes it so different. I love a good memoir. I loved educated. I loved Michelle's honors story as well. This is just a little bit different. Yeah. And the, and the writing is so unlike anything I could really compare it to.
[00:30:28] And the way she writes about her parents is really touching. So I really liked this one. I think it was supposed to have an earlier release in this. I think it was delayed a little bit. So this is beautiful country by chin Julie Wong out on September 7th.
[00:30:41] Olivia: Okay. My next one is the newest book by Kate DiCamillo.
[00:30:44] Out September 28th, this was the Beatryce Prophecy. And this one I think is a little bit different than our other books because Sophie black, all did illustration. Throughout it and they're excellent illustrations. It was very delightful to read Fred like a almost like a fairytale type book, or like when you open it up, there's just this beautiful, like outlines on every page.
[00:31:06] Really pretty to hold. But this is about a girl named to be addressed who had.
[00:31:14] That was the delayed laughter from you guys. And that was like really funny, but okay.
[00:31:21] Annie: You don't say.
[00:31:26] Olivia: But the interest is essentially, this is like way back when times when girls weren't allowed to be educated and her mom made a point to educate Beatrice and her two brothers. So she was the only girl. Knew how to read and or write. And there was a prophecy that said she was going to essentially kick the king off the throne and put a rightful person up there.
[00:31:49] And this is just Beatrice's journey through the world, finding new friends who like will help her and be her allies. And it was so well done. It was a really fun.
[00:31:59] Annie: Well, good. Okay.
[00:32:01] Lucy: Another memoir type book, but also about racial justice, it's called Redeeming Justice: From Defendant to Defender, My Fight for Equity on Both Sides of a Broken System.
[00:32:14] It's by Jarrett Adams and it comes out September 14th. This is the story of a man who is accused of. I think rape when he's 17 and he's sentenced to 28 years. He was innocent and he ended up being released after I think, 10 years. Because he proved that he had not received a fair trial amongst other things.
[00:32:41] His legal representation was paid by like how many cases he took in settled. So he just like wanted to settle things quickly. He wasn't going to stand up for him. And so after he gets out, he. Studies to become a lawyer. And he eventually works with the New York innocence project. He becomes the first exoneree ever hired to work for them as a lawyer.
[00:33:05] And he talks about his own story. His time in prison the inequity of Black defendants in the justice system. And then he talks about his journey as a lawyer afterwards. And just a really good, I think addition to that literature fascinating to hear it from both sides of the of experience from as a lawyer and as the innocent person in jail that comes out September 14th.
[00:33:38] Annie: I want to read that. Okay. My next one is another majorly anticipated title. This is Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead out on September 14th. This is a, it is a departure from him. It is more of a. Probably more similar in tone and style to his earlier works. So if you're like me and you loved nickel boys or the underground railroad, this is going to feel like a departure.
[00:34:04] But if you're a fan of his earlier work, I think this will feel familiar to you. It is set in Harlem in the 1960s. So a little bit of a historical fiction as well. And it is this heist that takes place at this. A prominent kind of Harlem hotel and the descriptions that he gives of the hotel are like, you can picture it in your head.
[00:34:23] Like, I, I feel like this was meant to be a movie. Like I could S I could picture this in my head. So it's about this heist that happens at a hotel, but really. The highest is over by like page a hundred. So this is not a heist novel per se. This is more the aftermath of the heist. So the heist takes place.
[00:34:41] And then our main protagonist is like a pawn broker or like he's, he owns this furniture store, but you realize he doesn't just own the furniture store. He also kind of. Stolen goods maybe, and has maybe kind of woven that into his business quietly. And so he's not quite the innocent figure maybe you're first presented with.
[00:35:02] And so the team that commits this heist comes to him, asking for his help in hiding end or selling some of the stolen goods. So it's really about your conscience and it's about human relationships and what we will do push come to shove. The writing is standard Colson Whitehead, like really well-written descriptions are beautiful.
[00:35:25] Like I said, you can picture everything so vividly. And I really loved the portrayal of like, 1960s, Harlem, in particular, the hotel where the heist takes place. And this is really a character driven novel. If you liked deacon king Kong by James McBride, I think this would be right in line with that.
[00:35:45] Like I think if you like that, you will probably love this book. So it is Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead out on September 14.
[00:35:53] Olivia: Okay. My next book I think, is going to make you guys all laugh at me because this is like probably one of the most Olivia picks I have it's called Light from Uncommon Stars by Rika Aoki out September 28th.
[00:36:07] And this is a fantasy novel. A lot of different things going on at once. But I read this over vacation and I'm sorry, family, because I completely blacked them out to read this book. It was, oh my gosh. It was so good. So this is about a girl Katrina wing, who is transgender, got kicked out of her house.
[00:36:30] And now it's just kind of roaming around LA with her violin looking for a home to stay kind of in between bad home life, but also not a great place to stay. When you found friends in LA and then she is sitting by this like famous fountain and starts to play her violin and this woman she's Lucas, the Tomi comes up for who is a violin master and.
[00:36:54] But we find out about Shizuka and this is not a smiler, but she made a deal with a demon.
[00:37:08] So for her soul, essentially a trade for her soul, where in order to get back her soul so she can play violin again. And like Purdue performances, she has to deliver the souls of seven violin. Is that sheet. And so she starts to take Katrina on as of like seventh and final student amidst. All of that is a woman named Tran who is an alien and excrete earth because there was a war happening in her galaxy.
[00:37:40] And she like bought out and now runs a doughnut store in LA
[00:37:48] Annie: it's like, it's like, it's like a mad lib come to life.
[00:37:56] Olivia: Well, it really is. And her, and Shizuka start slowly dating and falling in love. And it's amazing. It's so good. I think this will be in my top 10, if not top five. I love it so much.
[00:38:09] Annie: Young adult or adult.
[00:38:11] Olivia: This is very much adult. Very much adult. I realized this is also probably for just like a select couple of people, but I felt like my best chance to get this book sold was to put it on this podcast that reaches a lot of people.
[00:38:23] So if you do want to read this book, please buy it through us so that I know I have reached someone.
[00:38:29] Annie: If it just finds one person you'll have done your job. So happy. You know, it sounds a little bit too. I feel like I'm getting Ursula vibes, like little mermaid Ariel, you know? Yeah. A little bit of fairytale. I found
[00:38:46] Olivia: out about this book because she was on a publisher.
[00:38:49] Interview with TJ Klune. And they were both talking about their new books at the same time. And I was like, oh, that makes sense. Okay. Loved it. Both of them killed it. That's great. Okay.
[00:39:00] Wow.
[00:39:01] Lucy: Good months for you, Olivia.
[00:39:05] Okay.
[00:39:06] Lucy: My next book is Mennonite Valley Girl: A Wayward Coming of Age by Carla Funk. It also comes out September 14th.
[00:39:13] This is a memoir. That is exactly right. It says in its title, it's a coming of age, but it has very heavy eighties vibes and references. So if you're a child of the eighties, you will enjoy that aspect to it. Carla funk is a Mennonite in, I think, British Columbia, Canada. I was drawn to the title initially because I am now living in.
[00:39:40] Mennonite country, Pennsylvania. So it was interesting to me. I've been interested in kind of my husband's family's Mennonite background in their spiritual journeys over the past generation. And so Carla funk feels trapped in her Mennonite faith and kind of asserts her Personal power as a woman in her teenage years.
[00:40:05] So that's a coming of age. It's good for fans of, she's not like it's not quite like educated, but women talking Miriam toes, that that's probably what I would compare it to. Just a really fun kind of eighties memoir. But with that also like coming in phage and religious aspect to it Mennonite Valley Girl.
[00:40:29] Annie: Is that where the valley girl phrase comes from?
[00:40:32] Is it like clueless? Like I just picture, like, why it just sounds like. Like, is she from that? Yeah, she's
[00:40:39] Lucy: not from the valley. She's from she's. Okay. But yeah. Okay.
[00:40:42] Reference.
[00:40:43] Annie: Yep.
[00:40:44] Olivia: Okay. I was really hoping that you would pronounce her last name is Mike arrested development. I understand it. Doesn't have it.
[00:40:50] Annie: Okay. My last one is a book that I was so curious about because it has, now you guys will appreciate this. I don't know if anybody else will, but it was set for a paperback release for September 14th has moved to September. I'm sorry. It was going to be a paperback August 31st, I think. And then now is a.
[00:41:07] Hard back on September 28th. So this is called Black Girls Must Die Exhausted by Jayne Allen. The other interesting thing about this book, and I, I think that this is true. I look, I tried so hard. I dug deep. I think this book was already out, but I think maybe she self-published like, because a cover like two different covers come up.
[00:41:30] Two different release dates. Come up. If you go to good reads, there are reviews that are. And so I could not for the life of me figure this out, but I wonder then if you go to Jane Allen's website, she sounds like someone, I would love to be friends with, honestly, but if you go to her website, it looks like she has done a lot of work in publishing and an educating writers, particularly writers of color.
[00:41:51] And so I wonder if she got the attention of publishers with maybe a self-published work or an independently published work. And then they bought it. I'm I'm just speculating there that's pure speculation, but I just couldn't quite figure out the history of this particular title. However, very fun. So this reminds me a little bit of Lisa Cross Smith's book.
[00:42:10] I think it was this close to okay. That I read earlier this year. This is the first in a trilogy. It is romcom adjacent, but not entirely romcom. It feels more like. Oh, it feels more like group of girlfriends. And then there are some love interests as well. I've read the first couple of chapters. The writing is very fun.
[00:42:29] Our main character is like I want to say high powered, like television host, newscaster kind of personality, but she is headed to work after a doctor's appointment where she finds out that she is 30 years old. She's one of those people who's like planned her life out, just so she's she's turning 33 and her doctor informs her that she has like six months to have a baby, like, or she won't be able to have babies.
[00:42:54] And so she immediately panics because she's planned her life perfectly. And she's. You know, by all accounts, this really beautiful job. And then in the first chapter, she also on her way to work. She's like putting her makeup on and she gets pulled. And she immediately begins to have like a panic attack because she's a black woman and she's being pulled over by a white cop.
[00:43:16] And the interaction that they have really sets the tone. I think for the book itself in that the book is very uplifting and hopeful, but also does not shy away from the realities of being a person of color in America. And I really think this is going to. I bet get a lot of buzz because it's, it's not entirely rom com, but it is, it does kind of have some of those elements.
[00:43:41] I also think people are just really going to like the story. And I think it'll be fun to have a trilogy or a series of books. So this is Black Girls Must Die Exhausted by Jayne Allen out in hardback on September 20th.
[00:43:54] Olivia: My last book is the first in a new series, a new YA fantasy series called Beasts of Prey by Ayana Gray.
[00:44:01] Again, out September 28th. And this takes place on. Fictional world of like Casa li Casa El Casa. I'm sorry.
[00:44:14] Annie: It's honestly sounded like you broke just for a
[00:44:16] Olivia: sec. Maybe did.
[00:44:23] Okay, but it follows like several different characters in this world where essentially they're this town is being like hunted down by this prey called the Chatani, who has, has been around for generations. And finally it's been killing too many people, so they're ready to. Take it out, but you see a couple of different characters and their own journeys to headed towards capturing the Chatani and gave me very much like children of blood and bone vibes.
[00:44:54] I'm very excited. I'm like a quarter of the way through now, but very invested in all the characters already. So.
[00:45:01] Lucy: Okay. My final book is called the heroine with an E on the end, The Heroine with 1001 Faces. This is by Maria Tatar and it comes out September 14th. Maria Tatar is a Harvard professor of mythology and folklore, and she's written a bunch of books about The classic fairytales Hans Christian Anderson and she is responding in this book to a famous book from 1949, called the hero with a thousand faces by Joseph Campbell, which famously described the hero's journey.
[00:45:36] I think he coined that term. And she says, well, every example of a hero you gave in your book was a man. And so she wants to say like, what, what is. Female hero's journey. What is the heroine's journey? And it's really interesting. She connects it more with empathy and with social justice. And she looks all throughout.
[00:46:02] Literature and folklore history, including all the way up to little women and Fran Gables. She talks about Jurassic park Harriet, the spy. She talks about the girl with the dragon tattoo. Sorry,
[00:46:22] Olivia: John drops every single
[00:46:25] Lucy: it's extremely wide-ranging exploration into what the heroine looks like in modern culture and how she differs from the traditional hero.
[00:46:35] Annie: I'm going to read this. I'm so excited because okay at first I thought this was going to be an Olivia book. Like I can watch everybody's faces to see when we're intrigued in what the other person is saying.
[00:46:44] So there's some, and there a trigger words, right? Like, so I was really into the innocence project. Like the book Lucy was talking about. So like my face changed. Olivia when Lucy said mythology, like Olivia like looked up like.
[00:47:00] And so I can just tell when we get excited and I thought, oh, this is probably going to be an Olivia book, but then as you began talking, I was like, oh, I think this is an Annie book.
[00:47:09] Lucy: I could see you definitely being interested in it. It is more
[00:47:12] Annie: academic.
[00:47:13] Okay. Yeah. It's okay. We can do it. I can do it. Oh, okay. What a well-rounded list?
[00:47:20] Honestly, I feel like that's a wide range of literature coming out in September.
[00:47:25] Lucy: Oh yeah.
[00:47:26] Olivia: It's gonna be a good month.
[00:47:27] Annie: It is going to be a good month. Okay. Thanks, everybody.
[00:47:32] 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:
[00:47:51] A full transcript of today’s episode can be found at:
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.
[00:48:07] This week, I'm reading All-of-a-Kind-Family by Sydney Taylor, Olivia, what are you reading?
[00:48:14] Olivia: I'm halfway through The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik.
[00:48:18] Annie: Lucy, what are you reading?
[00:48:19] Lucy: I'm also reading All-of-a-Kind-Family, but I'm reading The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness. This is by Gregory Boyle.
[00:48:29] Annie: Love Gregory Boyle.
[00:48:32] If you liked what you heard on today’s episode, tell us by leaving a review on iTunes. Or, if you’re so inclined, support us for $5 a month on Patreon, where you can follow along as Hunter and I conquer a classic and participate in live video Q&As in our monthly lunch break sessions. Just go to:
[00:48:50] We’re so grateful for you, and we look forward to meeting back here next week.