Episode 441 || New Release Rundown: September
This week on From the Front Porch, it’s another New Release Rundown! Annie and Olivia are sharing the September releases they’re excited about to help you build your TBR.
When you purchase or preorder any of the books they talk about, enter the code NEWRELEASEPLEASE at checkout for 10% off your order!
To purchase the books mentioned in this episode, visit our website (type “Episode 441” into the search bar to easily find the books mentioned in this episode):
Annie's books:
Happiness Falls by Angie Kim
How Far to the Promised Land by Esau McCauley (9/12)
The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff (9/12)
This Is Salvaged by Vauhini Vara (9/26)
Olivia's books:
Mother-Daughter Murder Night by Nina Simon (9/5)
The Improbable Tales of Baskerville Hall by Ali Standish (9/12)
Murder in the Family by Cara Hunter (9/19)
The Widely Unknown Myth of Apple & Dorothy by Corey Ann Haydu (9/19)
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 You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith.
If you liked what you heard in today’s episode, tell us by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. You can also support us on Patreon, where you can access bonus content, monthly live Porch Visits with Annie, our monthly live Patreon Book Club with Bookshelf staffers, Conquer a Classic episodes with Hunter, and more. Just go to patreon.com/fromthefrontporch.
We’re so grateful for you, and we look forward to meeting back here next week.
Our Executive Producers are...Ashley Ferrell, Cammy Tidwell, Chanta Combs, Chantalle C, Kate O’Connell, Kristin May, Laurie Johnson, Linda Lee Drozt, Martha, Nicole Marsee, Stacy Laue, Stephanie Dean, Susan Hulings, and Wendi Jenkins.
Transcript:
[squeaky porch swing]
Welcome to From the Front Porch, a conversational podcast about books, small business, and life in the South.
[music plays out]
“While everyone believed she wanted to care for her mother in her grief, it had only been partly that, it was also, it was mostly, that she needed her mother, she was lonesome, too, she could not explain that part; she was not a girl anymore, she had not been for a long time, though on some level — she wanted to tell the girl — we feel like girls for all our lives, even after we choose careers, get married, it’s all playacting.”
- Vauhini Vara, This Is Salvaged
[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 joined by Bookshelf operations manager Olivia Schaffer to give you a rundown of our favorite new books releasing in September. September is a big month for The Bookshelf, and for Thomasville. This month, we’re helping the Thomas County Library re-launch our area One Book program. For 10 years, the Thomas County Library has hosted South Georgia’s first (and only!) One Book program, where our entire community reads the same book together and celebrates that book with a variety of literary events. found in-store at The Bookshelf or online at www.onebookthomascounty.org. You have plenty of time to get tickets and to read You’re Not Listening along with us! Grab your copy at The Bookshelf, the library, or read along with us from far away by snagging a copy at your own local indie. Visit onebookthomascounty.org for more details about this year’s event; we hope to see you there! Now, back to the show! As we go through September new releases, keep in mind our online sales manager Erin has made browsing our podcast book selections easier than ever. Just go to bookshelfthomasville.com and type Episode 441 into the search bar, and you’ll see all of today’s books listed, ready for you to purchase. You can use code NEWRELEASEPLEASE at checkout for 10% off your order of today’s titles.
This year, we’re reading You’re Not Listening: What You’re Missing and Why It Matters by Kate Murphy, and our celebration of Murphy’s book will culminate in a visit from the author at the Thomas County BOE auditorium on Thursday, September 28. Tickets are just $10 and can be
Annie Jones [00:02:39] Hi, Olivia.
Olivia [00:02:41] Hey, how's it going?
Annie Jones [00:02:42] Welcome back. We're talking about September books.
Olivia [00:02:46] Yeah, and there was quite a few to choose from. I'm not going to lie to you.
Annie Jones [00:02:49] Yeah, I thought so too. Which it's good because we're getting ready for our fall literary preview, our lunch and our literary first look. So it is time to be thinking about fall books. Do you find it difficult to read fall titles when it's still 104 degrees outside or no?
Olivia [00:03:09] I find it difficult to live in fall when it's 100 degrees outside. August I know is not your month. September is when I get angry because now I'm like, "No, now we're done. Now I should be able to wear my sweaters and people don't look at me like I'm crazy. Like, this is it."
Annie Jones [00:03:29] Right. That is true that August is my least favorite.
Olivia [00:03:34] That is known.
Annie Jones [00:03:35] Am notorious for being real grouchy about that. But the truth is, September isn't much better. I mean, because you're exactly right. After Labor Day, mentally, I break out my pumpkins and I light my full candles and it feels stupid. It feels so stupid.
Olivia [00:03:55] It feels like we're play acting fall.
Annie Jones [00:03:59] Yeah. I don't know. I need to do some research on this. I shouldn't do research. A scientist should do research on this. But I find it difficult to focus when it is hot outside. I don't know. I think my attention span is worse. I don't like anything. I don't like TV. I don't like books. This is a hard time of year for me. Even September. I mean, we're ending August. We're getting into September. I love the fall reading season and so I should be able to get excited about that. But instead we're reading fall early and it also doesn't feel like fall until November here.
Olivia [00:04:40] Yeah. I actually feel like I've already finished my spooky season for this year reading wise. And now I've gone into winter reading, which is probably what makes me grumpiest because I'm like reading about snow and it's 100 degrees outside.
Annie Jones [00:04:58] Yes, this is what I'm talking about. I can't do that. I started a book that I think I'm going to love, a fall release. I brought it home. It's an ARC, I think it's called Lazy Country. I'm not 100 percent sure about that title. Regardless, I opened it, I know from the publisher, from the blurb on the back I think I'm going to love it. But I started reading it and she references snow and I put it down. I was like, absolutely not. I'm not reading that right now. My door won't open. My front door won't open.
Olivia [00:05:27] I was ready for you to say and I threw it across the room.
Annie Jones [00:05:30] Yeah, might as well have. Okay. So these books, at least in my mind, feel like early fall to me. They feel like books that could get you into the fall reading mood. Okay. And I'll kick us off with a book that I think I wish we got an ARC of, because I think this could be an Annie-Olivia overlap book. So my first book is Happiness Falls. This is by Angie Kim. It released this past Tuesday. You will recognize Angie Kim's name from her debut novel Miracle Creek, which I read and really liked. Did you read that one?
Olivia [00:06:07] No, I didn't. But I remember you telling me that I would really like it.
Annie Jones [00:06:11] Yes, you would have.
Olivia [00:06:13] I caught it after it came out. And I'm really, really bad at reading books after they've already come out. I just move forward. It's hard for me to stop and go backwards a little bit.
Annie Jones [00:06:25] Yes. So will you ever read Shark Heart?
Olivia [00:06:27] Probably not. And honestly, to be perfectly fair, it's not totally my genre. I think the only reason I did like Our Wives Under the Sea was because of the submarine element of it. Okay. And I don't know. I don't know if I can get into that. I know, I understand-- what is it? Decent belief.
Annie Jones [00:06:49] What? Sorry, I can't even help you.
Olivia [00:06:53] I know. You know how we talked about how I'm terrible at metaphors before this began.
Annie Jones [00:06:59] Suspension of disbelief.
Olivia [00:07:00] Yeah.
Annie Jones [00:07:04] We got it. We got that.
Olivia [00:07:06] That's what I meant. I know I can do it, but for some reason that for me is like a no.
Annie Jones [00:07:12] Okay. So I am curious. I think I am going to try to read Happiness Falls as soon as I grab a copy. But you can't now, right? Because...
Olivia [00:07:21] No, I probably won't. I'll be perfectly honest with you.
Annie Jones [00:07:24] Okay. I'll read it for both of us.
Olivia [00:07:26] I'm sure it's great.
Annie Jones [00:07:28] I'll read it for both of us. Okay, first of all, the cover is great. Very striking. I think it might be one I want to own if I love it. I will say this is a book that we did not receive ARCs of, but everyone else did. I have seen this book on Instagram so much. Everyone I've seen talk about it loves it. So, basically, this is a book about a biracial Korean-American family. They live in Virginia and the father and son go out for a walk one morning. Nothing is out of the ordinary. Nothing is unusual. But the boy returns home and he has a condition where he cannot speak. So he is mute and he is covered in blood and arrives back home and the dad does not. And I immediately am like, I need to read this book. Because the book kind of opens with that incident and it becomes what, to my mind, sounds a little bit like Celeste Ng's first novel and maybe even Little Fires Everywhere too, but where it's this combination of a thriller suspense novel, but also family dysfunctional family lit where it's about this family and the reasons the father might have gone missing.
[00:08:50] But apparently the pacing is quite tight. And so that adds to that element of suspense where you don't know, are they going to find him? The clock is essentially ticking because the boy is covered in blood. And so if they don't find the father soon, they may never find him. And at the same time, the book is exploring the lives of the family members as they live in their Virginia home. So I am very intrigued by this. I liked Miracle Creek a lot. I know this is weird, but it is very hard for me to remember plots of books once they're done. But I do remember like where I was when I read them. And I remember reading Miracle Creek on the front porch of our Jefferson Street house. And it was one of those books that I'm not sure I read as an ARC. I think I might have read it as an already released book. And so there's something about those types of books to me to where I didn't read them in advance. I read them alongside everyone else. And I suppose Happiness Falls now will be the same way for me. So this is Happiness Falls by Angie Kim. It is her sophomore novel. It came out this week and I'm really excited to bring it home.
Olivia [00:09:52] That premise does sound really intriguing. I think my first question would be how old is the boy? Can he not write?
Annie Jones [00:10:00] She names the disorder that he has and he is older, but I'm not sure he's capable of writing either. Like I think he is non-communicative.
Olivia [00:10:10] Okay.
Annie Jones [00:10:10] I'm not 100 percent sure about that because I haven't read it because who is the publisher of that book? I get so mad. Send me your ARC. I'll read then.
Olivia [00:10:24] And that's all.
Annie Jones [00:10:25] I know.
Olivia [00:10:26] You don't have a Kindle.
Annie Jones [00:10:27] I don't have a Kindle, dang it. I'm about to get one. I'm this close. I was pricing iPads the other day. Could I read on an iPad?
Olivia [00:10:36] Yeah. You just have to download the Kindle app.
Annie Jones [00:10:38] Okay. That still makes me mad.
Olivia [00:10:40] You can download that on that thing.
Annie Jones [00:10:45] Anyway, literally these physical ARCs are all I have. Publishers, if you're listening, they're all I read.
Olivia [00:10:52] And she can sell a book.
Annie Jones [00:10:54] I can sell a book. If only you'd let me.
Olivia [00:10:58] Just put it in her hand, people. Okay. My first book is Mother-Daughter Murder Night by Nina Simon, and this is out this week. Every time I say that title, I feel like I'm saying the word [inaudible].
Annie Jones [00:11:16] I can see why.
Olivia [00:11:17] Mother Daughter Murder Night.
Annie Jones [00:11:20] It is a great title, though.
Olivia [00:11:21] It's a great title. And the cover is really cute too, because it's these blinds and then you just have binoculars peeking through.
Annie Jones [00:11:27] Oh, I've seen this. Yes.
Olivia [00:11:29] And it was so great. It was like it gave Finlay Donovan vibes, but with a bit more depth to it because you have these really interesting mother-daughter relationships throughout. So it's about this family of three. Lorna Rubicon is like the grandmother and she is this like high powered business woman, real estate mogul type woman. She made it all by herself. She's very independent, fiercely independent and very hard on her daughter, Beth. Beth got pregnant very young, and it upset her mother. So she moved out to this like little house they had. They totally say it, but I don't remember. It is that I don't remember it. So they have a very troubled relationship, the two of them. And then Beth's daughter, Jack. And Jack works for this kayaking company. She gives like kayak tours through this little river. And on one of her kayak tours, these father and son venture off to the side and they find a dead body. And all of a sudden, Jack is in the middle of this murder investigation because it's her tour that found it. And it's a guy that supposedly booked a tour that she did the previous night. So she's kind of caught in the middle, this teenager.
[00:12:53] And Lana ends up living with Beth and Jack because she gets diagnosed with cancer and she's going through all of these treatments. But while she's there, she's just super unhappy in this house. So she just slyly starts ordering like a new bed, a new rug, a couple new lamps. She has the house painted. Like all of this stuff that Beth is like, 'Please stop.' And then Lana, since she has nothing else to do and she's in this house that she doesn't like, decides to take it upon herself to figure out what happened with this murder. And that is the part that you're just like, this is hilarious. She legitimately puts on a wig because she has no hair because of chemo, and just waltzes out and just goes to start interviewing people. And you're just like, sure. I mean. She feels so entitled to do all of this. Sure, why not? So it was really fun, but it was great because there was a lot of really well-done moments between all of the mothers and daughters and explaining how Lana came to be the woman that she is. And same with Beth and same with Jack.
Annie Jones [00:14:06] That does sound good.
Olivia [00:14:06] It was really good.
Annie Jones [00:14:07] Did you read the physical ARC of that?
Olivia [00:14:10] I did read a physical ARC of that. Would you like it?
Annie Jones [00:14:13] Do you still have it?
Olivia [00:14:14] Yeah.
Annie Jones [00:14:18] Thanks. Sorry to be creepy.
Olivia [00:14:19] Well, you got low in voice, I was like, I'll meet you there.
Annie Jones [00:14:25] Thanks so much.
Olivia [00:14:25] Yeah, no problem.
Annie Jones [00:14:27] I would like to read that, I think.
Olivia [00:14:28] Yeah.
Annie Jones [00:14:30] Okay. My next book is shockingly very different from that. It is How Far to the Promised Land. This is by Esau McCauley. It releases next week on the 12th. You might recognize Esau McCaulay's name from his first book called Reading While Black. This is a book I own but have not read. I do have a few of these books that I own and have not read. I started it. It is excellent, but it is quite academic and so I have not finished it yet. But his latest book is his memoir. So Esau McCauley is a New York Times columnist and he's an Anglican priest. And he is a black man who grew up in Huntsville, Alabama. And so this is a lot about his upbringing in Huntsville. And he's like a few years older than I am, I think. He grew up in Huntsville. I am familiar with Huntsville because of my own time in Alabama and my own relatives in Alabama. So I was curious from that point of view. But I was also curious about this one because earlier this year I read Beth Moore's All My Knotted Up Life and it wound up being so good. And although Beth Moore is a leader in the evangelical Christian world, I stand by and truly believe that anybody could read Beth Moore's memoir and really enjoy it, because it's to me just Southern Gothic literature. So I was a little bit curious about Esau Macaulay's new book, wondering if it would kind of be in the same vein. And it is.
[00:15:58] This book is just an excellent memoir about life in America, particularly life in the American South for a young black man. And then we get to watch Esau McCauley grow up. There's a couple of chapters that are really beautiful about his marriage, and he's married to a white woman. And so, what that experience was like for him and also for her family. Yes, there is a lot about Esau McCauley's Christian faith and him realizing that he wants to become a priest, why he wants to become a priest. But it is really just a memoir about what it's like to grow up in America, particularly as a black person. I loved this book. I think the writing is outstanding. I read Esau's New York Times column and really enjoy it. If you like that-- which you can go probably and read some of his past columns to see if you like his writing rhythm. But if you like those, I suspect you will really enjoy this book. I loved it. And it was a surprise for me because Reading While Black was so academic, I wasn't sure what to expect from this one, but I really liked it. And I think you could enjoy it regardless of where you are on the spectrum of faith. I think that people might find it enjoyable and insightful. So that is How Far to the Promised Land by Esau McCauley, really one of the books I've enjoyed most this year.
Olivia [00:17:25] Awesome. I was trying to think of a segue and I failed because my next one is a middle grade about Sherlock Holmes, and I was like, there's no connector here. There's none.
Annie Jones [00:17:36] I just looked at your title and I was like, yeah, there's no way. Sorry. Set you up for failure. I'm so sorry.
Olivia [00:17:46] Yeah. So my next book is middle grade. It's The Improbable Tales of Baskerville Hall by Ali Standish. And this is out next week, so September 12th. I love anything Sherlock Holmes based. I don't know if you consider this fan fiction. I was thinking about this because I was like, Annie reads X-Files fan fiction.
Annie Jones [00:18:09] Shh! What are you doing? I'm just kidding. You can tell people.
Olivia [00:18:14] I was like didn't you know already?
Annie Jones [00:18:16] Yeah, I can't keep a secret. It's fine.
Olivia [00:18:21] But I think I would read Sherlock Holmes fan fiction. I love Sherlock Holmes.
Annie Jones [00:18:25] Let me tell you something. I bet it exists thanks to you know who? Benedict Cumberbatch. Thanks to Benedict, that's why you got it. Yeah.
Olivia [00:18:33] Absolutely. Yeah. Let it be known I don't want the romance stuff. I just want a good mystery. I want a good plot.
Annie Jones [00:18:39] Yeah, I bet you could find that. Because you remember I read that book This Is Not About Benedict Cumberbatch. Was that what it was called? It was a great book. But, yes, that Sherlock Holmes fan fiction does exist. However, a lot of Watson and Sherlock romance.
Olivia [00:18:59] I don't know how I didn't see that coming.
Annie Jones [00:19:02] You're welcome.
Olivia [00:19:04] You got to weave through some stuff. That's fine. But then I was just like, what is the line of fan fiction? Because is this? I don't know. I think it's published. That seems great, but there's other published fan fiction.
Annie Jones [00:19:17] Keila literally said yesterday she's reading the new Alice Hoffman-- I guess the upcoming Alice Hoffman book. And she said it's Nathaniel Hawthorne fan fiction.
Olivia [00:19:28] It's weird.
Annie Jones [00:19:31] Yeah. We were talking yesterday upstairs about making T-shirts. They want to make a t shirt with in-sync on the front. But it's not their faces. It's the faces of old men authors like Nathaniel Hawthorne and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Olivia [00:19:45] I don't know how I feel about that. I'm not going to lie to you.
Annie Jones [00:19:48] They seem to think it would really sell. But she was talking about Nathaniel Hawthorne fan fiction. So stay tuned.
Olivia [00:19:57] They seem to think it would really sell.
Annie Jones [00:19:59] Coming to a bookstore near you.
Olivia [00:20:02] Personally, I don't know the faces of old men fiction authors.
Annie Jones [00:20:07] That's what we were looking up yesterday, was were they handsome or not.
Olivia [00:20:11] Yeah. So it would just look like random old men faces. I don't know. Anyways, this book was great. I think I finished it in one sitting because I loved it. It was just so much fun. It's about Arthur Conan Doyle as a kid, and he grows up in this pretty poor family. In my head it read as Charlie from Willy Wonka-esq.
Annie Jones [00:20:37] Yes.
Olivia [00:20:37] Like had siblings, a dad that was struggling to provide, a really nice mom. And then he on chance meets this guy on the street after an incident. And the guy invites him to go to Baskerville Hall, which is the school for gifted children.
Annie Jones [00:20:57] Okay.
Olivia [00:20:59] There he befriends like two kids, one of them being Jimmy Moriarty. And at first I was just like, oh, is Moriarty going to turn on him? But they just become best friends because they both get invited to join this powerful secret society, which obviously I consumed at a rapid pace. And the two of them just end up in a whole lot of trouble because of this secret society and go on like a whirlwind of a mystery. But it's definitely the start of a series. Both of them have like a nemesis kid in the school too. I forget his name because mostly the Doyle and Moriarty stuck out to me. But it was just such a fun play on everything.
Annie Jones [00:21:45] That does sound charming.
Olivia [00:21:47] I enjoyed it so much. Also, the cover of it is just so great. It's awesome.
Annie Jones [00:21:53] That sounds really good. And I love the title The Improbable Tales of Baskerville Hall. And I like that it sounds like it would lend itself to a series. I normally like a standalone when you talk about a standalone, but sounds like it should be a series.
Olivia [00:22:07] Yes. And maybe Moriarty does turn into a villain. Who's to say?
Annie Jones [00:22:13] Fascinating. That sounds really fun. And I do think that would qualify as Arthur Conan Doyle fan fiction, for sure.
Olivia [00:22:20] Yeah, that's true. Oh, my gosh. I just realized there's no Sherlock or Watson.
Annie Jones [00:22:27] Yeah, where's Watson? I bet that's coming.
Olivia [00:22:29] Yeah. Or they're just emulating Sherlock and Watson. Yeah. Doyle and Moriarty.
Annie Jones [00:22:35] Yeah, maybe so. Okay. Well, I also don't have a great Segue. My next book is the new book by Lauren Groff. It is called The Vaster Wilds. This releases next week on September 12th. I get real nervous when my favorite authors, my favorite writers release a new thing. You'd think I'd be excited, but I think it says something about my personality that instead I'm nervous because I just don't know how they could possibly improve upon their previous work. So I love Fates and Furies. It's been a long time since I read that book, but I recall it making an impact on me the year that I read it. Matrix, though, that released a couple of years ago, is one of my very favorite books and I just wasn't sure if this one was going to be better. I didn't see how it could be, but it's really good and it is in the running. I just don't know now what my favorite Lauren Groff book is because the Vaster Wilds is beautiful. Part of the reason I was a little nervous- much like I was for Matrix because Matrix was about a nun, but it was also about a medieval nun. And I do not read, nor am I super familiar with medieval lit, the world of medieval times. This book is set in the 1600s in what is now known as Virginia near the Jamestown settlements. And it's a survivalist tale. And I just immediately thought, I just don't know if I care about that. And then I remembered I channeled my elementary school age, middle school age, Annie, and remembered that I loved the Dear America books. I loved American Girl Dolls, I loved Roanoke and Croatoan. And I was obsessed with that historical mystery.
[00:24:16] And I thought, okay, let me get in that frame of mind, because this book is about a young woman who flees the Jamestown settlements during the winter because they are in what is, I think, being called or what was then called the starving time. And basically people in her in the settlement are dying left and right. And so she flees and leaves her past. She's a young servant living with a husband and wife and their children. And she leaves, decides to take her chances in the wilds of this Virginia colony-- not even really a colony at this point yet. And when I think I said this on last week's episode of the podcast, but when I texted Hunter about this book, he said, "I just don't know how Lauren Groff made you care about a book with essentially no plot." And I'd like to be clear that things definitely happen in this book. Like it said, over the course of 15 days, she is a young woman trying to survive. So there are lots of survival elements, adventure elements. I think Lauren Groff herself compares this to Robinson Crusoe, but also it's just about this young woman and weirdly definitely deals with the same themes that we've seen from Lauren Groff before about faith, about what it means to be a human person. What were we created for? What were we made for? And it's a beautiful tribute to nature. The writing about nature is beautiful. She writes the book definitely in this same type of wording that would have been used in the 1600s. And at first I was really nervous about that. But it's not distracting. I loved it. I immediately assimilated to it. I got used to it. I think she's a genius and it makes me so mad, really delightfully mad because we get to participate in it. But that is the Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff. I just loved it. I really did.
Olivia [00:26:05] It's one of those like, I love you, but I hate you. But I love you.
Annie Jones [00:26:08] Yes, I finished it and I was so annoyed because I don't know-- all of her books are also so different. And typically an author writes kind of the same types of stories, even if you love them. The themes are similar, and there are themes that I'm used to out of her in this book. But a medieval nun, a book about a marriage, a short story collection set in Florida, and now this book in Virginia. It's just irritating how much territory she's covered. It's just frustrating.
Olivia [00:26:40] Stay in your lane. Whatever lane that is.
Annie Jones [00:26:42] Yeah, whatever it is.
Olivia [00:26:44] Okay. On a different note. My next one is adult, but it's called Murder in the Family. And it's by Cara Hunter, and it's out September 19th. It's actually a paperback original. I read this one just for fun.
Annie Jones [00:26:58] Good for you.
Olivia [00:26:59] Thank you. But it was it was a lot better than I thought it was going to be. And I actually think the publisher made a mistake putting this out in paperback because I think it would do really well in hardcover.
Annie Jones [00:27:10] Oh, interesting.
Olivia [00:27:11] And I probably would have chosen it for shelf subscription because it was really good. But this is about like a true crime but fictionalized true crime of this guy, Luke Ryder, who was killed like 20 years ago. And now they're doing like a reality TV show starring like six expert: psychologist, private investigator, a detective. And they all coming together interview-style to kind of try to piece together what they can about this cold case and figure out who killed Luke Ryder. The son of the family that Luke Ryder is a part of-- he's like their stepdad-- is the one who's directing it because he's like, I just want to know what happened to Luke. And so you get, like, interview-style these six detectives, every time they sit down to film an episode. And they go through all of the evidence that they've been digging up, and then there's always like a big ending to the episode-- because, otherwise, how do you keep this going-- that involves some sort of plot twist within the actual mystery of who killed Luke Ryder? But then at the end, you also get these little blurbs. So it's either emails between the detectives or it's voice mails between the siblings, like text exchange between the siblings who were also watching this happen. And then there's like a Reddit thread for the TV show of like other people.
Annie Jones [00:28:39] Of course.
Olivia [00:28:40] Yes. And newspaper clippings of the sensationalized TV show, like what happened this week on it. But it was so fun and so well done. There were some twists that I was like, maybe. And then it happened. And there were other twists I truly did not see coming. But there were so many twists in it that you're just like, all right, just in for this ride.
Annie Jones [00:29:02] Okay.
Olivia [00:29:03] The format of it made it just fly by, kind of like Kill Show that book we both read.
Annie Jones [00:29:09] Yeah.
Olivia [00:29:11] This one didn't have as much commentary as true crime and what it's doing with our society. It was more just like true crime and how fun it is and how nuts it is.
Annie Jones [00:29:23] I have grown to really like, I think, mixing up my reading with these books that have like, yeah, Reddit threads or text exchanges. It's just kind of a fun format. Playing with the format is fun.
Olivia [00:29:35] Yeah. And it's also cool because you just kind of have to trust that the author is going to tie this together instead of like-- it's like going into a Janice Hallett. I have to trust that I could sit here and nitpick all these details, but I will not get where she is going. I can only trust that she's going to get me there at the end and I will look back and be like, oh my gosh, how did I miss that? And that was like this.
Annie Jones [00:29:58] Did you see she has a new book coming out?
Olivia [00:30:00] Yes. I'm so excited.
Annie Jones [00:30:01] The ARC is upstairs. Did you get it?
Olivia [00:30:03] Yeah, they sent us two of that one, so I already got one.
Annie Jones [00:30:07] Okay, good. Just making sure. It kept being up there and I was like, I hope she saw this.
Olivia [00:30:11] Yes.
Annie Jones [00:30:12] Okay. My next book is This Is Salvaged by Vauhini Vara. This comes out on September 26th. I read this book a few weeks ago. I don't know why I picked it up. I was like, I don't really even know why I picked up. I think I picked it up-- this is going to sound worse than it is, but I think I picked it up because it was thin and I was like, I can finish this. But it is a short story collection and I read it right before I read Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies collection. And after I finished Jhumpa Lahiri, I immediately thought, oh my gosh, you can see the impact Jhumpa Lahiri has had on the short story format, and particularly on Indian-American writers. And so Vauhini Vara has this gorgeous collection. She's also the student of Adam Johnson who wrote, I believe, the Pulitzer winning collection called Fortune Smiles, which I read several years ago. And you can tell that she has worked with masters of the craft, because I think this collection is really spectacular. All of the stories in the collection deal with girlhood, with growing up coming of age, grief, And there are several stories that I found memorable. I always think the opening story is important because it kind of has to get you or I think people are done.
[00:31:31] But the first story is about these two young women. They're, I think, 17/18 years old. They're on the cusp of adulthood, but they're not there yet. And one of them has just faced just a horrible loss. I think she's lost her sibling and she is in the throes of grief. But she and her friends take a job kind of with this, I would call him a creepy sort of guy, but at a telemarketing kind of firm. And then they realize, oh, the real money is to be had in phone sex operating. And so they beg this creeper guy like, can we move and not just work for this telemarketing site? Can we work on the phone sex operating side? And he allows one of them to but not the other. And it sounds so dark and crass and in a way it is, but it's also just about girls trying to figure out what being a woman means and what does being an adult mean. And it's also about people who take advantage of grief. Anyway, I just thought it was a really striking way to start the collection. And then I don't think this is a spoiler, but as you're reading, I looked up Vauhini Vara because I was like, oh my gosh, all this is so beautiful, but also feels very personal. And sure enough, she lost her sister to cancer when they were growing up. And so you could just tell that has had an impact on her, that has affected the way that she writes and the stories that she tells.
[00:33:01] One of my favorite stories in the collection is a story called The 18 Girls. It reminds me of the book I read a few years ago called 40 Rooms. But basically this idea that each year of her life, this young woman is a different girl, a different version of herself. So The Eighteen Girls is the 18 people she is leading up until she turns 18. And then there's a great story about the hormone hypothesis, or it's called The Hormone Hypothesis, and it's to me about a latter coming of age. So I just loved every story, which is not often the case for short story collections, but for this one it is. And I think I just am reminded how much I love well-told short stories. So that is This Is Salvaged by Vauhini Vara. It comes out on September 26, and I hope it does well. I think it is really deserving of any attention it receives.
Olivia [00:33:46] I struggle so much with short stories. I want to like them. But then I think I get so hooked on the one story that then I'm mad when we switch to another story. It's like changing the channel for me.
Annie Jones [00:33:59] Yeah. I think you really do have to almost train your brain. I think you and I are probably both really immersive readers because we just read a lot. And so I think you really do have to tell yourself, no, this is a different thing that I'm doing.
Olivia [00:34:12] It will stop here.
Annie Jones [00:34:15] Yes. Because it is kind of startling when you're reading and you get really attached and then you're like, oh, I'll never see these people again.
Olivia [00:34:20] Yeah. Okay. My last one is middle grade, and I think I'm still trying to piece together my top 10 of the year. But this one's definitely in the top five, if not in the top one or two. It was so good. It was one of those where I have already retold this plot to Kyndall, Nancy, Esme, Caroline, pretty much everyone.
Annie Jones [00:34:47] That's how you know you love a book. Well, look, here I am, a willing audience.
Olivia [00:34:52] Hey. Here you go. So this is the widely unknown myth of Apple and Dorothy. Apple Amberson Dorothy. By Corey Ann Haydu. And this is out September 19th. And it's Greek mythology, but it's not Greek mythology in terms of Percy Jackson. It's Greek mythology in terms of like, look at these stories and what they're representing in these people's lives. So this is about Apple and Dorothy, obviously. But Apple is like a descendant of the goddess Hera, who is like very high up on the totem pole of of gods and goddesses. She is Zeus’s child. And then there's Dorothy, who is the descendant of Pandora. And they are considered near gods. So they live on earth on this big hill with other near gods. And every year, everyone on the hill climbs the ladder, they drink something from the gods that keeps them in mortal. And they go down and they live another year on earth. And it's just like how they do. It's them being closer to humans and learning more about earth and all this stuff. And Dorothy's mom, so Pandora ancestor, decides one year that she's not going to climb the ladder, that she wants to be mortal because she finds being human is such a beautiful thing. And Penny has always been like this. She doesn't want to be perfect. She just wants to be herself. And her best friend is Heather, Apple's mother. And Heather needs to be perfect. She feels that she has to be the example of a goddess on earth. But she's so humanized when she's with Penny. It's just such a beautiful friendship that they have.
[00:36:38] And so when Penny decides that she's not going to go up the ladder, it just causes like a chain reaction on this hill. So penny passes away a month after by getting in a car accident, and then everyone's kind of left reeling because gods don't experience death. And so Dorothy is kind of left there. Everyone's looking at her like, oh, of course, the descendant of Pandora would do this. And like all this stuff. But Dorothy is also just like, I lost my mother. I don't know what I'm doing. And so you kind of see Dorothy struggle, but then you flip to Apple side and you see Apple struggling because Penny was the only person in Apple's life who was like, you don't have to be perfect. And now she's gone. And Apple feels like she has to take care of Dorothy, and Dorothy has no idea what's happening. So she's just letting Apple kind of guide her in her life. So it's such a good book. There's so much to it and I think that's why I liked it. Where it's just like there's so much depth behind everything that they say and everything that they do that maybe a middle grade reader wouldn't totally catch on to, but an adult reader would catch on to every little thing.
[00:37:57] So at the very beginning, after Penny's death, Zeus sends down a lightning bolt and it has a message that this is the last year you're going to climb the ladder. So everyone gets a choice. You either stay on the hill and you become mortal, or you go up and you live with the gods. And this is because of Penny's actions. So now Dorothy is even more outcast and everyone's just kind of-- they don't get it because they're just like, of course, this would happen to Pandora's ancestor. We're just mad at you all over again. First you brought evil, and now you are making us choose between earth and living up at the gods. There's so much to it. It was so well done. I can't stress that enough. The writing was just so beautiful. I highlighted so many spots because I had it on my e-reader. Again, the cover is gorgeous.
Annie Jones [00:38:51] Okay, I might want to read this. I know that maybe it seems like I'm grasping for straws, but this sounds like the Barbie movie.
Olivia [00:38:58] Does it? I haven't seen it yet.
Annie Jones [00:39:01] Yes. This sounds like the Barbie movie, because part of the whole plot of the Barbie movie is Barbie is trying to figure out what does it mean to be human. And what does humanity look like? And what if she might want to be a human, what would that look like? It sounds really good.
Olivia [00:39:14] It was so good. It was so well done. I would give you more plot, but I don't want to give you any spoilers. Not that they're necessarily spoilers because there's no mystery here, but there is so much more to it than just that basic note.
Annie Jones [00:39:32] I think I might try to read that one. Okay. Those are the books that we're looking forward to in September. Don't forget that Erin has put all of these online and you can just type episode 441 into the search bar and you'll see all the books listed ready for you to purchase. You can use code NEWRELEASEPLEASE at checkout for 10 percent off of your preorders.
[00:39:56] This week I'm reading the Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride. Olivia, what are you reading?
Olivia [00:40:02] I'm reading West Heart Kill by Dan McDorman.
Annie Jones [00:40:11] From the Front Porch is a weekly podcast production of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in Thomasville, Georgia. You can follow The Bookshelf’s daily happenings on Instagram at @bookshelftville, and all the books from today’s episode can be purchased online through our store website: bookshelfthomasville.com A full transcript of today’s episode can be found at:
Special thanks to Studio D Podcast Production for production of From the Front Porch and for our theme music, which sets the perfect warm and friendly tone for our Thursday conversations.
Our Executive Producers of today’s episode are…
Cammy Tidwell, Chantalle Carl, Kate O'Connell, Kristin May, Linda Lee Drozt, Martha, Stacy Laue, Chanta Combs, Stephanie Dean, Ashley Ferrell
Executive Producers (Read Their Own Names): Nicole Marsee, Wendi Jenkins, Laurie Johnson, Susan Hulings
Annie Jones: If you’d like to support From the Front Porch, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Your input helps us make the show even better and reach new listeners. All you have to do is open up the Podcast App on your phone, look for From the Front Porch, scroll down until you see ‘Write a Review’ and tell us what you think. Or, if you’re so inclined, support us over on Patreon, where we have 3 levels of support - Front Porch Friends, Book Club Companions, and Bookshelf Benefactors. Each level has an amazing number of benefits like bonus content, access to live events, discounts, and giveaways. Just go to: patreon.com/fromthefrontporch We’re so grateful for you, and we look forward to meeting back here next week.