Episode 462 || New Release Rundown: February
This week on From the Front Porch, it’s another New Release Rundown! Annie, Olivia, and Erin are sharing the February 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, stop by The Bookshelf in Thomasville, visit our website (type “Episode 462” into the search bar and tap enter to find the books mentioned in this episode), or download and shop on The Bookshelf’s official app:
Annie's books
Dixon, Descending by Karen Outen (releases 2/6)
Leaving by Roxana Robinson (releases 2/13)
Grief is for People by Sloane Crosley (releases 2/27)
Olivia's books
Nightwatching by Tracy Sierra (releases 2/6)
The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown (releases 2/13)
The Framed Women of Ardemore House by Brandy Schillace (releases 2/13)
Erin's books
The Women by Kristin Hannah (releases 2/6)
My Side of the River by Elizabeth Camarillo Gutierrez (releases 2/13)
The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo (releases 2/13)
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 Come & Get It by Kiley Reid. Olivia is reading The Framed Women of Ardemore House by Brandy Schillace. Erin is also reading The Framed Women of Ardemore House by Brandy Schillace.
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:
Annie Jones [00:00:01] [squeaky porch swing] Welcome to From the Front Porch, a conversational podcast about books, small business, and life in the South.
[00:00:24] All the people he carried up this mountain. Some days he could swear he felt them piled on his back, weighing him down like the packs the porters carried. -Karen Outen, Dixon Descending.
[as music fades out]
[00:00:39] I'm Annie Jones, owner of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in beautiful downtown Thomasville, Georgia. And today I'm joined by Bookshelf’s operations manager Olivia, and online sales manager Erin, to give you a rundown of our favorite new books releasing in February. If you're a new or newish listener, you might not realize that From the Front Porch is a production of The Bookshelf, a small, independently owned bookstore in rural South Georgia. By listening to our show and recommending it to friends, you are helping to keep our indie bookstore in business. And if you like what you hear, one way you can financially support us is through Patreon. In 2024, we are conquering the classic American novel Lonesome Dove together, with monthly recap episodes. For $5 a month, you can access our conversations as well as our porch visits. Those are our monthly live Q&As, where we talk about everything from pop culture to nail polish, to what books you should take on your next vacation. To learn more about our Patreon tiers and benefits, just visit Patreon.com/from the front porch. We'd love for you to join us there.
[00:01:43] Now, back to the show. As we go through our February new releases, keep in mind that Erin has made browsing our podcast book selection so easy. You can go to Bookshelfthomasville.com and type episode 462 into the search bar, where you're see all of today's books listed ready for you to preorder or purchase. You can use the code NEWRELEASEPLEASE at checkout for 10% off your order of today's titles. Hi, guys.
Olivia [00:02:08] Hey.
Erin [00:02:13] Brr! My intro.
Annie Jones [00:02:13] I know we're trying hard not to go on tangents in 2024, but I just have to say somebody posted a millennial like TikTok meme thing that was like, "Brr, it's cold in here." And then the mom was like [gasps] and then she broke into the Toros in the atmosphere from Bring It On. And I was like, aw, I feel seen. That is what I think anytime it's cold.
Olivia [00:02:33] Because that is what ran through all of our heads.
Annie Jones [00:02:37] Yes, it was very funny. Yeah, it's really genuinely cold here. I wish it would snow, but it's not going to. It's beautiful and sunny.
Erin [00:02:43] I know.
Annie Jones [00:02:43] This is our first new release episode to record in the new year, but it's a little too late, according to Larry David, to say Happy New Year. So just this is us talking about February books. I'm excited. Actually, I don't know, I think I like winter reading. I don't know.
Erin [00:02:57] Yes, I have found I have more time. Just in the time that we had a break from the store and just before school started back and all the activity started back, I just found that I had a lot of great books to read and I had time to read them, which was a real pleasure.
Olivia [00:03:12] I love winter in general, and I do find a lot of great mysteries are set in the winter time. And so now I actually get to read in the temperature of the book that I.
Erin [00:03:22] That's always nice.
Olivia [00:03:23] Yeah.
Annie Jones [00:03:24] Yeah, I do prefer that. I like winter too. I've always liked it because my birthday falls in the winter, but I do wonder if Bookshelf rhythms have also just adjusted my favorite seasons. I used to love the fall and I still love fall, but it is chaotic at the store. And winter, despite maybe some t things like weather and sickness that have impacted the Bookshelf in January, I do feel like generally speaking, January is a quieter month at the bookshelf. There is inventory. Olivia has had to do so many graphs. And so she may not feel.
Erin [00:03:56] But she loves it. She loves it.
Olivia [00:03:58] I do, I do.
Annie Jones [00:03:59] But, yeah, I just feel like it's a good time of year for me as a reader personally. And it was easy to come up with my-- this is not always the case. It was easy for me to come up with my books I wanted to talk about today. So if you're new to these episodes, basically we are previewing some books we are interested in releasing this month. So today we're talking about February new releases. We're going to do this round robin style. I will kick us off and we're each talking about three books today. My first book is called Dixon Descending. It releases next week on February 6th. This was almost a book that I thought Olivia might like this, and I still think you might, but then I know Erin read it. And because it is an adventure story in that it is an Everest story about the climbing of Mount Everest, two black men attempting to summit Mount Everest. But it is also extremely, in my opinion, quiet and character driven. It is an adventure story. You definitely feel some tension as these two men attempt to summit the mountain, but it is also very much about Dixon and Nate. They are two brothers who've been constantly kind of in competition with one another. Nate is the older brother. Dixon is the younger brother. Dixon was headed to the Olympics and missed out at the Olympic trials by like 2/10s of a second, which I had no idea (of course, it sounds like that would be devastating, but reading about it really was devastating) like how much a person's life can change in 2/10s of a second. That he went from being the star athlete with hopes of the Olympics, to where he wound up studying psychology and becoming a school psychologist. So the book takes place pre Everest summit and post Everest summit. And then we do get some scenes actually on the mountain. But it's very much about Dixon and how his brother kind of convinced him to take on this challenge of climbing Mount Everest. And then what happened after Dixon descended the mountain and the impact of what happened on the mountain and how it affected his life post summit. So I thought all of this was super interesting. I think I put out a plea on my Annie Five Star reads. Like, tell me all of your Everest documentaries. I want to watch them all. I think that's what I'm going to do.
Erin [00:06:20] We need a deep dive. I think that's why Olivia would love it, because then she would go on a deep dive of Mount Everest.
Olivia [00:06:25] Oh, I already have.
Annie Jones [00:06:26] You'd listen to all the podcast episodes.
Erin [00:06:28] Of course.
Annie Jones [00:06:29] Oh, done. Check. Because I found those aspects of it especially really interesting. I think this is probably partly for fans of, like, Peter Heller. It's a very natural element story. It's about the mountain. It's about what happens on the mountain. But it's also, as I said earlier, extremely character driven. And even though it sounds like exciting and almost thriller-esque, I can't stress to folks enough-- and I loved this. I'd like to be clear, I loved this. But it's extremely quiet. Erin, you read it. Did you listen to it or read it?
Erin [00:07:04] I actually read it.
Annie Jones [00:07:06] And did you find it to be quiet as well? I don't know, I really loved it, but I just thought it wasn't like the propulsive intense book I thought.
Erin [00:07:15] Yes, I do think she could have gone further. I think that's why I wouldn't call it a thriller, because I do think the scenes on the mountain, she could have made it much more like cinematic and stuff, but it wasn't. It was like you just got the information you needed. You just got their thoughts and their their feelings as they're going up the mountain, and not so much about the actions of going up the mountain. But when I was reading about them on the mountain, I was holding my breath. You just felt like you were right there with them and you felt the danger and the tension. But then you'll go back to scenes where they're at home and they're planning to go where they've come back from it. So it a great mix.
Annie Jones [00:07:55] It was really original to me. Like I said, Peter Heller is maybe the natural comp in my head. But also I really couldn't think of anything else I'd read like this, because Karen Outen also really addresses the fact that these are two black men, and how unusual that is, how they are treated in their training and on the mountain itself, what they are treated like. And so I thought that aspect was really interesting. And then what Dixon brings home with him and the things that he kind of witnesses and experiences on the mountain. I loved this book. It releases on February 6th. It is called Dixon Descending by Karen Outen.
Olivia [00:08:32] I'm just going to verbally submit my documentary that you should watch, but it's called 14 Peaks and it's incredible. It's about this guy who he climbed all 14 great peaks in the world. And he did it like in sections of these three are clumped together, these are clumped together. But you get him going up every single one.
Annie Jones [00:08:53] Okay. I'm going to read that.
Olivia [00:08:54] And it was really well done because he also gave like a huge shout out and credit to the Sherpas that help you get up there because they're a huge part of it, but they're so unspoken. When you hear people talk about reaching the peak, it's all because of these Sherpas that go with you. And have done this for years.
Erin [00:09:11] I like the Sherpas in Dixon Descending were characters. I mean, they were a part of the story. And their story was intermingled because they're also two brothers. They're brothers Sherpas taking two brothers up the mountain. So it was really cool.
Annie Jones [00:09:25] Yeah. I love that aspect.
Olivia [00:09:27] Well, just to keep hitting all the Venn diagrams, my first book is Night Watching, a book that Annie and I both read. Annie suggested that I read this, and then I read it, and I was just like, I don't think any has any concept of what I like.
Annie Jones [00:09:42] Except I do, but I love being scared.
Olivia [00:09:49] I'm not saying I didn't like it, I'm just saying as a thriller reader, this left me the most unsettled I have ever been.
Annie Jones [00:09:58] And I do think that's saying something. I almost feel like I have accomplished something.
Olivia [00:10:02] You did. Congratulations.
Erin [00:10:02] You broke Olivia. You did it.
Olivia [00:10:05] You freaked me out. Night Watching by Tracey Sierra is about this woman. She lives in a little house, like an old house. I pictured like a very Pennsylvania-esque house where you have multiple sets of staircases, everything creaks, it's all filled with wood. It was like pre depression era built. Snow everywhere. Woods everywhere. Luckily, this woman, instead of my woods being everywhere leading to nothing, has like a route to a community behind her. But she's lived in this house with her husband and her two children. And she wakes up one night, her husband is no longer a part of the picture. That's explained later. Because one of her kids woke up in the middle of the night and she was putting him back to bed, and as she turns around to go back to her bed, she sees a man in the hallway. And it's dark enough and the shadows are playing in her favor, that he cannot see her. And so she just freezes and watches this huge man with a weapon start searching her bedroom. And so she grabs her two children, runs down one of the two staircases, the back staircase that they have, and she hides them in this little hideaway, like, cubby[sp] sort of situation. And that's where they just stay throughout the night while this man is in their house and they're listening to his, like, creaky steps go up and down. He's calling out to them. At one point, he takes the husband's guitar and starts singing. This man is is wild.
Erin [00:11:34] Unhinged.
Olivia [00:11:35] I don't think I can say too much more than that just because I don't want to spoil what happens, but it is like the shortest chapters I've ever read. I read this in one sitting. Walt was very impressed with me, but also maybe a little annoyed And then I had my dog sleep in bed with me because I was so freaked out.
Annie Jones [00:11:55] It is deeply unsettling. I mean, you're right, it's super short chapters. I think that's part of the reason I read it in two settings, because my parents also live kind of out in the woods, and that's where I read it. And I loved it. I thought it was really smart. But I wanted to finish. I wanted to know what happened to her because I was like I've got to move on with my life.
Olivia [00:12:19] It felt like the pacing of like a TJ Newman with like a falling or a drowning situation. You're not in a plane, you're in a little cabin. But it also is like a woman who is telling the truth to the cops, and they're just not believing her. And she's stuck in this situation. All of it was just maybe a bit hyper realistic, but I think that's what made the book so well done. And there were flashbacks to previous times. I didn't feel like they took you out of the moment. I think actually you needed them because you're getting anxiety from sitting in this little room with her two children.
Annie Jones [00:12:59] Yeah. I think she did that so perfectly to kind of like give you a minute to catch your breath. I was going to ask you as you were describing it, and I was reminiscing about it. I really did love that book. But it reminds me of do you remember in Forever Young Adult Book Club or whatever we call that book club years ago? I think we read Babysitting Is A Dangerous Job.
Olivia [00:13:21] Yes, I do remember that book.
Annie Jones [00:13:23] Where she hides the kids. She and the kids hide in an attic. And that book stayed with me as a kid. I loved that book as a, I don't know, middle school or high schooler. And so this book felt like the adult version of that to me.
Olivia [00:13:38] When we read that, I was just like, this is a lot more thriller than I expected children's books to be.
Annie Jones [00:13:44] Yes.
Olivia [00:13:44] There is a B situation happening too at one point, like they were straight up kidnapped.
Annie Jones [00:13:51] Yes, I think as a modern reader you kept thinking, oh, this is going to be like a joke or a twist. No, no, it was like a straight kidnap. They're stuck in the attic with their babysitter thriller. It really is. And, man, I loved that.
Olivia [00:14:05] Yeah, scary dogs were involved. And then in this one, you just get this unhinged man.
Annie Jones [00:14:11] Erin, you got to read it.
Erin [00:14:12] It was like you're describing my nightmares. I don't know.
Olivia [00:14:16] I would say tremendous child abduction trigger warnings in this book.
Erin [00:14:21] I don't think I'd be reading it, but I'm so glad that you loved it.
Olivia [00:14:26] If you want to sit and have a good thrill, I think this is going to be great during the Halloween period when a lot of people read like this. But if you like a T.J. Newman paste book or even like a Riley Sager, I think his are a little bit slower than what happened in this book, but they still unsettle you in the same way.
Annie Jones [00:14:44] Yeah.
Olivia [00:14:45] It was really great.
Annie Jones [00:14:46] Agreed.
Erin [00:14:47] It was terrifying though.
Annie Jones [00:14:48] Oh, good.
Annie Jones [00:14:51] Erin, what's next for you?
Erin [00:14:53] What a segue. My first book, I feel like I'm one of those word shows, and I'm like, your next book needs no introduction, but it is The Women by Kristin Hannah. It's coming out next week, on February the 6th. I saw this ARC at The Bookshelf, and I was like, it's not usually up my alley. I don't read a ton of historical fiction, but I'm so glad I picked this up because it's not like other Kristin Hannah's I have read before. Which I've read The Nightingale, and I did read The Four Winds, but this one felt a little grittier, a little deeper than her other ones. It follows Frankie McGrath. She is a socialite whose brother leaves to go fight in the Vietnam War. And, due to some circumstances, she feels like it's her duty to go and enlist as a nurse in the Vietnam War. And so because the need is so great, she's basically shipped out immediately with very little experience as a nurse, even in the United States. As you can imagine, she gets there and it's sort of like a wake up call for this California girl. There's a lot of very graphic, intense scenes of working in an army hospital. As you can imagine, there's fighting, there's bombing, there's body parts everywhere. So if gore is not your thing, maybe you can kind of skim through those. But it all goes to show, just how she's thrust into this experience and she's just got to go. You can't just be like, well,, I don't know how to do this. You just got to do surgery on someone right away. And so you see her very quickly become this tough, very experienced, no nonsense nurse. And she's surrounded by other no nonsense army nurses and surgeons and doctors. And, of course, because it is a war, she experiences losses. Whether somebody died or people their time is up and it's time for them to go back to the United States.
[00:17:04] And so she spends a lot of time there. And when it's hard time to come home, she just kind of imagines that it's going to go differently. And when she gets home her parents are ashamed of her because the Vietnam War at that point-- which is actually really I wanted to go on a deep dive about the Vietnam War after this. But apparently when a lot of the soldiers returned because the Vietnam War was so unpopular at that point, the soldiers who were fighting in it were despised. They were called killers. And it wasn't their fault. They were just doing what they were told to do by the army. But they had been a part of things that were not so great over there. So she comes back and she can't find help anywhere. She has PTSD, and it almost feels like because she didn't fight in the war, she is not even recognized as a veteran even though she was saw so much of what a veteran would see. So she struggles to get help. Her life spirals quite a bit. And it does have a good redemptive ending. If I put in here, I even cried at the end because of the author's note and some things that are at the end of the book. It just made me tear up. But it's your typical historical fiction, right? There's a little bit of romance here. There's love. There's loss. But this one felt a little more real than your typical historical fiction. So I would just say, if you're a fan of Kristin Hannah, even if even if you're not, this is a great one. If you're just interested in history or the role of women in the war and women making their way when they weren't really given a chance to, this is a great one to pick up. So it's Kristin Hannah's, The Women, comes out next Tuesday.
Annie Jones [00:18:43] I am intrigued by that one. This is a bookseller confession. I've never read any Kristin Hannah, which I think I probably should have at least read The Nightingale or whatever, and I just never did. I am curious about this one, because many of my uncles fought in the Vietnam War, and they came back, and I think didn't even know they had PTSD.
Erin [00:19:03] Well, I don't even think then PTSD was a thing that people knew about.
Annie Jones [00:19:06] No, and it's certainly not something we talked about or addressed. And I think, yeah, I think the way that those veterans were treated- I don't know, I'd like to read a little bit more and like you, kind of deep dive the Vietnam War. And I like to typically start with a work of fiction. So I don't know, maybe I'll try that one.
Erin [00:19:25] This is great. Nancy and I were both reading it, and every time we'd see each other we'd be like, have you got to that part yet? And we text each other.
Olivia [00:19:33] That was fun to watch happen.
Annie Jones [00:19:36] Okay, my next book, in my mind I've not read The Women, but it is equally kind of gut wrenching and heartbreaking. It is called Leaving. This book releases on February 13th. I adored this book. Frequently, whether through the podcast or in the store, I feel like I get asked for recommendations featuring older protagonists. And so immediately one of the things I liked about this book was it features around two retirees, Sarah and Warren. They are kind of in their twilight years. I think they're in their 60s, 70s, and they run across each other. They come across each other while attending the opera in New York. And turns out Sarah and Warren were really seriously dating in their, I think, collegiate years. But they broke up and now they have just come across each other in their 60s and 70s. And I do need to say that some of my friends don't like reading books about infidelity. Whatever. I hesitate. There are so many triggers and content warnings about this book, but one of them that doesn't give anything away, I don't think, is that there is infidelity. Sarah is a widow, but Warren is still married. And so the connection that they feel brings up all these questions of, well, did I marry the right person? Should Sarah and Warren have stuck it out and stayed together in and after college?
[00:21:08] And then, to me, what the story and what the book really shows is that there are consequences to the decisions that we make- good and bad. There are really beautiful consequences to our decisions. And then there are also some really just heart wrenching ones. And my publisher rep, Abby, shout out to Abby at Norton, she recommended this book to me. I mean, I absolutely adored it. It is reminiscent to me of the book Fire Sermon by Jamie Quatro. It's dealing with some of those same themes. It's a really quick read. I read it maybe in one or two sittings. So I think it's really propulsive. It is character driven, but actually quite a bit happens. And, again, I just need to say there are so many content and trigger warnings for this book. I'm not a particularly sensitive reader, but a lot happens where I was like that would be bothersome. But any trigger or content warning I give you, I think would spoil it. So what I will say is that I found the story really compelling and beautiful. I am not a super sensitive reader, so I was not bothered by any of the content though all of it really made for a gut punch of a story. I never do this, but once I finished, I immediately emailed Abby because I had to talk to somebody who had read it. And Abby graciously wrote me back and we talked a little bit about the book. But I loved this. I think I will be thinking about Sarah and Warren for a really long time. This is called Leaving. It releases on February 13th. And it's got a beautiful, beautiful cover if you care about that sort of thing.
Olivia [00:22:43] Okay. My next book is The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown. It's out February 13th. I couldn't remember what Tuesday was. February 13th. First up, I'm pretty sure this book was written specifically for me and I'm so flattered, Gareth. Secondly, I think it also might be in my top ten of the year, and I know that's a risky thing to say in February, but this book was so good. It was about this girl who lives in New York. She works in a bookstore on the Upper East Side. Like a small independent bookstore. She already got me.
Erin [00:23:20] Sold.
Olivia [00:23:22] I never worked in a bookstore in New York. They didn't hire me. That's fine. That's on them.
Annie Jones [00:23:27] That is on them. They missed out.
Erin [00:23:29] Yeah, their loss.
Olivia [00:23:34] She has befriended this older gentleman who comes into the bookstore. He frequently sits there and he'll read and they'll have conversations about what they're reading. And it's just like this delightful friendship that they have. And one day he's sitting there reading Count of Monte Cristo. She goes to the back to put away some books or do some bookstore activity, and when she comes back, she finds that he's passed away sitting there reading. And so she calls the cops. She removes his book and she finds there's a second book there. It's called The Book of Doors, and he's inscribed it to her. So he had meant to give it to her, but he had passed away before he had the chance. So she looks at this Book of Doors and she takes it home with her roommate, and they're like fooling around with it because there's nothing in it. There's just like a couple of pictures of different doorways, but there's not a whole ton of words happening. And finally, accidentally she's holding it and she's about to open her hallway door, and she has this memory of when she was in Italy at this little cafe. And when she opens the door on the other side is Italy, the exact place that she was thinking of. And so she realizes that this door can take her anywhere as long as she thinks of the door where she wants to go to.
[00:24:51] So her and her roommate have a really great night traveling all over the world. And they end up at like a rooftop bar in New York. And this guy, his name is Drummond. He's from Scotland. I love him. He watches them and he realizes that they have the Book of Doors. And so he tracks them down and he explains to them that this is a part of this series of magical books that people are like collecting. It is like an underground network of these collectors, and a lot of people want them for bad reasons. He has a couple of them. He has the Book of Luck, he has a couple others but I can't remember what they are. But the Book of Luck is what led him to them. And he tries to explain to them it's really dangerous and we need to destroy this particular book when some guy comes in and attacks them. And so they use the Book of Doors to get away. Now they believe Drummond, and then they're in this race. But what he explains to them is that the Book of Doors doesn't only take you to different places, but it takes you to different times. And so this story that was already about a girl who works in New York City in a little bookstore with a magical book now also has time travel in it. And I'm sold.
Erin [00:26:03] Done. Check, check.
Olivia [00:26:05] I will say the time travel aspect of this was super well done. It's not used super frequently, so you don't get confused about where she is or what time she's in. It's very succinct in what they're doing, but it is excellent. At one point she is trapped in New York like 20 years before she was there the first time. And she's lost the Book of Doors and you're just like, oh my gosh. It was just so good. I will be hand selling it left and right, and I'm very excited about it.
Annie Jones [00:26:41] It does sound like a really good premise. Really unique.
Olivia [00:26:43] It was excellent. Never let me down at all. It was so well done.
Erin [00:26:47] I love that there are other books in this. That's fascinating. What are the other books? Now I want to know.
Olivia [00:26:55] There's an evil woman called The Woman, and she's trying to collect them all.
Erin [00:27:01] Got to catch them all.
Olivia [00:27:02] Yeah.
Erin [00:27:03] My next book is called My Side of the River by Elizabeth Camarillo Gutierrez. It comes out February the 13th. I listened to this one and it was actually read by Elizabeth, the author. It's a story of how she was raised by Mexican immigrant parents in sort of a lower class home. Of course, she's encouraged to be good at school, to be good at everything she does. And so she grows up with that mantra. And she does well at things. She does well at school. She's doing really great. But there comes a point when her parents, are there in the United States. They're here on a like some sort of tourist visa. And so they are required to go back to Mexico and leave her by herself as a teenager in the US. So she moves in with a teacher at her school. And that's not a good situation. She's not treated well. And so she sort of starts to not do as well at school. But, overall, she triumphs. It just follows her trying to get into different Ivy League school. And then she finally goes to I think University of Pennsylvania. And when she graduate, she gets a job at Goldman Sachs or some sort of-- I can't remember which one of those finance companies she gets a job at, but she ends up not being treated well there either. So that there really is it. Really just kind of follows her through her life. And the whole time she's giving you a lot of observations about the American immigration system, about the racial prejudice. She experienced a lot of prejudice, not only in her school, but also in these circles that she tried to move in. When she got into Ivy League school, when she got into finance, there was a lot of prejudice. Almost like, 'Go get my coffee, girl' as when she had a degree just like the rest of them.
[00:29:13] The whole time I was reading, I kept thinking her story was so moving. I mean, I kept listening to it because I was, like, I want to find out what happens. She comes across angry and kind of bitter at some points, and it put me off at first. And then last night, as I was making my notes and I was thinking about it, and I was reading some other things about it, basically she has a right to be angry and she has a right to be bitter. She has experienced tons of trying to jump through hoops and being just put down again and again and again. She gave a Ted talk, which is how she became famous and how I think she also got a book deal. And so I kept thinking it's going to have that story ARC where now she's like, and now I'm giving back or I'm making things better. It didn't really come across that way. I wrote this down, it really is the tension between anger at the system, but also pride at triumphing within the system that she's so mad at. So she holds that tension well. And it's a well-paced story and it's a well-written story. But it will break your heart because she experiences a different America than I have experienced. And so I just found it really interesting. She was a great writer, but it is hard to listen to because she has a lot of feelings about what she's experienced. And so it can be off putting, which I think won't come across if you read the print copy. But it was good. I mean, it's a very eye opening account of someone who's been through and has lived through the American immigration system. So it's My Side of the River, it's coming out February 13th.
Annie Jones [00:31:02] How old is she? Do you know? Like, is she middle aged?
Erin [00:31:05] She's probably in her mid 20s now. Yeah.
Annie Jones [00:31:08] Okay. So because that's the other thing. I'm about to talk about a memoir as well. But sometimes with these memoirs I feel like we're getting people in their middle; whereas, I think we maybe used to get memoirs at people's end. But we're getting people in their beginning. She's in her mid 20s. This is her beginning.
Erin [00:31:27] Right. Exactly. She hasn't had a lot of time to reflect back on the she's still sort of in the middle of these circumstance, you know living this.
Annie Jones [00:31:35] She's living it, yeah. Okay. My next book is a memoir as well. It is called Grief Is For People. This release is at the end of the month, on February 27th. This is by Sloane Crosley, who I love. I think maybe I've read almost everything she's written. I read, I Was Told There'd Be Cake. Her titles have always been so good to me. I Was Told There'd Be Cake, Look Alive Out There, those are her two essay collections. Then she had a novel called Cult Classic, which I also really enjoyed. And feels like there was another novel she wrote about a necklace being stolen. Maybe it's called The Clasp. I think it was. The reason I mentioned that is because in the book, Grief Is For People, Sloane Crosley is taking two really disparate events. The first is that her New York City apartment is broken into and burglarized while she's not there, and all of her jewelry is stolen or a lot of her jewelry is stolen. Some of it is nice, expensive jewelry, but a lot of it is just meaningful and sentimental to her. And then one month after her jewelry is stolen, her best friend, Russell, takes his own life by suicide. And so these are two events that clearly are really different and not the same in terms of heft and weight. But she winds up kind of writing this really compelling look at that month and what happened in those months and how it affected the rest of her life, particularly the loss of her best friend. Her best friend was a publicist. I was like, he's not an editor. He was a publicist. And that is where they first met. He was her boss, and then they just became really dear friends. She's certainly adding something to the conversation in terms of grief memoirs. She references Joan Didion's Year of Magical Thinking quite a bit, which is one of my favorite books. This one is heartbreaking to read at times, because it's about the loss of a friend and the unexpected loss of a friend to suicide.
[00:33:36] And so, obviously, there are triggers and content warnings around suicide, suicidal ideation, depression. But it's also about what we do when we lose a friend and we really don't get closure. We really don't get to say goodbye. And then even she writes in such loving ways about Russell. But also Russell was complicated. And so I really appreciated when you have a friend die, they also were complicated. People are people and so they have really good, wonderful parts about them and then harder parts about them. And I thought she really handled that remarkably well. It's a deeply personal memoir. It wouldn't be Sloane Crosley if you didn't also laugh out loud. I laughed in parts. I think she's incredibly witty and funny. It is also very much a New York story. If you like books set in or around New York, I feel like it is distinctly New York. She talks a lot about her apartment. She talks a lot about the publishing world, which she worked in even before she began writing. And so I found all of it very much all the things that, I hesitate to say, I enjoy reading about. But I really do appreciate so much books about grief and loss because we're all going to experience those things. If we haven't yet, we will. And so I really appreciate writers who bear that weight for us and who kind of show us the way. And I think Sloane Crosley does that here. So this is called Grief Is For People. It is out on February 27th.
Olivia [00:35:00] Okay. My next book, I think Erin and I are both reading, actually, The Framed Women of Ardmore House.
Erin [00:35:06] Oh, yeah, I literally just started it. I'm so excited.
Olivia [00:35:13] It's by Brandy Schillace. I'm only like 100 pages in right now, but it's really fun. I've been drawn to these classic type murder mysteries set in [inaudible] homes recently, and I'm really not opposed to it. I think it's a great path to go down. This feels like, if you loved The Maids series, this is right up your alley. Colleen Cambridge. It's not historical fiction, but it is set in a beautiful house in I think Wales, if I'm not mistaken.
Erin [00:35:43] I haven't made that far yet. Sounds right.
Olivia [00:35:45] Okay. Anyways, so it's about this girl, Jo Jones. It's Josephine but she goes by Jo. And she has recently not only divorced her husband and it was not a pleasant divorce, but then she ended up being a caregiver for her mother at the end of her life. And then she found out that her mother left her this house. And I really think it might be Wales. I just remember it being like that part of the world and a very short North Yorkshire.
Annie Jones [00:36:21] Sure. England, Wales.
Erin [00:36:22] I think.
Annie Jones [00:36:23] Yes. Somewhere.
Erin [00:36:24] That might be in England.
Annie Jones [00:36:25] Yeah, sure. Okay.
Olivia [00:36:27] Welsh. They say Welsh.
Annie Jones [00:36:28] Good. You did it.
Olivia [00:36:30] I'm looking at the back cover.
Annie Jones [00:36:32] Good, you remembered.
Erin [00:36:33] You got it.
Olivia [00:36:35] Here we go. Detective skills. Yes. So she inherits this big estate. And it was known for its gardens, but its gardens are a complete disaster, like, overgrown has not been taken care of. And when she gets there to see the big family house, it's also not been taken care of. But there's this groundskeeper there. I forget his name, but he is just, for lack of a better word, he gives her the ick. He calls her pet at one point, and she was like, absolutely not. Hard pass on that.
Olivia [00:37:13] And he's the one who's supposed to have taken care of this house and the grounds, and he clearly didn't like. There's a hole in the roof. The library is destroyed by water damage. But there's a cottage in the back. And this was part of his whole work deal. Is that if he took care of the grounds in the house, then he could rent out that cottage and keep whatever profit because it's the only livable place. But when she gets there, it's very clear that he has not been renting it out, that he's been living there. So she's kind of over it. And she was like, no, let me just pay the back taxes. I will live in the cottage and I will fix up the house. And so she takes his keys and calls it a day. The next day she's in this big house and she's looking around. She finds this framed portrait of this woman who the name is on the portrait, and it is not any of the names in her family. So she has no idea who this woman is, but she's really taken by this portrait because it's really well done. And then she hears something in the house and she goes down and it is the groundskeeper again. And she's just like, "What are you doing here?" And he was like, "Well, I still technically work here." And so whatever. He goes outside, he starts the lawnmower. She gets super annoyed because at one point she's working in a room and he has just left the lawn mower on at the window in the room she's working on. And she's like, no. And so she goes out and she finds the lawn mower. He is nowhere to be found. He has jerry rigged this lawn mower with a bungee cord. And so she undoes it and turns off the lawnmower, goes in the house and finds that the portrait is now gone.
Annie Jones [00:38:48] Oh, my gosh.
Olivia [00:38:51] Yeah. So then she calls her lawyer and she was just like, please fire that man. I'm done. She calls the cops on him, and she goes back to this pub that she's been staying at. It's like one of those that has, like, the bar on the ground, and then you can stay up. I think of, like, the Three Broomsticks from Hogsmeade. That is what I'm picturing in my head. But she's befriended the barkeep and whatnot, and the groundskeeper is there and he, like, verbally assaults her and she is not having it. And so the next day she goes back to this house to keep cleaning it out, and the groundskeeper is found murdered, three shots in his back in the kitchen. And now she has to call the cops, but now she kind of looks suspicious because they've gotten to, like, a public argument. She had him fired. All of this stuff is really adding up not in her favor. And the portrait that she claims is missing, no one has any record of so far. It's really fun. I'm enjoying it a lot.
Annie Jones [00:39:50] That sounds really good.
Olivia [00:39:51] It's been great.
Erin [00:39:52] Even just the cover. I don't know if what your cover looks like on the ARC, but I'm just like the cover of the book is so fun. It's exactly what I'm looking for in a cover of a mystery.
Annie Jones [00:40:04] Yeah, a wintry book.
Olivia [00:40:06] Yeah. I'm really enjoying it. It's been like a fast read, even though the chapters aren't necessarily short. I sat down with it last night and I got to page 100 and I could have kept going. I was tired, so I didn't, but I could have.
Erin [00:40:19] Okay, well, I'm looking forward to getting further into that one then. This is my last book. It is called The Fox Wife. I don't know if I'm going to pronounce this correctly, but it's by Yangsze Choo. I did my best. It's coming out February the 13th. Little known fact about me, I am obsessed with foxes, but I don't say that out loud to many people anymore. Because when you say you like things, people start to buy you things. So I have a lot of Fox stuff that I don't want or need. I just keep that to myself, but now everyone on the podcast knows about it too. Oh no, wait, are people going to hear this?
Olivia [00:40:58] Not anymore.
Erin [00:41:01] But I do love foxes. And this book just really ramped that love up because this is by a Chinese author. It follows Snow, who we meet her as a woman. And we can tell already she's in search of a photographer, this mysterious photographer who she says is responsible for the death of her child. So she's mourning, but she's looking for revenge. And she's going across China, and she meets up with this family, this medicine shop, and there's an elderly lady who runs the medicine shop, and she becomes kind of her live-in nurse, her caretaker. And just through different circumstances, they end up in Japan because she's found out the photographer could be in Japan. So she's looking for him. And so there's that storyline, and then there's the storyline of this aging detective named Bao, and he has been hired to find out the identity of a woman that's found frozen in the snow outside of a bar. And so he's looking for her. But as he's starting to investigate, there are other women that he finds killed in the snow. As he's following the trail of these women, he meets up with Snow. Like, their paths cross there, orbits, intertwine. And you kind of come to find out through some clues that Snow is actually a fox spirit who has taken on the disguise of a human, and that that's a very common thing. And Bao the detective also has heard about this, and from his childhood it's something that he's known about.
[00:42:44] And so they're kind of sneaky, these fox spirits, they are pretty powerful. They can be locked up in a prison and escape because they can turn back into a fox and just get out of wherever they're going. So it adds to the mystery that Bao's looking for this person or a thing that might not even be a person. I feel like I'm not describing this very well, but it was very beautiful. It really combines the humanity of a woman just looking for some absolution to this thing that happened to her. It follows Bao, who's also sort of at the end of his life and asking himself questions about how he lived his life and what could he have done different. And he has this lost love from his childhood that he was never able to marry. And I won't give it away, but maybe they meet up again. I don't know. So it follows them and it's so beautiful in their humanity. But then you have this added sort of magical realism where there's foxes that are people, and it made me want to go on a deep dive about, like, Chinese myths about foxes and just learn more about that, because the author does a super good job of weaving that into the story where you are like, oh yeah, now I know what she's talking about because she sort of explains that.
[00:44:09] And I wrote this down on Mm Instagram and I was like, it feels a little bit like Twilight. Like, do you remember when you first read or you watched Twilight the vampire movie? That you were like it was so interesting how they built that world. Like, these are the rules that vampires have to follow, right? This is how we eat. We don't eat these people. We only eat these people. Or this is how we act when the wolves are around. And you just sort of accept that as a reader. You're like, yeah, that makes sense. That would make sense why vampires would only do that or whatever. And it kind of feels she builds this world the same way with foxes because the main character, Snow, is sort of reminding you as a reader, we're foxes, we can't do that or we're foxes, we've promised not to do that. And so I just thought that was a really beautiful story. It is dense. It felt a little bit slow going at first when you're trying to figure out who's what and where they go, but at the end it's very propulsive and you want to keep reading it. So that is The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo, it comes out February 13th.
Annie Jones [00:45:15] That does sound really good and very wintry. Very appropriate for the winter season.
Erin [00:45:20] Very wintry, very much set in the snow.
Annie Jones [00:45:22] Okay, so those were some of the February new releases coming out that we just wanted to highlight for you all. If you go to Bookshelfthomasville.com, type episode 462 into the search bar you'll see all the books we talked about today. You can preorder, you can purchase and use code NEWRELEASEPLEASE at checkout to get 10% off your order. This week I'm listening to Come and Get It by Kiley Reid. Olivia, what are you reading?
Olivia [00:45:49] I'm reading The Framed Women of Ardmore House by Brandy Schillace
Annie Jones [00:45:54] Erin, what are you reading?
Erin [00:45:58] Well, I would say ditto, but I'm also reading The Framed Women of Ardmore House by Brandy Schillace.
Annie Jones: From the Front Porch is a weekly podcast production of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in Thomasville, Georgia. You can follow The Bookshelf’s daily happenings on Instagram at @bookshelftville, and all the books from today’s episode can be purchased online through our store website: bookshelfthomasville.com A full transcript of today’s episode can be found at:
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.