Episode 466 || February Reading Recap
This week on From the Front Porch, Annie recaps the books she read and loved in February. You get 10% off your books when you order your February Reading Recap bundle! Each month, we offer a Reading Recap bundle, which features Annie’s three favorite books she read that month.
To purchase the books mentioned in this episode, stop by The Bookshelf in Thomasville, visit our website (type “Episode 466” 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 February Reading Recap Bundle - $68
Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar
Good Material by Dolly Alderton
The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe
All books mentioned in this episode:
Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar
Good Material by Dolly Alderton
Anita de Monte Laughs Last by Xochitl Gonzalez (releases 3/5)
The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe
Real Americans by Rachel Khong (releases 4/30)
Colton Gentry’s Third Act by Jeff Zentner (releases 4/30)
Run Towards the Danger by Sarah Polley
Mostly What God Does by Savannah Guthrie
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 to Run Towards the Danger by Sarah Polley.
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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]
[00:00:02] Annie Jones: Welcome to From the Front Porch, a conversational podcast about books, small business, and life in the South. [music plays out]
“‘You don’t let go once. That’s your first mistake. You say goodbye over a lifetime.... You have to be prepared to let go and let go and let go a thousand times.’” - Dolly Alderton, Good Material
[as music fades out] I’m Annie Jones, owner of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in beautiful downtown Thomasville, Georgia, and this week, I’m recapping the books I read in February.
[00:00:52] It's not too late to join Annie's Five-Star Books on Instagram. And I wanted to mention it on this episode because if you enjoy the reading recap episodes, you might enjoy seeing my book reviews of what I've read throughout the year. So for $50 a year, you can become a part of this bookish community online. Through the private Instagram account, you'll get access to my five star book reviews, backlist and front list titles. And I also host monthly Instagram Lives, and hop on stories to chat books, and maybe even share about the books I start but never finish. If you follow me personally on Instagram, you've seen my reviews for years. And, of course, From the Front Porch listeners (that's you) can always have access to my free monthly reading recap episodes. The private Instagram is just a place where I get to be more detailed with my reviews, and Five-Star Book Club members can also choose if they want those five star reads mailed to them each month from The Bookshelf.
[00:01:43] So for more information, or to sign up for the 2024 group, you can visit https://anniebjoneswrites.com/fivestar-book-club. There's also a link in the show notes. I would love to have you following along there this year.
[00:01:59] Now to the books I read in February. Let me tell you all, February was a great reading month for me. I loved all the books I read, which is something I feel like I rarely get to say, and I feel like I read a pretty wide range of literature. And I don't know, there's something about the winter months. Yes, I am certainly reading-- maybe even in February I should have been reading more for spring. I should have been reading more Advanced Reader Copies. But part of the reason I think my reading experiences were so fun is because I read books almost-- I don't know, maybe it was half and half, but I read books that were like out now and it was just fun. I really love reading books alongside everybody else. As much as I love Advanced Reading Copies, sometimes it's a bummer to read books so far in advance of everybody else. So I don't know. That might have been part of my reading experience. I also think that winter is just a great time of the year for me. It is when Jordan, my husband, is at his busiest and so I get a lot of reading done. And I also was able to listen to some audiobooks, which always enhances my monthly reading. So just an overall great reading month for me.
[00:03:14] I kicked it off by finishing the book Martyr, that's by Kaveh Akbar. Kaveh Akbar is an FSU grad, is what I'm trying to say. And so he was on my radar. He's a poet and has written some really well received poetry books. I think he received his PhD from Florida State. And so that is how I was familiar with him. So this book came into The Bookshelf and I picked it up on a Saturday. Kyndall, one of our booksellers, she and I were talking, and I said to her, "I would like to take this book home, but I just don't know if it's for me. I've read the description and I just don't know." And then I did what I try to do to figure out if it's a book that I'm in the mood for at a given time. And I just read the first page and I immediately thought, oh, yeah, I think I am going to take this book home. And I took it home and I loved it. So this is a book about a young man named Cyrus. He is working on his sobriety, and we get a lot of glimpses at his struggles to remain sober. And he is also a poet who is obsessed with martyrdom. And because of some low points in his own life, in his struggles with addiction, he has been in all time lows, investigating what it would be like to die and experience his own death. And maybe the best way to go would be to be a martyr. And so he is doing a lot of thinking about that. In fact, one of the plot lines of the book-- to me, this is a very character-driven novel. So even when I was making notes to figure out how I wanted to talk about this book, there's not a ton of plot that happens here. And I don't know if y'all will agree or not, but it reminded me a little bit of Donna Tartt's Goldfinch. Which I love The Goldfinch, but I know not everybody does.
[00:05:14] And I think people who read this book-- Caroline on staff at The Bookshelf, she read this book, she listened to the audiobook, and she loved it. So I think readers who like literary fiction, or maybe even who are sometimes intimidated by literary fiction, I do think you should try this one, but it is character driven. I had trouble making plot notes. But one of the notes I did make about this book is that Cyrus decides to visit New York because there's an art installation by a woman who is dying of cancer, and her installation is where she just sits in the museum. She just sits in the gallery and she talks to people about death. And so Cyrus wants to interview her and talk to her as part of this kind of investigation he's doing into martyrdom. The other thing that I found really interesting and poignant about this book is that Cyrus, his mother died on Iran flight 655, and I knew nothing about that flight. But this was a real historic incident on July 3rd, 1988, where this was a commercial passenger flight headed to Dubai, and it was shot down by two American missiles. And so that real-life event looms large, particularly in Cyrus's memory, because that was the death of his mother. That's when he and his father immigrated to the United States, was after they lost his mother. And so his grief over her obviously looms incredibly large. And then this incident and the role America played in it, and the lack of apology America never made also is huge in Cyrus's life and in his memory, because then he and his father moved to American soil. And so you can see Cyrus struggling with these ideas of identity and martyrdom throughout the book. I really, really loved this book.
[00:07:27] If you're noticing me struggle to tell you what it is, that's because it really is a difficult book to explain. And it may be why the blurbs did not sell me. What sold me was starting this book. And so if you have been on the fence about this one, or if you've seen it in bookstores or at the library and you're like, I don't know if that's for me, I would encourage you to pick it up and try the first couple of pages. His writing is outstanding. I mean, he is a poet, he has a poetry background, and so you definitely can tell that. But sometimes I get bogged down by novels written by poets, and I never got bogged down by the language of this. I thought it was just incredibly well-written. Cyrus is a very memorable character. So although this book is character rather than plot-driven, I was absolutely fine with that because I loved Cyrus and I loved reading about him and feeling what he was feeling. And Kaveh Akbar does such a good job of writing about addiction and sobriety. And it made me want to do a deep dive into that Iranian flight which I had never heard about, which I think is interesting. So that is Murder by Kaveh Akbar, and it is out now.
[00:08:33] Very big genre switch, I next read Good Material by Dolly Alderton. This was a much anticipated book for me. For 2024, we did not receive ARCs of this one, and so I had the pleasure of reading this one alongside everybody else. So after I read Martyr, which I did not read in the ARC format, I read as a hardback. I bought it, I brought it home. I bought Good Material, and I brought it home as well. And that was very fun and exciting. I love Dolly Alderton. She is a UK author. She wrote Ghosts, which was a book I read and loved probably 2 or 3 years ago. And this was her newest. I'm hesitating because basically this book reminded me a lot, in a good way, of Romantic Comedy, which is the book that released last year by Curtis Sittenfeld. But I did not love Romantic Comedy. It falls short for me for a few different reasons. I'm sure I detailed those reasons on the podcast a year ago. So I won't go into those details now, but it did fall short to me. Now, other readers loved it. And if you loved it, that's wonderful. But Good Material is a love story between Andy and Jen. Well, it's a love story-- it's a breakup story. And we meet Andy, and the whole book is really told from Andy's perspective. Where we only get Andy's insight into why he and Jen broke up, and he is just devastated by their breakup and he's doing an autopsy on their relationship, and we are privy to that autopsy. I honestly don't even know where I've read a book written by a female author but the main character is male. And how she writes him so realistically.
[00:10:22] I think on the podcast we talk a lot about when a man writes a female or woman character really realistically. We kind of loved that. I love it because I find it pretty rare. So I think of Rumaan Alum, I think of Ryan Stradal, these are male authors who I think write women really well. But I don't know that we always talk about when female writers write men really well. And I think that's because it's less rare. I think women do a really good job. And that is obviously my bias showing, but recently I read Annabel Monaghan's latest book, and I think her male characters are really rich and interesting. And so I think we encounter that pretty regularly. But there was something about this whole book being told by this kind of down and out, kind of woe is me Eeyore character that I thought was going to get on my last nerve. Andy as a person would get on my last nerve. I would never date anybody like Andy. I don't think I could ever be long term with somebody like Andy, but I found him to be a really lovable main character despite his flaws, and I think that's a testament to Dolly Alderton. Look, I hope you all are reading the acknowledgments of books. They're they're pretty much my favorite part of books. Hunter and I talk all the time about how a book can be five stars if it just ends well. I will admit that a book could be kind of crappy, but if their acknowledgments sell me, if I realize they've been inspired by their grandmother or something like that, it really does wonders. It covers a multitude of sins.
[00:11:53] Dolly Alderton doesn't need to cover a multitude of sins, but her acknowledgments are so great. She talks about being inspired by the Harry character in When Harry Met Sally. And as soon as I read that note, I thought, yes, absolutely. I picked up on that without even knowing that's where part of her inspiration came from. So I love the love that Dolly Alderton clearly has for Andy. This whole book is an unpacking of the relationship of Andy and Jen's relationship and the storytelling is fantastic. And that's where I'm going to leave it. I would hate to spoil anything for you for this book. I said that this was a romcom. That's not true. It's not. It puts a microscope on the romantic comedy and on heterosexual relationships and what dating does to us in a really funny, poignant, bittersweet kind of way. I loved this book. I thought it was outstanding, delightful, charming. But I should correct myself. It is not a romantic comedy. It's a breakup story, and it's really digging into heterosexual dating relationships and the effect they have on all of us. I loved it. I thought it was great. I know I'll read anything Dolly Alderton writes it. I just think she's an outstanding writer and writes about the human experience in a really relatable way. So that is Good Material by Dolly Alderton. And that one is also out now.
[00:13:26] All right. Next up, I read and listened to Anita de Monte Laughs Last. This is by Xochitl Gonzalez. You might recognize the child's name from Olga Dies Dreaming, which was a book I really enjoyed. Again, struggling with time, but I think that was last year. I think it was last year, might have been two years ago. So this is her latest book, and I think this is her best. We talk about sophomore slump all the time, but it's worth recognizing when an author overcomes that description. And I actually think this sophomore novel by Xochitl is her better novel. And I say that having really liked Olga Dies Dreaming. This book, by the way, releases on March 5th, so you've got a little bit of time to preorder. But this book is told in two different timelines in two different narrative storylines. So the first is Anita. We're introduced to Anita de Monte. She is an artist living in the 1980s in New York. And then we have Raquel, and we meet Raquel in the 1990s at Brown University. So part of this book, even ever so slightly, feels like a campus novel depending on how generous you want to make that term. The book is dedicated to Ana Mendieta, whose husband, sculptor Carl Andre, was eventually tried and acquitted for her murder. So Anna was an up and coming artists. Her husband, the sculptor Carl Andre, was accused of her murder. He was eventually tried and acquitted, but the book is dedicated to her and you immediately know why. This is no spoilers. All of this is on the back of the book.
[00:15:02] Anita is also an up and coming artist in the 80s, and she is in a relationship with a much more well-known artist, though she is kind of on the up and up, and he is maybe a little bit on his decline. He's already been at the peak of his career, now he's kind of on the other side. But he is still more known than she is and certainly holds perhaps more power in that relationship. So they begin dating jealousy ensues. You really get some insight into what it must be like for two artists to date one another and to be in relationship with one another, and how that might take its toll. I think we think about this when we think about actors who date and how long their relationships last, or how long they don't last, or what happens when our favorite movie star couple breaks up because somebody else has started to become more famous. I say we, I am interested in that. I'm interested in that and think about that a lot. So Anita is on the up and up in her career. Her partner perhaps even feels like she's riding his coattails a little bit. But to shorten or abbreviate the description a little bit, she winds up falling out of their apartment window. But you are left as the reader wondering, well, did she fall or did her husband push her? And therefore you kind of see how Xochitl Gonzalez was inspired by Ana Mendieta. All while that is kind of happening, we are also reading about Raquel, who is a student at Brown University, and she is certainly in a different class from a lot of her cohorts at Brown. And then she is also brown skinned.
[00:16:51] She works at the campus radio. And she is friends with brown and black students who she has found a real kinship with, but she ends up dating a white guy who is in the same art history program as she is, but he is much more respected than she is or more well known in the department and he is also way more monied than she is. So in this way, Anita de Monte Laughs Last really reminded me a lot of Kiley Reid's latest book, Come and Get It. And I kept getting really strong connections to Yellow Face. So if you read Yellow Face, which is set in the publishing industry, I think this is dealing with the exact same themes. But Come and Get It is at a public university in the South. Yellow Face is set in the publishing world. And then this is really set in the 80s and 90s art world. But I think those three books would really make a great grouping. So if Yellow Face or Come and Get It are books that you've read and loved, I think you'd really like this book. I will also say I listened to this in part and read it, and I think you should read the physical copy. Now, you might like the audiobook narration, but I preferred reading this one for what it's worth. If that matters to you or format matters to you, I preferred my reading experience. And then the last thing I'll say is that if you-- I think I mentioned this on whatever podcasts reviewed Yellow Face on. So I really loved Yellow Face, but I kept thinking Yellow Face was going to go in a different direction, maybe a little bit of magical realism. And I'm not even a reader who loves that all the time, but I kept waiting for that twist and it never came. Which is fine. That's how that book was.
[00:18:38] But I am very happy to say that Anita de Monte Laughs Last has a couple of elements and maybe even twists that I thought, oh, this has gotten a little weird and I love it. I liked that it went a little weird. I thought it was super creative and interesting and really elevated the book. Even though I already enjoyed it for what it was, the slight sidesteps that Xochitl Gonzalez was willing to make, I really enjoyed. And I thought it was a really creative, original take on a story that is becoming, I think, more familiar to us. I hope is becoming more familiar to us. So I really liked this book a lot. Anita de Monte Laughs Last, that is by Xochitl Gonzalez. I really liked the print format better than the audiobook format, though you could try the audiobook if you prefer.
[00:19:27] All right. Then I was in New York at the beginning of the month. I was there for New York Now, which was a really interesting experience. New York now is a market. I was hoping to go and maybe see some things that I might not see at Atlanta show when I go to Atlanta market in July. I just thought maybe being in a different part of the country I might see some different things. That wound up not entirely being true. So I was not at New York Now for as long as I thought I would be, and instead wound up exploring a lot of bookstores in New York, which was great. I've been to several bookstores over my different times going to New York, but this time I wound up, I think, hitting five different bookstores, which was super fun. And so at one of those bookstores, Three Lives &Company, I picked up the backlist title The Best of Everything. This is by Rona Jaffe. This book was written in 1958. It would never have been on my radar were it not for my friend and former reader retreater and podcast listener, Jennifer. So shout out to Jennifer because I probably wouldn't have picked this one up. It's been re-released, I think, last year in Penguin Classic kind of format. So you know what I'm talking about, that standard black cover. Although this one really does have a lovely collage on the front. I just probably would have missed this book. I'm not sure I would have picked it up, even though I think Three Lives & Company had this on their staff shelf. That is not where I found it. I stumbled upon it while browsing in the regular fiction, which made it feel very serendipitous that I found it there, and I thought, oh, Jennifer was just talking about this. The book is set in New York. So I will I will take this one home. And I did. And it wound up being just the most wonderful book to read in and after being to New York.
[00:21:09] Like I said, it's set in 1958. There are a few main characters, but really the book centers on Caroline, Gregg, and April. These are young women who have come to the big city from their various stations in life and various towns, and they're now here to become secretaries and to enter the workforce; in some cases, to kind of wait until they find their significant other. But then in some cases, they really do have ambition to work in publishing. They're all working at a publishing house. Caroline is perhaps the main protagonist, but you really do get a pretty lengthy look I think at least five different young women, and they're adjusting to life in New York. April is a character who comes from a small town, maybe a more puritanical background. Small town background. Caroline is moving to New York after a broken engagement. Gregg is somebody who's just working as a secretary until she can really make it big in acting. That's her dream. And so you kind of get this different perspective on the ways different people come to New York. Different women and different types of people find themselves in New York trying to live the dream. The whole time I was reading, I just could not help but think how timeless the book feels. It's written in the 1950s, but I'm sure the reason that Penguin republished it in 2023 was because of the MeToo movement. Because certainly we are getting a look at the sexism and the harassment that existed in the workplace in the 1950s and that still exists today, as we sadly know.
[00:22:57] And so the whole time I was reading the book, I thought, this book could be published any old time. This book feels so modern. Now, certainly there is some language and there are some descriptions that definitely are of the era and of the 50s, but I felt like I was watching a Turner Classic Movie, which I do love. I do love watching a Turner Classic Movie. I felt like I was watching a Turner Classic Movie, but one where I'm like, oh, this really feels-- a lot of times you watch a movie like that and you feel, well, that's over time. It was enjoyable, but it was over time. This feels timeless. And I also kept thinking about how surely Rona Jaffe wound up inspiring Nora Ephron, or the writers of sex and the city, or the writers of Mad Men. Like, that's what I kept being reminded of while I was reading the book. Just an utterly enjoyable reading experience if you are headed to New York, if you are in New York and you need a book to read while you're there, because it's very much a love story or an homage to New York and the fresh starts that you can get. If you're a Fiona Davis reader, Fiona Davis writes a lot of historical fiction set in New York. I actually think you would really love this book. I think especially if you liked Fiona Davis's The Doll House, I think you could like this one. I'm just so grateful. I'm so glad I found it, and I wouldn't have found it without Jennifer. So thank you to Jennifer. And thank you to readers who DM me or who give me book recommendations. Even if I don't get to all of them, When I finally do, I'm always like, oh yes, this person was right.
[00:24:32] This is a really good book. This was a really good book. I had some qualms with the last few pages. I was going to say the last third, but that's not entirely true. I had some issues with the back part of the book, and those were the passages where I felt like, well, this is over time instead of timeless, like a little bit maybe more melodramatic than I would have wanted or expected. After spending so much time with these characters, I really fell in love with them. And so by the end, I was almost slightly saddened, like, oh, I wanted more. And it's not that I necessarily wanted the book to be longer, but I did want more of these stories or more of these characters. What I'll also say is that immediately upon finishing this book, I was very much in the mood to watch Working Girl, one of my favorite movies, with Harrison Ford and Molly Griffith. And so if Working Girl is your vibe, then the best of everything will also very much be your vibe. And if you haven't seen Working Girl, what are you doing? So the Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe. Just a fantastic backlist title that I am so glad I found this month.
[00:25:42] Now is the portion of the month in which I tried to read some Advanced Reader Copies. So the first ARC that I-- devoured isn't even the right word. That I enjoyed this month was Real Americans by Rachel Khong. This book releases on April 30th. I love Rachel Khong. If you have not read her backlist book, Goodbye Vitamin, I would really encourage you to read it. I adored that book and I was anxious to see what her sophomore title might be. Goodbye Vitamin is-- okay, wait. Yaa Gyasi wrote Homegoing, which felt like this epic story. And then she wrote Transcendent Kingdom, which felt more microscopic and detailed and zoomed in on one relationship or one family. Okay. Goodbye Vitamin was one family's grief story, and Goodbye Vitamin was maybe the more microscopic story. And then Real Americans was the bigger, more epic story. Okay, that's what I would compare this to. So if you liked Homegoing and Transcendent Kingdom, I think you would like how Goodbye Vitamin exists alongside a Rachel Khong's new book, Real Americans. Goodbye Vitamin kind of the more detailed, quiet, in-depth look at one family and particularly one woman's grief. And then Real Americans is more epic in scope. It is literally a longer book. I would even venture to say it's a bit of a tome, like it's one of those books that felt heavy in my hands while I was reading it. But I loved it, and it was such a joy to get to see Rachel Khong excel at not only the quiet, slim, microscopic detailed book, but also the big, epic, multi-generational story.
[00:27:46] So Real Americans is about three generations of the Chen family: Lily and Nicholas. Lily is who we spend the most time with at first. We also get a little bit of her mother's story, but I would say that Lily is who we spend a great deal of time with, particularly at the first part of the novel, and I don't think it is a spoiler to say that then we get a lot of Nicholas's story, and Nicholas or Nico is her son. So three generations of the Chen family: the grandmother, the mother and the son. And so much happens in this book. It's not like murder where it's character-driven, although certainly you will fall in love, I think, with the Chen’s and with their differing and disparate personalities across the generations. But also plenty happens in this book, and plenty of interesting things happen in this book. Not only does it tell the story of those three people, but also because it tells the story of this three people, it spans decades. It spans generations. And that's what makes me want to describe it as epic in nature, is it feels like I just became completely enmeshed in this family over time. What I think is at the heart of the story is Lily falls in love with a much wealthier white man. Which, if that feels familiar to you, that's because that is some of what is happening in Anita de Monte Laughs Last. It certainly felt like, oh, yes, these are themes that I have just stumbled upon as well. So Lily and Matthew fall in love.
[00:29:29] I think I would argue the difference between this and Anita de Monte is the fact that Lily and Matthew story is really sweet and really does feel like real love. It really does feel like they really love each other, despite their racial differences, despite their class differences, they feel like a couple who genuinely loves each other. That is not the case in Anita de Monte. And so, anyway, we really get to know Lily and Matthew first. And, I think, Rachel Khong addresses the differences in those two and in their relationship really well. The book is also a lot about the role, not only that class and race play in our relationships and in our familial dynamics. But also she's writing a lot about science. So the book that I kept thinking about-- of course, Anita de Monte was on my brain, but I also kept thinking about Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. And we talk on this podcast and in person or in reviews about how Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow is not necessarily just a story about video games. So Real Americans is not just a story about science, but it actually is dealing a lot with DNA and scientific discoveries and the ethics of scientific discoveries. And I was just so pleasantly surprised by that. I was not expecting that sort of detail out of this book. I really loved the book Paper Names, which released last year. The Paper Names was a slim novel, but was also told from three various viewpoints, three varying viewpoints. But it was a thin little book really did enjoy. And so I kind of felt like Real Americans is similar to Paper Names, but it's diving even deeper and it's giving us even more, and that's why it's even longer.
[00:31:25] But it's not just a family story, it's also a story about scientific discovery and ethics and genetics. And I don't know that that's going to appear. Like I told you, I was reading the ARC. I don't know what is going to appear on the back cover, what blurb is going to appear there. But I'm here to tell you if that is of interest to you, this book is going to be right up your alley. I was just pleasantly surprised by those aspects of the story. And it feels like Rachel Khong really did her research. It feels like she knows what she's writing about. Remember the book Joan Is okay. I feel like that could also be a similar title here. I love this one. This is a five star book for me. I'll be thinking about these people for a long time. I loved them all, even the deeply flawed characters. I really loved them. As much as I'm saying this book reminded me of a few different things like Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, like Paper Names, at the same time this book felt something completely original and all its own. And I've read a lot of family stories, A Place for Us. I've read a lot of books like this that I really like, and yet this book felt utterly different from those books. Which is the highest praise I can give. It felt at once both familiar and completely original. So this is Real Americans by Rachel Khong. It releases on April 30th. Gorgeous cover. Cannot wait to handsell this book.
[00:32:56] Then I picked up Colton Gentry's Third Act. This is by Jeff Zentner. You might recognize Jeff Zentner if you are a young adult reader. He wrote The Serpent King, which came out a few years ago and did really well for us, particularly in the South. He's a southern writer based out of Tennessee. So I was intrigued by this because of the cover. It's got this guy in a cowboy hat. I don't know. I just wondered about it when it came in the store. So I picked it up. And which also just the name Colton Gentry, I just think is a really clever character name. So Colton Gentry is a country music star, and he is finally kind of experiencing his big break. He is dating this much more well-known, high-powered country musician. Their relationship has really made his own career kind of skyrocket. He had a quiet career before. He's in his mid-thirties. I will say this book took me some time to get into, but I'm glad I gave it a shot because after we established who these characters are, I think they really come into their own and the storytelling takes on a life of its own, but it does take a minute. So we're introduced to Colton when he is really having a breakdown on stage at a music concert. And no spoilers, but we discover that the reason Colton has this breakdown and kind of goes on this tirade on stage, is because he is drunk and because he is grieving the loss of his friend at the hands of a mass shooter, at a mass shooting at a music festival.
[00:34:43] And so Colton Gentry goes off on this drunken, profanity-laden tirade against guns at a country music concert. And that does not go over very well. And this is going to show my southern roots so badly. In my family, we say-- my mom will hate that I'm saying this. In my family, we say that went over like a turd of punch bowl. Is that southern? I think that feels southern. So it did not go over well with his audience. And he immediately finds himself much like the-- now we call them The Chicks. But much like the Dixie chicks, were immediately pulled from the radio and the airwaves back in the early 2000, Colton Gentry realizes he too is being canceled. He is no longer being played on country music radio. People protest his concerts and it just is a disaster. And so he finds himself back at home in Venice, Kentucky. And the bulk of the book is spent going back and forth between his raising in Venice, Kentucky, and his coming of age there, his teenagehood there, and then him finding himself in his third act in his hometown. If you read the romcom When in Rome a few years ago, or a couple years ago, this is reminiscent a little bit of that. I would not sell this book or bill it as a romcom. That is not what I think this book is. This book is just a second chance story about Colton. It's also a second chance story about Petey, his little dog. I will say this, I thought this was so funny. In the book, we're introduced to Petey. He's a rescue dog, and certainly there are reasons Colton adopts him and finds a kinship with him. But we're immediately told in footnotes-- I thought this was so funny. We're immediately told in footnotes that this dog is not going to die in this book. So if that is of deep concern to you, I'm just here to tell you the dog does not die in this book. And I think Jeff Zentner would want me to tell you that.
[00:36:51] So this book is about Colton. It's about his dog, Petey. It's about his childhood sweetheart, Luann. And really I do not think the book's marketing is explicit enough about this. This book is about southern food. Because part of what Colton discovers upon his return home is this farm to table restaurant that plays a really important role in his newfound life and his starting over. And so much of this book reminds-- me this is my second J Ryan Stradal reference, but this book definitely reminds me of Kitchens of the Great Midwest, Lager Queen of Minnesota, of all those great J Ryan Stradal books. It's not as sad as those books. This is a lighter version. But the things that Jay Ryan Stradal is doing for Midwestern storytelling, I think Jeff Zentner is doing for southern storytelling. This book feels super familiar if you're a southern reader. When I finished this book, I went to see if this book had been reviewed anywhere yet, and I think all I really found was Goodreads reviews. But it was interesting to me because the book obviously deals a lot with gun control, at least in part, because that is what kind of leads to Colton's downfall. It's his opinions on guns and gun control. Jeff Zentner talks about how Colton Gentry also has hunted and has been a hunter. And one of the Goodreads reviewers was, I think, really bothered by that. And I was a little bit shocked at seeing that review because in the South, that is such a part of the culture here. I have never hunted in my life. Jordan has never hunted in his life, but we are outliers. Like, that is pretty unusual. Lots of people we love hunt.
[00:38:48] It is very much a part of the air you breathe here in the South. And you can, definitely, believe in gun control and in protecting the American citizenry and also hunt. Like that is possible. And I just thought it was interesting. Jeff Zentner is definitely writing about a South I know, which is not always the case. I feel like sometimes I read southern books and I'm like, I don't live there. That doesn't make sense. But this very much felt about a story about the South we know. Mostly this book reminded me of Shotgun Lovesongs, which is a great backlist title by Nicholas Butler. If you've never read it, I think this is a really fun book. It deals with some heavier things: grief, loss of a friend, loss of a career. But it's also dealing with hope and redemption and second chances. I think my mom would really like this book. If you're a PG reader, if you're a Susie or Nancy reader, I think you'd love this book. I liked it a lot. I think it'll be an easy, easy handsell. It releases on April 30th as well.
[00:39:46] Last but not least, I'm going to close out with two books that I'm still listening to as of this recording, so I have no doubt that I'm going to finish them both before the month is out, but I'm not quite done with them yet, but I wanted to mention them in this episode. So I am listening to Run Towards the Danger. This is a memoir by Sarah Polley. If you follow me on Instagram, you know that this month one of the things I did for Galentine's Day was I had a couple of my friends over, and we watched the 1985 Megan Follows edition of Anne of Green Gables, which what a delight. I had not seen those movies in more than a decade. I loved them. I borrowed DVDs from my friend, but I'm buying my own because I love them so much. I loved them growing up. My mom and I love those stories. I love the books. I've read all the Anne of Green Gables books, right on down to Rilla of Ingleside. I've read them all, but I loved that movie adaptation and it was such a joy to experience those again. But while I was with my friends, I asked them. I said, "Did you guys ever watch the show? I think it was called Avonlea." I couldn't really remember the name of it, but I was like, it had to do with Avonlea. Did you guys ever watch that? It was on the Disney Channel. And they were not familiar. So I immediately did what all Enneagram Fives and probably other people do, which is I went down a Google rabbit hole, and I found out that in Canada it was called Road to Avonlea. I think in America it was just called Avonlea. And sure enough here in America it was on the Disney Channel.
[00:41:12] And part of the reason I have fond memories of this was we did not have the Disney Channel growing up, but my grandparents did. Isn't that always the way? The reason my grandparents did is because my Aunt Nina lived with them and Aunt Nina had all the cool stuff. She had all the Disney movies on VHS. And she had the Disney Channel for us. Aunt Nina is the best. You hear me reference her sometimes on the show. She's my 83-year-old aunt who is just a huge inspiration to me. She's an educator. And so, anyway, Nina got us Disney Channel at my grandparents house, and that is where I saw Avonlea. And Sarah Polley played, I believe, a character named Sarah Stanley. And I'm discovering this all while googling. And lo and behold, I'm like, why is Sarah Polley's name familiar? Well, Sarah Polley name is familiar because she is an Oscar nominated screenwriter for the movie Women Talking. And I think if you're a Canadian podcast listener, you are probably yelling at me right now because I think Sarah Polley is a pretty prominent Canadian. And certainly I was familiar with her but didn't know it. I had never put together that this girl who played Sarah Stanley is now a woman, still working in film, and still creating. And so, anyway, I post all this to Instagram and the number of DMs I received-- I don't get a ton of DMs all the time. But about certain things I post, certain things resonate. This was one of them, and the number of DMs I received not only about Road to Avonlea but about Sarah Polly's memoir was shocking. So I immediately downloaded the audiobook from Libro fm. It's called Run Towards the Danger. So I'm listening to it right now, and it is her memoir. And I'm here to tell you that if you read Jenette Mccurdy's, I'm Glad My Mom Died, you need to read this book. That is the best comp I can give right now. I'm sure as I keep listening, more comments might come to mind.
[00:43:05] But the whole time I've been listening, I've been thinking, oh, this is so much about child stardom. I think we can all agree that if we've read those books or books like them, or just if you're a millennial who knows about Lindsay Lohan and Amanda Bynes, I think we all have questions about childhood stardom and what it can do. Not everybody winds up Ryan Gosling, you know? And so, anyway, if you have questions about that, if you want to read a book that deals heavily with the MeToo movement, with wrongful treatment of children and of women-- I will also say she's the narrator. She's fantastic. Which shouldn't, I guess, be too much of a surprise. She's a fantastic audiobook narrator. This book is a gut punch. The writing is stellar. The writing is good. Which somebody in my DMs told me the writing was so good. Maybe it was Sarah from Fiction Matters, I cannot remember. Anyway, I want to say thank you much like I thank you Jennifer for the best of everything. I want to thank all of you who DM'd me and who told me to read Run Towards the Danger because it is outstanding. And if you are an American like me and maybe Sarah Polley only exist on the periphery of your brains, maybe you saw this book come out (because I definitely saw this book come out) but you didn't think much of it, you didn't just think about it, maybe you weren't familiar with Sarah Polley, well, I'm just here to tell you it's worth your time. So that's Run Towards the Danger by Sarah Polley.
[00:44:24] And then the last book, the other book that I'm listening to this month, I just don't know if I'm going to finish it this month. I think I might take it through Lent with me. It's Mostly What God Does. And this is by Savannah Guthrie. I love Savannah Guthrie. You've heard me talk about how I think I could be Jenna Bush Hager's friend, but really I'm probably more of a Barbara. Barbara the twin, not Barbara married to George HW. Although, who's to say? But, anyway, I really do think because Savannah and Jenna are friends, Savannah, if you're listening, I think we could be friends. I think we'd really enjoy one another. So Savannah Guthrie has written a book. She is the co-host of the Today Show. I have always liked Savannah Guthrie. I've always liked her on-air persona. I think she's a professional, and I think she's really good at what she does. But I also found it fascinating when I heard that she had written a book or was publishing a book. I thought it was really interesting that it wasn't going to be a journalistic memoir or kind of a career retrospective. Instead, it was going to be a book about faith. Which I knew Savannah Guthrie was a Christian, weirdly discovered it during the pandemic when Jordan and I were watching church on zoom or on YouTube, whatever. And we were watching Good Shepherd church out of New York. I don't know how, maybe through [inaudible, I came across that church. I had been following them on Instagram, and so when the pandemic happened, we would watch our regular church service but then occasionally I would also watch Good Shepherd. And lo and behold, when Watching Good Shepherd and who does the scripture reading but Savannah Guthrie. I am sure that I audibly gasped in our living room.
[00:46:00] So I knew Savannah was a practicing Christian, a person of faith. But I was surprised that this would be the format in which she would choose to write her first adult book. So Mostly What God does is a tender, sweet book about personal faith, particularly about personal Christian faith. And I'm really loving it. I told Jordan I've been utterly surprised by it. I'm not sure I would have picked it up were it not for the fact that Savannah Guthrie wrote it. It's just a really earnest book. And I read a lot of books that are, critical, that are smart and wise. I don't always read books that are sweet and tender. And by the way, books that are sweet and tender can also be wise. I'm saying that for myself as well. But, anyway, I have been really surprised by this because it's pretty much a straightforward, like, essay collection about personal faith. My mom would love this. And I'm not sure I would have read it were it not for Savannah. She narrates it. She narrates the audiobook. I'm choosing to listen to it. And here's what I'll say. I think you can buy the print version of this, but in the audiobook version, one of the things I'm loving is she specifically says at the beginning of this book that she did not read this book to be read straight through. She wrote it so that you could read it one essay or piece at a time, and she wants you to think about it. She talks a lot about how she's not sure we experience rest and silence and quiet enough. And so in the audiobook-- I just adore this. In the audiobook, she'll read one of her essays and then she'll say, "Thirty seconds starting now," and then she leaves you with 30s of silence and maybe some nature sounds in the background.
[00:47:53] I have found it to be so restorative. I cannot tell you how pleasant of a reading experience this has been to actually have somebody tell me here's 30s of silence, starting now. I mean, it's really a gift. It's really a gift. So if you are a Christian reader, or if you have been a fan of Savannah Guthrie's and you're wondering what this is all about, certainly there are personal aspects of her own faith story here, but she makes it very clear from the beginning that this is not a memoir. She's not going to give a ton of dirty details about her life or about her work. She does reference her life and work her children, her professional life, her marriage. She references all of those things. But that is not the point of the book. And so I was just so intrigued by this career move by her. And I have found the audiobook experience to be really wonderful especially in this season of lent. It's been a fun book to be reading. A really thoughtful, lovely book to be reading.
[00:48:54] So those are the books that I read and am reading in February. As usual with our Reading Recap episodes, we are offering a reading Recap bundle for the month of February. Our February Reading Recap bundle is $68 and it includes Kaveh Akbar's Martyr, Dolly Alderton's Good Material, and then Rona Jaffe's The Best of Everything. I picked those three books because I think those are three books that you'll really enjoy in print format. Some of the other books we talked about today, I think you might like the audiobook versions instead. And then obviously I didn't want to include any ARC. So that's Martyr, Good Material, and the Best of Everything. Two hardbacks and a paperback. You can find more details and the entire bundle online through the link in our show notes, or just go to Bookshelfthomasville.com and type today's episode number, that's 461, into the search bar.
[00:49:44] This week I'm listening to Run Towards the Danger by Sarah Polley.
[00:51:23] 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:
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Our Executive Producers of today’s episode are…
Cammy Tidwell, Linda Lee Drozt, Martha, Stephanie Dean, Ashley Ferrell, Jennifer Bannerton
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