Episode 549 || October 2025 New Release Rundown

This week on From the Front Porch, it’s another New Release Rundown! Annie and Erin share the October 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 (search episode 549) or download and shop on The Bookshelf’s official app:

Annie's books:

A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar (10/14)
Same: Poems by Hannah Rosenberg (10/21)
Wreck by Catherine Newman (10/28)

Erin's books:

Bog Queen by Anna North (10/14)
Pride and Pleasure by Amanda Vaill (10/21)
The Devil is a Southpaw by Brandon Hobson (10/28)

Thank you to this week’s sponsor, Discover Thomasville. Gracefully tucked within the storied Red Hills of South Georgia, Thomasville curates a distinguished Downtown experience that meanders along several blocks of our iconic red brick streets. Here, bespoke boutiques, master craftsmen, coveted antique art purveyors, and celebrated culinary artisans converge in harmony with the cultural richness of the Pebble Hill Plantation art tour and the tranquil allure of Birdsong Nature Center. Here, you Discover the Soul of the South. Here, you Discover Thomasville. Learn more by visiting thomasvillega.com/news.

From the Front Porch is a weekly podcast production of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in South Georgia. You can follow The Bookshelf’s daily happenings on Instagram, Tiktok, and Facebook, and all the books from today’s episode can be purchased online through our store website, www.bookshelfthomasville.com. 

A full transcript of today’s episode can be found below.

Special thanks to Dylan and his team at Studio D Podcast Production for sound and editing and for our theme music, which sets the perfect warm and friendly tone for our Thursday conversations. 

This week, Annie is reading A Guardian and A Thief by Megha Mujumdar.  Erin is listening to The Island of Last Things by Emma Sloley.

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...Beth, Stephanie Dean, Linda Lee Drozt, Ashley Ferrell, Wendi Jenkins, Martha, Nicole Marsee, Gene Queens, Cammy Tidwell, Jammie Treadwell, and Amanda Whigham.

Transcript:

Annie Jones [00:00:01] Welcome to From the Front Porch, a conversational podcast about books, small business, and life in the South.  

My life is filled with the souls of women I love, the ones who make my belly ache from laughter, the ones that catch my tears, who show up on my doorstep to celebrate and grieve, who stand up for me when I put myself down. Women who will love my children, dance as we age, protect my secrets, share in my joy, sing even when we're sinking in sorrow. They walk close, promising their lives to me. A marriage without a wedding, a commitment without a ring. If you have these women, remember, the soulmate is a wonderful thought, but look at how beautiful these love stories are. Look how they make you full.  Hannah Rosenberg, Marriage of Friends, Same.  

[00:01:17] I'm Annie Jones, owner of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in beautiful downtown Thomasville, Georgia. Today, I'm joined by The Bookshelf's online sales manager, Erin, to give you a rundown of our favorite new books releasing in October. If you are 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 your friends, you are helping keep our indie bookstore in business. And if you like what you hear, one way you can financially support us is through Patreon. Last year, you might know, we read the classic American novel, Lonesome Dove, with over 1,000 Patreon supporters. And this year, we have been reading the very different Don Quixote. We are going to be so pleased and proud of ourselves to conquer that classic. And we are getting ready to officially announce our plan for 2026. Hunter and I are pumped.  

[00:02:12] For $5 a month, you can access our monthly Conquer a Classic recaps, including old episodes, if you're choosing to read previous books we've discussed, as well as our monthly live Q&A porch visits, 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 various Patreon tiers and benefits, you can visit patreon.com forward/fromthefrontporch. I'm going to go off script here and just tell you that our plan for 2026 I'm finally so excited about. 2025 has been a weird year on Patreon because of babies. And so, 2026 promises to be a little more organized and I am very excited. Now, back to the show. Hi, Erin.  

Erin [00:02:57] Hi, Annie.  

Annie [00:02:59] I feel like I should tell people because now I honestly cannot remember if in September reading rundown I promised people the voice of Olivia would be back in October and I just don't want people to panic.  

Erin [00:03:10] We left it open-ended, I think.  

Annie [00:03:12] Okay. I just don't want people to panic that she is not here, but she has started back as of this recording, part-time at the Bookshelf after welcoming her new baby boy. And so, she will be back on this podcast in November. So nobody panic.  

Erin [00:03:27] Yay! I think she was ready for today, but just schedule-wise, it just didn't work out. But she's ready to be back.  

Annie [00:03:32] Yeah, she's ready to be back, but she did tell me yesterday she had 900 emails, I think, in her inbox. And so, this is when you come back from maternity leave, vacation, whatever, you just needed some time to reacclimate. And so I asked her about podcasting and she was like I can, I'm ready but also... And I looked at her and I was like it's fine. It's fine. Technically, she was not even coming back until October. So it'll be okay, and it'll give her time to check her email.  

Erin [00:04:02] It's like when those astronauts when they return to Earth, they kind of keep them in quarantine for a while till they feel ready to go back out. I feel like that's what she's going through right now.  

Annie [00:04:11] That's exactly right. She would love that analogy too, very appropriate. So each of us have three books we want to talk to you about for October. You can keep in mind, as usual, that Erin has made browsing our podcast book selections super easy. So you can go to bookshelfthomasville.com, type today's episode number, that's 549, guys, 549.  

Erin [00:04:33] Amazing.  

Annie [00:04:34] Wild. You can type that into the search bar and you'll see all of today's books listed there ready for you to pre-order or purchase. Then you can use the code New Release Please at checkout to get 10% off your order of any of today's books. Okay, are you ready, Erin?  

Erin [00:04:49] I am so ready.  

Annie [00:04:51] Okay, so the first book I want to talk about is on my personal highly anticipated books for fall, and that is A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar. This releases on October 14th. I'm excited about this one because--I scrolled back through Instagram, which, wow, what a journey. I don't know if you've done that lately, but I scrolled back to the year 2020 to find my review of A Burning, which was Megha Majumdar first book.  

Erin [00:05:23] Yeah, I loved it.  

Annie [00:05:25] Did you read that one?  

Erin [00:05:26] I did.  

Annie [00:05:27] I loved that book so much. Actually, I featured this new book, A Guardian and a Thief, during the Fall Literary First Look. But one of my favorite descriptors of Megha Majumdar is I think Kirkus or somebody called her the master of the moral dilemma, which was certainly true of A Burning, and I think it's going to be true of this book. I loved A Burning, but it did release at peak 2020.  

Erin [00:05:52] Can't even remember.  

Annie [00:05:52] I remember finishing it and the store was dark and empty. And I sat in the floor in the front of the register and cried because the book was so beautiful, but also there was a lot going on in 2020. And here we are, and there's a lot going on in the world now. And so maybe this book will meet me where I am again. So A Guardian and a Thief is climate fiction, which we've seen a lot of this year. It is set in a near future Kolkata over the course of seven days, which I always really like. It's almost like a bottle episode of TV when you get Three Days in June or set over the of the year like The Academy or something like that. So this is set over seven days in Kolkata. Our main character is Ma. She is a caregiver who currently runs a shelter in Kolkata and her partner lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. And Ma, her goal is to take I believe it's like her parent, her aging parent, and then a toddler, her toddler, she wants to move to Ann Arbor. And to do that she has to get like some kind of climate refugee passport. And so she finally has secured these passports so that they can move to Ann Arbor. One night she wakes up and turns out someone has broken into her home and is stealing her passport.  

Erin [00:07:18] Oh no.  

Annie [00:07:19] And we discover that young man he's like a young teenager, his name is Boomba. And he has stolen her passports, but also Boomba has made a discovery, which is that Ma is not perhaps as angelic or as maybe upstanding as she first appears. Turns out maybe she's stealing from the shelter she helps run in order to have food and to feed her family. So the guardian and the thief are, I believe, Ma and Boomba respectively. And I think what is going to happen is that the guardian isn't quite what she seems and the thief isn't what he seems. I have started this book and I am loving it. I am mad because I'm reading it on my Kindle. And if any publishers are listening to this, booksellers do still love physical ARCs. I went on a little rant in an episode I just recorded because sometimes I'm realizing the clutch hold, is that the right word? The deep hold that Amazon has on every aspect of this industry and the fact that I can read ARCs more quickly, electronically on an Amazon owned device is infuriating to me.  

Erin [00:08:33] Yes. It feels like you are at the mercy of someone else.  

Annie [00:08:37] Yes, and I totally appreciate the convenience of it. I've been very grateful for it the last year to be able to read this way. It's not my preference, but I can do it. And it certainly helps me do my job better, but I am frustrated. So I'm reading this on my Kindle. I'm really liking it. One of the things that I think is helpful to know about this book is it's relatively short. And at least the publisher's blurb-- I say it's a relatively short, again, I'm reading it on my kindle, but based on the percentages I'm seeing, it's relatively short. And the publisher blurb talks about it being able to be read in one or two sittings. And so even though this is a book that maybe covers some heavier territory, I don't think you're going to get bogged down in it. And I don't think it's going to be too heavy in terms of page count. It might be heavy in terms of content, but I don't think you'll get stuck there. So that is A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar, releases on October 14th. One of my highly anticipated books. It also has a beautiful cover. So if you're the kind of person who judges books by their cover-- and I think that is totally okay and very normal-- then this one might be one you want to add to your list.  

Erin [00:09:41] It's beautiful. I love the cover. It's simple, but it's also striking.  

Annie [00:09:46] I actually was thinking about because I've been reading A Life and Death and Giant,. I think it's going to be five stars for me. I love it so much. But the cover of that book feels very autumnal and I've being paying attention and A Guardian and a Thief feels like a very autumnal. I'm just picturing what you could put on a shelf.  

Erin [00:10:05] You're going to come in and make some in-caps soon. This is what I'm hearing.  

Annie [00:10:08] Yeah, for our fall party. Yeah, that's what I was thinking.  

Erin [00:10:11] Okay, well, my first book is called Bog Queen. It's by Anna North. It comes out October 14th. I don't know about you, but I've seen this everywhere. I feel like it's just I don't know what it is. And full disclosure, I have not read this book yet, but I have the ALC, the audio copy, which I hope to start listening to on an upcoming road trip. The author previously wrote a book called Outlawed, which when I looked up the cover I was like I definitely remember this book. It's like pinks and blues and yellows and there's a cowboy. It was a Western that turned everything on its head in a Reese's book back in it was probably like 2022, 2023. So she is back with this tale, completely different, but this is the tale of Agnes. She's a forensic anthropologist, which is just one of those jobs that I feel like I don't know anyone that actually has that job. Somebody out there has that job. It feels like a job you think that you would like to do when you're like 12 or something. No offense to anyone who's an-- I don't know if it's an actual job. Anyway, moving on. But she's called in to examine this body that's been found in a bog, hence the name.  

[00:11:21] It's believed to be a murder victim from maybe the sixties. But as Agnes starts to investigate and do her very important job, she realizes that this body is older than anybody she's ever seen, like very old. And so as she starts to try to do her examination, she's caught up in this red tape of all the parties who have an interest in this body. Like the family of the victim who they believe was the murder victim. It turns out not to be her, but the family's invested. There are government agencies that are invested. There are climate people that are invest. So she's just trying to do her job and she is under a lot of pressure and stress in trying to find out who it is. And that's the first part of the book. And it turns out there's a second part of this book that is from the point of view of this Celtic priest in ancient Europe and her name is the Druid of Berida. And it starts to tell her story. This is at the beginning of like the Roman Empire, like when the Roman empire starts to expand all over the world. And so her story is part of the book as well. And as you can probably tell, this lady is the person that they find. So it's an ancient, but the bog itself is also a character. Like the bog speaks, the bog observes.  

Annie [00:12:44] This is where I saw this and I thought, this is an Erin book I think.  

Erin [00:12:48] You know me. But I think that's beautiful that it's present for eons of time. It gets to observe human behavior and think about all the things that have happened there during just over thousands of years. So I'm excited to read this one. I feel like it's going to be everywhere. Again, great cover. It's like a very verdant covers, got green and plants and all that kind of stuff all over it. So it's really exciting to me. If you read this book before me, which you might, it comes out October 14th. If anyone listening reads this book before me please let me know what you think about it. Because I'm curious to see how people enjoy that sort of dual POV, that dual timeline. It's called Bog Queen by Anna North, comes out on October 14.  

Annie [00:13:36] Part of our job as booksellers, I feel like, or maybe it's just naturally how some of our brains work, but when I read a book description, I'm like what book would that sit on the shelf with? Not necessarily literally like the same genre, but what book will it be in conversation with? And one of the books that I feel like still lives in my brain is another book that I read during the pandemic, which was We Keep the Dead Close. And it was non-fiction and it was dual timeline. But it was a kind of a true crime murder mystery story about a camp that like that happened, I think at Yale, if I'm not mistaken. But then it also dealt with this archeological dig kind of thing. And so anytime a book kind of delves into that maybe archeological aspect, We Keep the Dead Close like comes to mind.  

Erin [00:14:24] Pops up, yeah.  

Annie [00:14:25] And so there's a world in which I feel like Bog Queen is kind of like cousins, literary cousins with We Keep the Dead Close.  

Erin [00:14:33] Yes. Keila has listened to this, I guess, already. And she says she thought it would be a great Nancy book. So if you read like Nancy, you might enjoy this book when it comes out.  

Annie [00:14:42] That's a good note. The cover really is great, too. Okay, my next one is very different. It is Same by Hannah Rosenberg. It's the book that I pulled the quote from at the top of the episode. Whenever we do a poetry book, I like to try to read a poem from that book. If you are a fan of A Bit Much or Kate Baer, Kate Baer also has a new collection coming out next month. We continue to do really well with Kate Baer's poetry at The Bookshelf: What Kind of Woman, And Yet. So she has a book coming out in November, but it's especially hard, I feel like, to break into the world of poetry as a debut poet. So Same by Hannah Rosenberg is a debut collection, releases on October 21st. And Hannah, I have seen, and I bet a lot of you have too, you've probably seen Hannah's poetry like be re-shared to an Instagram story or something like that. Her Instagram handle is @hannahrowrites, which we'll put in the show notes because this is an example of you should go to Hannah's Instagram, see what you think. She has a lot of her work available on her Instagram account, so you can see what kind of poetry she writes. My favorites of hers are like every month she writes a poem about that month. So like if September were your friend, and then she talks...  

Erin [00:16:00] I've seen those. Yes.  

Annie [00:16:01] Yeah. So that's Hannah. So if September where your friend she would... And it's just this beautiful imagery. These months were your friends. So this is her debut poetry collection. She's posted a lot of excerpts of it online already. Every holiday season I feel like I try to recommend a poetry collection or something that you could gift your girlfriends, the people who you need stocking stuffers for, or maybe even teacher gifts or something like that. And I think this is one you should share with friends and family this holiday season. Believe it or not, it is time to start thinking about that. At least if you're a bookseller.  

Erin [00:16:37] We are.  

Annie [00:16:37] Yeah, at least if your us. And so this looks like a very giftable book, perfect little hostess gift. I love gifting poetry because I feel like a lot of people are intimidated by poetry on their own. But if they have a book just sitting on their nightstand or sitting on the coffee table, pick it up, flip through it, read a poem or two. I've even started to think because my mornings are starting far earlier than they used to start, I've wondered if it would be nice for me to read a poem each morning or something like that to start my day. So I'm tempted with this one as well. So this is a poetry collection. It is called Same by Hannah Rosenberg. You can already find excerpts from it on her Instagram handle. On her Instagram account, her handle is @hannahrowrites. This releases October 21st, perfect for fans of Lindsay Rush, Kate Baer. These women are making, I think, poetry a little bit more accessible. If you liked the recent Poetry is Not a Luxury collection, this could be a great follow up for you.  

Erin [00:17:36] I feel like poetry has definitely expanded and thrived these past and definitely become more accessible to every woman, every man. I've read more poetry in the past three years, I think, than I have my entire life, school accepted, but.  

Annie [00:17:54] I am probably, just like everybody else, struggling with social media and how much time I spend there, what my feed is filled with. But one real perk of Instagram or the internet, the meta of it all, notwithstanding, one perk I do think is poetry, thanks to accounts posting, even poetry from long ago, or writers posting their current poetry, it's just right there you don't have to go anywhere else for it. So you can just kind of stumble upon it. Yeah, its discoverability is probably at its peak. If I had to guess. And so I'm happy for debut poets like Hannah, who get book deals and who are able to put books into the world because people have discovered her work online.  

Erin [00:18:42] Yes, it brings me a lot of joy to read little poems or like little Advent gifts you can open up every day.  

Annie [00:18:48] Yes, that's right.  

Erin [00:18:50] Okay, my second book is called Pride and Pleasure by Amanda Vaill. It comes out October 21st. I was originally attracted to this because it is about the Schuyler sisters. It's about Eliza and about Angelica. And if you like me have seen Hamilton live, watched the movie on Disney Plus, paid money to go watch that same movie in the theaters when it came out a few weeks ago.  

Annie [00:19:14] Did you go do that? Jordan and I wanted to and now childcare is the thing we have to care about.  

Erin [00:19:18] Yeah, seriously. It's a problem. But if you are really enmeshed in that world, as I am, and if your love of these historical figures started with Hamilton, I think you will find this a great read. It opens with a little bit of, which I loved, a little bit of background about the Schuyler family. This is a nonfiction book. It's all pulled from history and letters and things like that. This was like a country before we even fought the war for independence from Britain. So this is like people are still just coming over from Britain and there's just vast land that people are buying up, I mean, millions of acres of land. And so these families, these large families are starting to become very, very, rich. And the Schuyler family is one of those families. And so that was fascinating to me. Again, I haven't finished this, but I am reading it. But what follows is just chapter after chapter of information. But for me it's so readable. It's like, oh, I got to find out what happens. It's not stuffy. It doesn't feel academic, although it's very well researched. It is 720 pages, but hear me out. I've been told that like a good portion of those pages are notes, like footnotes, research notes and things like that. So don't let that page count scare you if you're interested in this. Alexander Hamilton. He is a character, obviously, in this story. It's about Eliza, it's about Angelica, and about Peggy too. Let's not forget about Peggy.  

Annie [00:20:53] Never forget Peggy.  

Erin [00:20:55] And Peggy. I love how it shows how their stories are woven into what was happening in this country during that time and how influential. Women had no right to vote. They basically didn't have rights to maybe even choose who they wanted to marry sometimes, but it just shows how much impact women had and still have to this day I think on things that were happening in that country. They were able to influence it by influencing the men that were making the decisions. And so the subtitle of this book is The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution, which I think is fitting because it's showing how their story fits into the whole story of the US as a whole. But I am excited to finish this. Again, I'm reading it on my Kindle. So that percentage is not going very far for this page, but it's okay. I'm going to finish this one. It's called Pride and Pleasure by Amanda Vaill, comes out October 21st.  

Annie [00:21:53] I saw this one in the publisher catalog. And after Hamilton came out-- because publishing is a little bit lagging as an industry.  

Erin [00:22:01] It's behind the times, yeah.  

Annie [00:22:03] And so after Hamilton come out, there were a ton of fictional retellings or romance novels or young adult novels devoted to the Hamilton story and to Angelica and Eliza, but I think it's been a minute since we've gotten a historical non-fiction narrative. And so I saw this and was so curious about it, particularly because I love Hamilton. That is not an unpopular opinion. I don't think the pendulum has swung. We're not hating Hamilton, right?  

Erin [00:22:34] I hope not.  

Annie [00:22:35] I think we still like Hamilton. But I think what's one of the compelling parts about Hamilton is at the end you learn how much Eliza did. And so, I finished that play or I finished watching that production and immediately wanted to know, well, what about Eliza? I want to know more about Eliza. And so I like that this might provide that deep dive that the Chair Now book did for Hamilton. Now, The Schuyler Sisters, written by a woman, no less, which I love, a woman historian. We love a woman historian. And so, I like that we're getting a woman's perspective on The Schyler Sisters.  

Erin [00:23:12] Yeah, I'm thrilled.  

Annie [00:23:14] My final book is Wreck. This is by Catherine Newman. This is also on Annie's highly anticipated books list for the fall. I loved Sandwich, which came out last summer. Sandwich was very important to me. It is a beautiful, funny, fictional work about this functional, dysfunctional family who I just fell in love with. And Sandwich is the summer book. It was set off the coast of Massachusetts. So it had all these things I really liked like this family home that the family rents every summer, set over the course of one week. Now, Catherine Newman has written a follow-up. It is called Wreck. And it is the autumn story of this family. So if you've ever wondered what a family might act like when they're not on vacation, I think this will feel perhaps even more realistic than the summer story. The publisher is saying that these read as standalone novels. And although I do believe that that is probably true, that you could probably read this as a standalone, I would advocate that you read Sandwich first. And I don't think Sandwich is something that you have to strictly read during the summer. I think you could read it right now and really enjoy it. But this is a book just like Catherine Newman's other works, if you did not read Sandwich, or if Sandwich was not for you, which I know there were some readers who it was not for, she also wrote We All Want Impossible Things, which was really a really good book about adult female friendship, navigating grief and loss and illness. I also really loved that book.  

[00:24:54] I think I just really liked Catherine Newman. She was interviewed on the Cup of Joe blog a few years ago. And I've really been paying attention to her work ever since. So if you're not familiar with Sandwich, the main character of that story is Rocky. She is in that middle generation, the Sandwich generation, if you will, that's where the book gets its title, where her parents are aging, she's caring for them, but her family isn't quite done growing up. And so she's still raising her adult children. So she's in this kind of in-between. And her family vacations on Cape Cod every year, that is Sandwich. Now we as readers get to them two years later, and we get to find out what happened to them. What happened to her adult kids, what happened to parents, her marriage. So this is set in Western Massachusetts. Rocky is still exactly who she's always been. She's a little bit anxious, a little neurotic, very nostalgic. Her daughter Willa is living back with the family after college. Their son Jamie lives with his family in New York. And then Mort, Rocky's father, comes to live with them. So it's all very normal. Typical of the story a lot of us either are living or will be living in a few years. But then Rocky becomes obsessed with a local car accident or a local accident that only really barely affects them, like affects her family.  

[00:26:18] But I think if you live in a small community, you know how a new story or even only something that barely affects you actually can kind of upend your life or the life of your neighbors. And so Rocky becomes obsessed with this and then perhaps a medical condition. I have not read this yet, but I will obviously be reading it. I love Rocky and her family. Her neuroses is relatable and funny and humorous. And yet I remember Sandwich is a book that I also read on my Kindle. And now I'm thinking, oh gosh, I really need a physical copy because I underlined so much in that book. The writing is just stellar. And so if you want excellent writing, but you also want a compelling story about a family, then I think you will really like Wreck. I think should read Sandwich first. I think if you are not sure if you like Catherine Newman, if you liked Danny Shapiro, I think you will like Catherine Newman. That would be my comp for you. So really looking forward to this one. And I think I said this the other day about the Elen Hilderbrand's The Academy that's like a duology. I'm not a series reader. I think it's a time issue. I don't actually have time to devote to a seven book series or something like that. But I do love the Elizabeth Strout universe that she has created. And I really like the universe Catherine Newman has created, so I'm excited to dive back into this family. That is Wreck by Catherine Newman, releases on October 28th.  

Erin [00:27:48] Have you heard any buzz that she might write a winter version and then like a spring version? I am so curious. 

Annie [00:27:57] I don't know. I would love if she did.  

Erin [00:28:00] Yeah, that's really, really smart I think. If it's not broke, just keep writing about it.  

Annie [00:28:03] Yes. Keep writing about this family. But getting to see them in different seasons of their life and then in different-- family vacation can be fraught. Don't get me wrong. But the vacation versions of ourselves, if they aren't different, we want them to feel different. It's like when I go on vacation, I want to be like the craziest version of myself, the most Ringo version of myself. And then fall hits and I still want to be easy breezy. And then I look at my calendar and I'm like, well, that's impossible. And so I'm anxious to see if Rocky feels the same way.  

Erin [00:28:41] I would love to see if she ends up writing a winter and a spring, like see them all together on a shelf. I don't know what the spines if you can tell, but I think that'd be pretty if they were all together and it's seasonal.  

Annie [00:28:51] Erin, you should pitch that.  

Erin [00:28:53] All right, well. Catherine, if you're listening.  

Annie [00:28:56] Have I got an idea for you.  

Erin [00:28:58] I'm sure she's already thought of that. Okay, my last book is called The Devil is a Southpaw by Brandon Hobson. Comes out October 28th. I have not read this one yet, but the cover I saw it when I was putting the books on the website for the Fall Literary First Look. And I was like, well, this sounds like something I might enjoy reading and someone out there might enjoy reading it too. So this is a very interesting book. It is a novel within a novel. So maybe if I just said that and that piqued your interest, that's for you. Maybe if I said that and you were like, no, thank you. That's not for me. But it is a novel within a novel. It is I think based on what I know about the author, what I found out about him. It feels like it might be slightly autobiographical fiction like just slightly. The author himself is a member of the Cherokee Nation. A lot of his previous books have dealt with problems of the Cherokee Nation, problems happening within the Cherokee Nation. All of his books tend to focus on themes of like injustice and violence and have been set in things like foster homes and foster care.  

[00:30:06] This one is set within a youth detention center. And the novel within a novel is that it's being written by a man named Milton Muleborn, who was an inmate at the same time at this juvenile detention center as a young man named Matthew Okoda. I think that's how you pronounce that. And one of the opening scenes is where Matthew escapes from this prison. And all the inmates are tasked with trying to find him. So that's kind of like where we start, like how did he get out? And then we find out more about Matthew. He's a young man from the Cherokee Nation who is an incredibly talented artist. And so Milton is writing this novel from the future in remembering these times with Matthew and there's jealousy there of Matthew and his talents and maybe even in the fact that he escaped and things like that. Not exactly, but this book gives a little bit because it does deal with art. I think it gives a bit of like My Friends by Fredrik Backman. I think the themes are similar. It's not going to be exactly the same plot wise, but I think themes could be similar. I think Shop Dad may enjoy this. I don't know if he's gotten the arc, but I he might enjoy this. Again, the cover is striking. It's like got like a crow. I feel like it's a crow or some kind of bird.  

Annie [00:31:31] Well, now I'm second guessing myself, but I think when I was doing research for a literary first look, I am pretty sure Brandon Hobson did some of the artwork. I don't know if he did the cover artwork, but he did some original artwork throughout the book because the book is like you said, a book within a book. So there are illustrations and I believe Brandon Hobson did them if I'm not mistaken.  

Erin [00:31:53] I wouldn't put it past him. He seems like an incredibly gifted person.  

Annie [00:31:56] Yes, very talented.  

Erin [00:31:57] So this is coming out October 28th. It's The Devil is a Southpaw by Brandon Hobson.  

Annie [00:32:06] I want to put a plug in here just while we're talking about books by indigenous authors. I went to the Mississippi Book Festival this past weekend and one of the panelists on my memoir panel, the panel that I was invited to participate in, she's an indigenous writer and she has written a book called Soft as Bones, which I was not familiar with, but listeners may have heard of it. But anyway, she was excellent on the panel. And so if you are interested in this Brandon Hobson book, you might also be interested in her book. Which is out in paperback. It is called Soft as Bones, also has a striking cover. It's a memoir about how her family was affected by residential schools. She's originally from Canada. And so she talks a little bit about how that experience had a trickledown effect, inherited trauma, things like that. But she was an excellent panelist and I thought, oh, well, this will be a good time to kind of plug her book. So that is Soft as Bones.  

Erin [00:33:01] It's interesting, I just thought about the fact that I talked last month on last month's episode about To the Moon and Back, which featured a heavily-- I mean, that book is primarily about the main character is a Cherokee Indian and I was like, whoa, look at that. I'm so glad that these stories are being told and by people who have lived it themselves.  

Annie [00:33:25] Yes. Excellent. Okay, so those are the books that are releasing this month. Obviously, there are so many more books that are released in October, but Erin and I tried to narrow it down for you to the books that we thought might be most appealing. You can find all of these on our store website. Don't forget to use the code NEWRELEASEPLEASE at checkout to get 10% off your order today. And the episode number for today is 549.  

[00:33:55] This week, what I am reading is brought to you by Discover Thomasville. Gracefully tucked within the storied hills of South Georgia, Thomasville curates a distinguished downtown experience that meanders along several blocks of our iconic red brick streets. Here, you discover the soul of the South. Here, you discover Thomasville. Learn more by visiting thomasvillega.com/news. There is so much going on during the fall season in Thomasville at so many sites around town. I think a lot of people assume that downtown is all Thomasville has to offer, but I'm very pleased to say that there is so much to see beyond the brick streets, including our friends over in Boston, Georgia, where they do an annual Halloween event that is super fun. The distillery in Meg's, Pebble Hill, Birdsong, which I've talked about here before. Locally, the Thomasville Center for the Arts. Their second Saturday events are super fun if you're looking for family-friendly activities. The Thomasville History Center, which is getting ready to do their annual Perlo Dinner, which the staff hates, but I love, Erin's laughing at me, but I love it.  

Erin [00:35:03] I love your love for it.  

Annie [00:35:05] My love for is part of my legacy. So there are all kinds of events happening even beyond The Bookshelf and beyond our friend’s downtown. And I would encourage you to go to thomasvillega.com and find out some things that might pique your interest in our area. So this week, I am reading A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar. Erin, what are you reading?  

Erin [00:35:29] This week, I'm listening to The Island of Last Things by Emma Sloley.  

Annie [00:35:34] Thank you again to our sponsor, Discover Thomasville. Here, you discover the soul of the South. Here, you discover Thomasville. Learn more by visiting thomasvillega.com.news.