Episode 557 || November Reading Recap
This week on From the Front Porch, Annie recaps the books she read and loved in November. You get 10% off your books when you order your November Reading Recap bundle. Each month, we offer a Reading Recap bundle, which features Annie’s favorite books she read that month.
To purchase the books mentioned in this episode, stop by The Bookshelf in Thomasville, visit our website (search episode 557), or download and shop on The Bookshelf’s official app:
This bundle includes
Wreck by Catherine Newman (hardcover)
The Land of Sweet Forever by Harper Lee (hardcover)
Grace and Henry’s Holiday Movie Marathon by Matthew Norman (paperback) (currently backordered)
The Midnight Show by Lee Kelly and Jennifer Thorne
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
Wreck by Catherine Newman
How to Survive in the Woods by Kat Rosenfield
The Land of Sweet Forever by Harper Lee
Grace and Henry’s Holiday Movie Marathon by Matthew Norman
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 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 Upward Bound by Woody Brown.
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:
Welcome to From the Front Porch, a conversational podcast about books, small business, and life in the South.
“How do so many people live to be old? It seems utterly improbable and impossibly lucky.” - Catherine Newman, Wreck
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 November. Before we get started, a thank you to everyone who's been leaving reviews for From the Front Porch. iTunes reviews and ratings are how new listeners can best find out about From the Front Porch, and as a result, find out about our indie bookstore too. Here's a recent review.
A Bright Spot
From the Front Porch is the loveliest podcast. Sign me up to listen about books, but Annie’s delivery is more than that. It's like, well, sitting on the front porch with a good friend sharing your favorite books.
[00:01:14] Thank you so much. That is exactly the spirit I hope we embody here on From the Front Porch. If you have not left a review, 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 Us a Review' and then tell us what you think. Your reviews help us spread the word about not only our podcast, but about our small brick and mortar business too.
[00:01:36] Now, back to the show. Okay. November, I have decided, is my worst reading month. I do not know if the StoryGraph data will reflect that, although I think it will. I went back and looked at last year's November reading recap. I looked at the one before that. And, man, November is just a hard month for me. And I know it is because this is certainly when things pick up at The Bookshelf, not just more customers, more sales, although that is definitely true, but we are cramming a whole lot of events into this last part of the year. We are decorating the store for Christmas, which takes up my weekends. So there's just not a lot of time for reading. And when I am home, I am exhausted. And this year we decided to add a baby. And so it shouldn't come as a surprise to me that my November reading was not great. However, the good news for you is that I did finish some other books in October that I did not talk about on last month's reading recap. So I still have quite a variety of books to review and recap for you. We're going to get started with a book that does not come out until April of 2026 (I know you love it when I do this) The Midnight Show by Lee Kelly and Jennifer Thorne.
[00:02:48] This book is great. You should pre-order it. I adored it. It is Listen for the Lie, meets Daisy Jones and the Six, meets Live from New York. It will get Daisy Jones comps the most, I think. And often I think that comp is incorrect. It's the same thing we've talked about when a publisher says, oh, this is like Fleabag. Or, oh, this writer is like Nora Efron. We're going to talk about that in a minute. This book really is a direct comp, I think to Daisy Jones and the Six. Only instead of the music industry or a musician's life, we are talking about comedians living in New York in the 1970s and 1980s. The character in question is Lillian. She is an up-and-coming comedian. She is one of the most popular members of a show called The Midnight Show. The book is told in oral history format. And basically, it is a group of comedians, writers, talent agents, et cetera, looking back on The Midnight Show and the disappearance of Lillian and what happened in Lillian's career that made her run into some serious trouble. And there's all kinds of to me very accurate portrayals. Now, look, I don't know. I didn't live in New York in the 70s, but I've seen things. I've seen shows. I've read books. It seems like a very accurate portrayal of 1970s and 80s New York, particularly if you are an SNL fan, there are obvious comparisons to Saturday Night Live.
[00:04:17] I kind of wish this book, in fact, had come out this year on the 50th anniversary of Saturday Night Live. I think that would have been fun. But I really, really liked this. The reason I say Listen for the Lie, it is a little bit part mystery because you wonder what happened to Lillian. Did she go missing? Did she take her own life? Did she overdose? Like something like that. And so you, the reader, are wondering what happened to Lillian. That is compelling and certainly keeps you turning the page. But what I found most compelling was the oral history format about comedy in the 70s and 80s. I thought it felt very historically accurate. I loved the format. I loved the storytelling. There's a lot about feminism. And there is a great character who's this older comedian who is looking back on her career. Almost even there are shades of Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry. Certainly the parts where that older female character is kind of looking back on her story. There's an element of that to this. I really like this. I think this could get a lot of buzz; although, when I read this far in advance, I am definitely reading in a vacuum. So I don't know. This could come out and bomb. But I really liked it. I had a great time. It is called The Midnight Show by Lee Kelly and Jennifer Thorne.
[00:05:33] Next up, and I will not talk about this for very long, but I did conquer the classic novel Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. If you have been listening to the podcast, if you've been following along on Instagram, you know that this is the book Hunter and I selected for our Conquer a Classic Project for 2025. It was challenging. This was not my favorite book. I loved the experience of reading it though. This is always a grounding practice. It is certainly a practice in slowing down, in reading slowly, in not binging something. I've talked about almost the spiritual nature of it, but especially this year when my life felt in upheaval it was really nice to in June and July still read Don Quixote and still meet with Hunter and still talk to readers and see your questions. It was something that definitely felt normal when the rest of my life felt a little upside down. And so I think I'll look back on my reading experience with Don Quixote and look back on it and smile, even though the book maybe wasn't my favorite. And I thought a lot and I talked about this more on Patreon through our Conquer a Classic episodes, but probably what was hard for me about this particular book was the vignette nature of it.
[00:06:48] It just felt far more like repetitive short stories, particularly in part one of the book. And also the humor I was anticipating is not the humor I necessarily got. Instead, it was very slapstick. It was three stooges. It was funny, but it wasn't necessarily my humor. My dad loved it. My dad loved it. I suspect Jordan Jones might like it. I think I would have liked it had it been shorter. I think I would have liked it had it been shorter. I did love the Don Quixote Sancho Panza relationship and the character of Sancho Panza I think is pretty interesting. And I'm really glad to have read this. We talk about this a lot in Conquer a Classic when you are reading a work that is this old, that has permeated the culture. Now I see Don Quixote everywhere. There are Don Quixote references everywhere. And I love feeling like I'm in on the joke. Feeling like I get the references. And so I'm glad I read this one. It's interesting that the vignettes didn't necessarily work for me because in 2026, we are conquering the classic Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor. And so we are reading short stories in 2026, which will be a departure but maybe won't feel like one since so much of Don Quixote felt a little bit like reading short stories. I'm very excited. I like Flannery O'Connor a lot and I wanted to do something different because there were times when Don Quixote felt a little bit like a slog. And so I think this will be a nice change of pace, and I am really looking forward to it. But I did in November finish Don Quixote, and I am so proud of myself for doing so.
[00:08:19] While I was wrapping up Don Quixote, perhaps you can tell that I was doing some advanced reading copies. I have been working on spring catalogs. And so as books appeared in the catalog and as I was placing orders, if I did not receive a physical ARC-- I got a physical ARC of the Midnight Show, but other books I read on my Kindle. And so the next one that I read was Yesteryear. This is by Carol Claire Burke. I need to disclose from the very top that I was not aware of who she was. I believe she is a podcaster, an Instagram influencer. She has a presence online. I did not know that. Here's what I knew. When you scroll through an online catalog of books from publishers, there will sometimes be a header image previewing the book. And normally when there's a header image, that means that, for example, the Penguin Random House marketing team or the HarperCollins marketing team, they really are pushing this particular title. It is like a featured title for them. And so I was scrolling through the catalog, and this one had a header. The book, again, is called Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke. It had this header and it had a lot of blurbs already, which also is a good indicator that this is one I should order, should be paying attention to, particularly when the blurbs come from booksellers. Booksellers or librarians for that matter.
[00:09:40] The program that we use for ordering books is used by the industry. So these are to me trusted reviews from fellow people in the book selling and library worlds. This book had so many reviews. Now the publisher blurb is always going to be biased, obviously, but over and over again, it was like this is the debut novel of 2026. This is the book of 2026. And my interest was immediately piqued. So I went and read the description. And this is about a woman named Natalie who is a trad wife influencer. And she wakes up one morning in the 1800s and she is flummoxed, flabbergasted, unsure of what to make of her circumstances. Soon she realizes that she might not be cut out for this life. The book is doing a lot, but the premise I thought was fascinating. I had just read this summer Everyone is Lying to You by Jo Piazza. I do believe we are about to get an insurgence of trad wife novels. This makes sense because publishers are often a year or two behind the times. It's why we got a bunch of Taylor Swift books last year and this year. I know Taylor Swift is always in the zeitgeist, but I think really those books in an ideal world would have come out during the Eras tour, and instead they came out later. So trad wife influencer culture is certainly being talked about.
[00:11:05] And so this novel is part suspense. A lot of people compared it, a lot of booksellers compared it to Gone Girl. And they compared the main character Natalie to Amy Dunn. Like, is she a reliable narrator? You're seeing most of this play out through Natalie's eyes. So it is a thriller. Natalie is trying to figure out if she's being filmed. Has somebody kidnapped her? Maybe she went back in time. Maybe there's a magical realism element. Anyway, it is unfolding, and all while that is unfolding, you're also trying to figure out who Natalie is, how she became a trad wife influencer, what took place in her life that made her take this trajectory. I had high hopes because my expectations were set so high. I don't know if this really is the debut novel of 2026. I do think people will be talking about it. It would not shock me if it became, I would guess, a Reese Witherspoon pick. If we're looking at the celebrity book clubs, she's who I would think might grab this one. Again after reading it, I was not aware of any of the drama. Apparently, there's an Instagram influencer called Ballerina Farms. And I guess maybe this Natalie character is very loosely based or inspired by her. I did not know any of that. So apparently the rights to the book sold at the same time as a film adaptation sold. I think Anne Hathaway is maybe already in talks for it. I think the film will be fascinating.
[00:12:38] I do think there is a way in which this story plays out better on film or on TV than it did in book format. I don't want to spoil anything. So what I will tell you is that I liked this one. I think some readers will love it. I didn't love it, but I was fascinated. I couldn't stop reading. That's what I will say. I could not stop reading. I was fascinated by it. Remember how for two years where the Crawdad Sing was in the zeitgeist? And that was a book I liked, but I didn't love, but a lot of people loved it. It was on the New York Times bestseller list truly for about two years. Not to mention the Thomasville of it all. So I suspect this could be a lot like that where I liked it, I didn't love it. I'm trying to remember how I rated it on my private Instagram. It was probably a three and a half star for me. Liked it. Felt like it was a big page turner. Probably my expectations were way too high. I think some people will love it, and at minimum, I think we'll hear a lot about it just because it certainly is an of the moment kind of book. So this is Yesteryear by Carol Claire Burke. It releases on April 7th, 2026.
[00:13:53] Then I retreated back into current literature and I picked up Wreck by Catherine Newman. This is a book I did not receive an ARC of, so I did not read it earlier this year, and I'm glad because it is very much an autumnal book. It leads up to Thanksgiving. And so it is Catherine Newman's follow-up, by the way, to the book Sandwich. I don't think you have to read Sandwich first. The publisher certainly doesn't think you have to. I think you're benefited though by reading Sandwich first. I also will say if you did not like Sandwich, which released last year, you will not like this. It is about Rocky, who is very much living in that middle space of life where she has adult children, but she also has aging parents. It was set during the summer. It dealt a lot with a family vacation dynamic set over the course of a week. I loved that book. It actually dealt with miscarriage and pregnancy loss in an interesting, I thought, very tender way, and dealt with this mid-phase of life in a really tender way. So I, of course, was going to read Wreck. I did not love Wreck as much as I loved Sandwich. Sandwich for me was a five-star read. This is a solid four. Probably one of the reasons it was a four for me is because I felt like the publisher buried the lead a little bit on what this one is about.
[00:15:08] So Rocky is with her family. The title comes from this car accident that happens in their town. And it becomes something that Rocky and her daughter obsess over. And there's a family connection, but truly, they are just very loosely tied to this accident, but it kind of takes hold in their minds. Really, though, in my mind, if Sandwich was ultimately about yes, family dynamics, but also about midlife and pregnancy loss; I think Wreck is about midlife and aging and the healthcare system. To me, so much of this book was about how Rocky, our main character, navigates the healthcare system when she receives an odd diagnosis. She goes to the dermatologist for their skin rash and they can't quite figure out what's wrong. And so she is hunted to specialist after specialist after specialist. And honestly, I think this is a great look at the American healthcare system. I don't know if that was Catherine Newman's intent; although, the customers I have talked with about this book all agreed we feel like Catherine Newman either has somebody she loves who is grappling with something like this, or maybe she herself has had to navigate the healthcare system because she writes with such knowledge.
[00:16:22] Obviously, she's a fiction writer. Some of this I'm sure can absolutely come from her talented brain and imagination, but it certainly feels like she's writing about something she knows about. I think Catherine Newman is an excellent writer. If she was not done with Rocky and her family, I would be thrilled. I'd be glad to keep reading about this family, her young adult kids, her aging father. I love it all. I really do. One of the descriptors that gets thrown around a lot, like I said, you get a lot of comparisons to Fleabag. You get a lot of Nora Ephron comparisons. Like a lot. And often I am very disappointed. Often I'm very disappointed. I actually think Catherine Newman is perhaps the closest thing we have to a Nora Ephron to a Lori Colwin. And I say this for a couple of reasons. First of all, how she writes about aging, how she writes about the dynamic with her family, but kind of the snark snap wit, and then the food writing. The food writing is so good. And I was reading this book, released in a couple of formats. So it's obviously out in traditional hardback, but it also is in this indie bookstore special edition. You know how sometimes we frequently see this with Barnes and Noble, where a special edition will release with some bonus content. This came with a letter to the reader, but it also came with a bunch of recipes.
[00:17:40] And maybe it's because I read that version that then while I was reading the book, I picked up on just how many food references there are. It could also be because the book is set in the fall. So I was really paying attention to that. I love the food writing. I love the wit. I love how she is trying to navigate her relationships in adulthood. I think her marriage is really lovely to read about, just kind of a midlife marriage. I don't think that gets a lot of play in pop culture. And so I like that Catherine Newman is giving it play. If you liked Sandwich, you will like this. And I personally loved Sandwich and I really liked this. So that is Wreck by Catherine Newman. I don't think it's too late to read it, by the way. I think you could read it as we are in the winter months as well. It's just to me not a summer book. That's what I'll say. So I think you should read it now. She also reminds me of Danny Shapiro. What was that book called? Signal fires. That'd be another great comp. All right.
[00:18:29] Then I picked up the book (and I picked up the physical format of this one) How to Survive in the Woods. This is by Kat Rosenfield. This releases in March 10th, 2026. I just assumed I needed a thriller. I liked Wreck a lot. Yesteryear I kind of was back and forth on. Sometimes when I'm in kind of a readerly slump, I will tell myself I just need to read something quickly. And so I looked through my downloaded books on my Kindle, and there was this book called How to Survive in the Woods. And then I saw that we had an ARC. And my preference is always to read in the physical format. That is always my preference. And so I picked this one up. It is about a woman named Emma Sharp. Well, this one hooked me from the beginning, but basically Emma has just had a mental health crisis. You don't really know why. But she is leaving the hospital and she gets an Uber, and her Uber driver notices immediately the scars on her wrist, the kind of tape around her wrists, and he immediately talks to her about how life is worth living and that he believes she should live. And then fast forward, Emma is in relationship with this man. I think they are engaged, as I recall, but clearly we're talking a Sleeping with the Enemy type situation, if you remember that fantastic film. She is clearly being manipulated, emotionally abused, perhaps occasionally physically abused.
[00:19:57] And so Emma decides to go hiking with her fiancé and then her fiancé’s best friend, who is a woman, and they all three are going to go hiking in the Appalachian Trail. And there is a plot at hand where Emma is finally going to leave her fiancé. This one reminded me of some of the thrillers that Olivia and I read back in 2020. I wish I could name them for you. But Emma was/is the founder of a startup. And so there's a lot about the pressures of the tech industry. And then she's in this terrible but pretty secretively terrible relationship. She's lost a lot of her friendships. She still is struggling with her mental health, though now it is compounded by the fact that she's in this very unhealthy, toxic relationship. So all of that is at stake. But then really what you want to know is who's going to survive the woods. I mean, it's literally in the title. Who who's going to survive in these woods? This book took so many twists and turns I barely could keep them straight. I barely could keep it straight. Was it entertaining? Highly. Was it as good a thriller as, oh, what was that book called? Nightwatching by Tracy Sierra. I think she's got a book coming out next spring. This was not the best thriller I've ever read.
[00:21:19] That being said, I have to give Kat Rosenfield credit because it was topsy turvy, upside down, something happening every moment, whiplash of plot twists. And I was entertained. I was highly entertained. It took me forever to write a review of this book because I wasn't quite sure what to say about it. I would love Olivia's opinion. I don't actually know if it's for her, but I would be curious what an expert thriller reader would say. This reminded me a lot of Heartwood, which that's by Amity Gaige. I preferred that. But I think if you're looking for a propulsive thriller next spring, you can put this one on your list. You'll be entertained, and it probably would make a really entertaining book club book as well simply because of how many twists there are. And you could debate what twists were worth it, which were not. Yeah, I was entertained. Emma is not necessarily a character you fully root for, but at the same time you kind of are because she is clearly wrapped up in this relationship that she can't get out of. I wanted to know what happened to her. I was very invested. If I was not always rooting for her, I was very invested. So that is How to Survive in the Woods by Kat Rosenfield.
[00:22:27] Then again, went back to current reads and picked up The Land of Sweet Forever by Harper Lee. If you did not know, this is a new book of her old works, kind of discovered works, published obviously posthumously. The introduction is by Casey Sepp, who I love. Casey Cep has set herself up as the Harper Lee expert. I believe she's got a biography of Harper Lee in the works, an authorized biography. She wrote the book Furious Hours, which was this investigation, this journalistic nonfiction about Harper Lee's book that she had been working on about this true crime in Alabama but the book had never been published. The book had never been finished for that matter. And so Casey Cep kind of tries to finish it. I loved that book. I loved Furious Hours, and I loved the introduction that Casey Cep wrote for this collection. I think we could always debate. Now, the Harper Lee Estate approved the publication of these works. Its essays and short stories. Is the publisher just trying to make a book? Yes, absolutely, without a doubt. Should these have been written-- have been published? Of course, they should have been written, but should they have been published? I don't know. Here is what I will say. I am in the minority in that when Go Set a Watchman released, well, I was not in the minority about being troubled about the release of it. Very much no one could tell, but we suspected that Harper Lee really did not want that published, but it was published anyway.
[00:23:54] So it felt a little icky, the fact that it was published at all. But I read it in part because I was a brand new baby bookseller and it felt important to read. And also I do love To Kill a Mockingbird. I do. And it is worth being debated and discussed, but I do love it. And I loved Go Set a Watchman. And that was where I was in the minority. A lot of people hated that book, perhaps rightfully. So I loved it because it certainly portrayed a more realistic view, I think, of 1960s Alabama, 1960s the South. Even our beloved Atticus Finch, I felt like he actually was far more accurately portrayed in Go set a Watchman. But I also loved it because notoriously Go Set a Watchmen was essentially a draft version of To Kill a Mockingbird. Like they're the same story, just one is being told through adult scouts' eyes, and one is being told through a young scout's eyes. And my understanding is that Go Set a Watchman was written, an editor took a look at it and kind of told Harper Lee, yes, the bones are here. I would love to see this. The editor was kind of who said, I would love to see this through a younger person's eyes. And so the story became totally different, but the crumbs are there, the seeds are there, you can totally see the foundation of the story.
[00:25:18] That is what reading The Land of Sweet Forever was like. Did I love every story? No. Although, some of them were really funny. Some of them were really funny and good. Again, I don't think all of these needed to be published. I really don't. I think Harper Lee's work shows that she was an excellent writer. I think she was an excellent storyteller. And in these short stories, you can see the foundational work of a writer. It is a work of literary history. And if I were a teacher in high school, like if I were a high school teacher or maybe a college professor, I would say, yeah, we're going to read To Kill a Mockingbird. We're going to read Go Set a Watchman. We're going to read a couple of these short stories, and we're going to talk about how writers become who they are, because there's a way in which we sell To Kill a Mockingbird as if it was this work of genius, kind of this one thing that she created and then she quietly lived as a recluse, which really isn't true. Instead, it weirdly reminds me of Glenn Powell, who when he was doing his SNL opening monolog, he said, "People say I have come out from nowhere, that I'm this all of a sudden star. Now I'm everywhere. Like I'm on your TV, I'm in your movie theater, I'm on commercials, and that I've appeared out of nowhere." And he was like, "I've been acting since I was 11. I've been working really hard since I was 11."
[00:26:45] Harper Lee worked a lot before To Kill a Mockingbird became the sensation that it became. And so I think it's worth talking about these things, reading these things. Was the collection my favorite? No, it wasn't. Did it make me like her less? No, not really. Writers are complicated. Writers are interesting. Did it make me laugh out loud in parts? Yes. And interestingly, some of the parts that made me laugh out loud, I know were in Go Set a Watchman or in To Kill a Mockingbird. Like you just could see her like writing around the thing that she ultimately was meant to write. Does that make sense? Anyway, if you're not a Harper Lee fan, (I'm using ear quotes) you don't need to read this. But if you are a Harper Lee fan, or if you are a Southern reader, if you're a reader of Flannery O'Connor, if you are a reader of, I don't know, somebody like Kevin Wilson, somebody who's writing about South, writing short stories, if you're a Beth Ann Finley fan, then I think, yeah, read this. Read a few of the stories. One of the essays I'd already read because it was in Oprah magazine years ago. And I remember peeing my pants with excitement that Harper Lee had written an essay in Oprah. So I like having this one on my shelf. I do not regret having read it. Do I think it should have been published? Meh. I don't know. But is it a work of literary history? Yes. Would I use it in my curriculum? Yes. That is The Land of Sweet Forever by Harper Lee.
[00:28:12] Then last but not least, I am delighted to have listened to Grace and Henry's Holiday Movie Marathon by Matthew Norman. If I'm creating my Mount Rushmore of holiday romances, rom-coms reads-- maybe they don't always have to be romances, but if I'm creating my Mount Rushmore of favorite holiday books, Faking Christmas by Carrie Winfrey has to be up there. Ten Blind Dates by Ashley Elston has to be up there. The Matza Ball by Gene Meltzer, Recommended for You by somebody Silverman. Didn't write it down, so don't know. Maybe you're yelling at me in your car. Because I've read some real duds, is what I'm trying to say. I've read some real duds. And much like not every Hallmark movie or holiday movie is created equal, not every holiday romance rom-com is created equal. But I downloaded Grace and Henry's Holiday Movie Marathon because I kept reading about it. I created the 12 Days of Christmas rom-com bundle for The Bookshelf. That releases, by the way, on December the 5th, I believe. So we pick 12 rom-coms that will take you from Christmas Day to New Year's Day. Very fun. So I had done a ton of research, like a lot of research on holiday romances and rom-coms because there are so many published every year. There are so many published every year. And I noticed that this one kind of got universal praise and was reviewed. The fact that it was reviewed at all was shocking, but it was reviewed in Kirkus and Publishers Weekly, and it got a starred review in Kirkus. It might also have gotten a starred review in Publishers Weekly.
[00:29:46] I had not read Matthew Norman before. He wrote the book Charmed City Rocks, which now I'm curious about. I adored this. I loved it. It is a very fun audiobook. I think I liked it because it has some real depth to it. Both Grace and Henry are coming up on the holiday season, and within the last year, they have lost their spouses. So Grace's husband died and Henry's wife died. And they kind of develop this unlikely friendship, bonding at first over the fact that they both lost their spouses tragically and early, but then bonding over their love or sometimes their hate of various holiday movies. If you like holiday movies at all, if you like The Family Stone, if you like Love Actually, if you like the Christmas story, if you like Charlie Brown Christmas, oh, this is delightful. I listened to this every chance I got, which has not happened for me with an audiobook in a long time. The narration is great. The storytelling is wonderful. There's an author's note that I thought was really fun. Five stars, honestly, for me out of a holiday book. Five stars. If I'm creating my Mount Rushmore, this is going on it. Grace and Henry's Holiday Movie Marathon by Matthew Norman. Highly, highly recommend. And those were the books that I read in October and November. Latter part of October and then November.
[00:31:07] As usual, with our Reading Recap episodes, we're offering a Reading Recap bundle for this month. The November Reading Recap bundle is $68, and it includes three books. Wreck, that's the Catherine Newman work. The Land of Sweet Forever, which is the Harper Lee work. It's really a beautiful copy. And Grace and Henry's Holiday Movie Marathon. Again, $68. You can find more details and the November bundle online through the link in our show notes, or go to bookshelfhomasville.com and type today's episode number, that's 557 into the search bar.
[00:31:44] This week, I'm reading Upward Bound by Woody Brown.
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:
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, Linda Lee Drozt, Martha, Stephanie Dean, Ashley Ferrell, Gene Queens, Beth, Jammie Treadwell…
Executive Producers (Read Their Own Names): Nicole Marsee, Wendi Jenkins 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:
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