Episode 560 || Best Books of the Year
This week on From the Front Porch, Annie and Hunter discuss their top 10 favorite books of 2025!
Annie
1. A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar
2. The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
3. Flashlight by Susan Choi
4. Tilt by Emma Pattee
5. The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett
6. Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li
7. Memorial Days by Geradine Brooks
8. Buckeye by Patrick Ryan
9. Life, and Death, and Giants by Ron Rindo
10. Awake by Jen Hatmaker
Hunter
1. Audition by Katie Kitamura
2. Flashlight by Susan Choi
3. Ordinary Time by Annie B. Jones
4. Lightbreakers by Aja Gabel
5. Minor Black Figures by Brandon Taylor
6. A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar
7. Mothers and Sons by Adam Haslett
8. Middle Spoon by Alejandro Varela
9. The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett
10. Alligator Tears by Edgar Gomez
Annie - July picks
1. Tilt by Emma Pattee
2. Flashlight by Susan Choi
3. The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
4. Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li
5. Show Don’t Tell by Curtis Sittenfeld
6. Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks
7. Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green
8. The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett
9. Lucky Night by Eliza Kennedy
10. Playworld by Adam Ross
Hunter - July picks
1. Audition by Katie Kitamura
2. Ordinary Time by Annie B Jones
3. Mothers and Sons by Adam Haslett
4. Alligator Tears by Edgar Gomez
5. Among Friends by Hal Ebbott
6. The Wilderness by Angela Flourney
7. Open, Heaven by Sean Hewitt
8. The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett
9. Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico
10. Exit Zero by Marie-Helene Bertino
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 Grace and Henry’s Holiday Movie Marathon. Hunter is reading Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club.
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.
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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:
[squeaky porch swing] Welcome to From the Front Porch, a conversational podcast about books, small business, and life in the South. [music plays out]
There are always two stories always taking place at once. The narrative inside the play, and the narrative around it and the boundary between the two is more porous than you might think. That is both the danger and the excitement of the performance.
Katie Kitamura, Audition.
[as music fades out]
Annie Jones [00:00:54] I'm Annie Jones, owner of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in beautiful downtown Thomasville, Georgia, and this week I'm joined by my friend Hunter McClendon to talk about our favorite books of 2025. If you love hearing from Hunter, and who doesn't, you might consider joining From the Front Porch on Patreon in 2026. There Hunter and I will be sharing our monthly recaps of our conquering of The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor. Episodes will air on the last Friday of each month, beginning in January. Which means you've got plenty of time to join or to cajole friends and family into joining us too. Shop Mom and Shop Dad and several Bookshelf team members will be following along in 2026. To join Patreon, just visit patreon.com/fromthefrontporch. Three tiers are available. The $5 a month tier will give you access to all of our Conquer a Classic episodes. And the $20 a month here will give you ad free episodes of From the Front Porch plus a deep dive into some of Flannery O'Connor's other works. We hope you'll join us next year. Back to the task at hand. Hi Hunter!
Hunter [00:01:57] Hello!
Annie Jones [00:01:57] Back in July, which I think we recorded it maybe even earlier than that, but back in July Hunter and I discussed our favorite books of the year so far. You can listen to that episode, episode 536 for our full conversation, but now we are back, end of year, to see how our mid-year picks held up. Hunter, first of all, can I ask now that we're nearing the end of the year, how your reading year-- let's not discuss our actual years, let's just talk about how did our reading years stack up.
Hunter [00:02:30] It's really funny because like there were like individual months. Here's the thing. I'll be honest. Sometimes when you're depressing, you don't really think about how good books are. But in my like high moments, I'm like, wow, literature has just been so good this year.
Annie Jones [00:02:44] Isn't it amazing how our personal-- and this is just a lesson that authors should never take it personally. I just don't think authors should take reviews too personally because so much is dependent upon how we the reader are feeling. Like how many times I have rated or ranked a book a certain way because of who I was while I was reading it. I think that is probably why my feelings about 2025 are meh. And I think that's just because-- listen, and I'm going to talk about some really good books today. I mean, my 10 favorites of the year. But when I look back at the reading year, I think I spent a lot of 2025 overwhelmed and like muddling through. And that is a little bit what my reading life felt like too, where I know there were some really great books this year. I'm confident of it. I love the books on my list. But it wasn't like 2024 where I read a lot of good books but James to me was the best book of the year. And nobody really debated it. Everybody kind of agreed on that one, which felt relatively unusual where it was a consensus that James was the book of 2024. It's a little harder, I think, for me to pick the book of 2025. I don't know if you found it to be that way.
Hunter [00:04:04] My book of 2025 was my book was 2025 when I read it back in October of 2024. Because I got an ARC for the people who were not aware because I'm a celebrity.
Annie Jones [00:04:16] Flex.
Hunter [00:04:18] Well, actually, my number one has basically been close to the number one the whole time, although my number one and my number two are so tight together. That has been my biggest struggle.
Annie Jones [00:04:32] Okay. Well, I'm excited to talk about it. Let's remind people so they don't necessarily have to go back and listen. I'm going to just run through my top 10 books as of July, 2025, and then you can do yours. So I'll go, I guess, in reverse order. So number 10, Play World by Adam Ross, which I still think you would like, by the way. Lucky Night by Eliza Kennedy, The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett, Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green, Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks. Number five, Show Don't Tell by Curtis Sittenfeld. Number four, Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li. Number three, The Correspondent by Virginia Evans. Number two, Flashlight by Susan Choi. And number one, Tilt by Emma Pattee. What were your top 10?
Hunter [00:05:18] My top 10, number 10 was Exit Zero by Marie-Helene Bertino. Number nine was Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico, I think. Number eight was The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett. Number seven was Open Heaven by Sean Hewitt. Number six was The Wilderness by Angela Flourney. Number five was Among Friends by Hal Ebbott. Number four was Alligator Tears by Edgar Gomez. Number three was Mothers and Sons by Adam Haslett. Number two was Ordinary Time by you. And number one was Audition by Katie Kitamura.
Annie Jones [00:05:50] I do think even just looking at the quotes from Audition, that is a book that I wish I had read this year. And I'll be honest; my November reading life always is terrible. I look back at the years and that is almost universally true across the years. November, December are just kind of a wash for me. But are there any books that you missed this year that you wish you hadn't? Or I'm going to give you an example for me, is there a book was unsung? Like it didn't make it into my top 10, but I think the Leila Motley book, The Girls Who Grew Big was an unsung book that should have gotten more praise. There was a book called We Love to Run that I thought was beautiful. I don't understand why it didn't get more buzz. So were there any books like that that were kind of unsung for you or books that you missed that you wish you'd read?
Hunter [00:06:35] So I definitely think there's this book called Ravishing by I believe it's Eshani Surya. Okay, no one else is getting this but me, but it reminds me of one of the plot lines of the 2004 Catwoman with Halle Berry. But it's like in a near dystopia where people can like this cream is altering people's faces and but it's also having really harmful side effects.
Annie Jones [00:06:58] What's the title again?
Hunter [00:06:59] Ravishing.
Annie Jones [00:07:01] Ravishing. Okay.
Hunter [00:07:01] Yeah, I thought it was great. Did you read Culpability by Bruce Holzinger?
Annie Jones [00:07:05] No. Should I have?
Hunter [00:07:07] Listen, it's very entertaining.
Annie Jones [00:07:09] Okay, that's what I heard!
Hunter [00:07:10] Yeah. It's not like great, but it's good. But it's very interesting. Oh, another book that I don't think a lot of people are going to read, even though it was a National Book Award translated book was Sad Tiger. I cannot pronounce the author's name, but its Neige Sinno. But it's a memoir about a woman who was sexually abused by her stepdad and she's looking at it all through the lens of the different literature that writes about abuse. And it's very interesting, very captivating. So there was that one. I'm trying to think if there's anything else that I loved that didn't really get much... There was I guess A Sharp Endless Need by Marisa Crane I really liked. I don't think that the Patricia Lockwood book got as much...
Annie Jones [00:07:57] I don't think it did either. And I wonder if that's also because it's almost a companion book. And so if you didn't read the other, you get a little... I don't know, the longer I'm in bookselling, I mean, in indie book stores, what sells is what the staff likes typically. So then it's interesting to kind of take your view wider and to realize, oh, that's not what's hitting the national bestseller list or something like that. And sometimes it does, but I think about-- and I'll probably talk about this book a little later, but I think about the Correspondent by Virginia Evans, which didn't hit the New York Times bestseller list at all until months later. And I'd like to think that's because of the work of indie bookstores and word of mouth through libraries and things like that. But generally speaking, it really is sometimes about what's in the zeitgeist, what's in the news and those dang celebrity book clubs. Like if your book isn't chosen for a celebrity book club, Godspeed to you.
Hunter [00:08:55] That is so true.
Annie Jones [00:08:56] It's so true. Like how much of the business is reliant upon-- well, I guess it's celebrity book clubs and then influencers, like Bookstagram or book influence, it is shocking the role they play.
Hunter [00:09:08] I do have to say, so there's somebody who I hung out with recently who also met Oprah at an event recently.
Annie Jones [00:09:17] Again, flex.
Hunter [00:09:19] Listen, yes, I have met Oprah. She did not laugh at my joke, but she did love how I cried in front of her and I think that she just eats that up.
Annie Jones [00:09:27] I think she loves it when people cry in front of her. Can I just ask, was her skin flawless and or is it just really good makeup?
Hunter [00:09:35] Let me say luminous. But I also have to say her head is so big.
Annie Jones [00:09:43] I know you are very tall, but she is shorter than I thought.
Hunter [00:09:47] She's very tiny. The amount of hair that was on her head was insane. And her head was just so large. I wanted to be like, Oprah, what is going on?
Annie Jones [00:09:58] Only you would have a critique of Oprah.
Hunter [00:10:01] The thing is, I love Oprah, but I was like--
Annie Jones [00:10:02] Watch out, Hunter's coming for you.
Hunter [00:10:04] Listen, I'm telling you, if you saw it, you'd be like, that's an abnormally large head. Listen, she's very smart. She's probably got a lot of brain up in there.
Annie Jones [00:10:13] That's right. And listen, everybody's got a flaw. We've all got our flaws. Oprah's got them too.
Hunter [00:10:18] She was gorgeous, but apparently this guy who I was talking to, he said, yeah, he goes, "I told her that she needs to get her and her little friend Reese to stop putting all those stickers on the books." And I was like, "Well, it helps them sell." And he was like, "Then make them removable." And I was like...
Annie Jones [00:10:37] We'll see in the next year. If that changes, we'll know where we can trace it back to.
Hunter [00:10:41] Yeah, this one person with all of his, like, influence, yeah.
Annie Jones [00:10:44] With all his power. I don't like the stickers any more than anybody does, but again as a bookseller and not just as a bookseller at The Bookshelf but when I go out into the world meaning your Barnes and Nobles, your Walmarts, your targets, you know what's selling? Books that have got a sticker on them.
Hunter [00:11:01] Here's the thing, people who are not books snobs-- and this is not a dig to anyone. People who are not book snobs and if they don't have a lot of reader friends, that is a really great way to be like okay, well, Oprah has similar taste to me so I can just grab an Oprah book. Like it makes sense.
Annie Jones [00:11:19] There are people who trust Reese Witherspoon and so they trust, oh, I'm going to grab this book. You're exactly right. I think for those of us who are very enmeshed in the book world, we might find those stickers obnoxious and we might not need them. But people who are outside of the industry (and guys that's a lot of sales come from) they look at those stickers and those stickers do matter to them. I would also like them to be removable, but it is what it is. We have a lot of territory to cover. Are you ready?
Hunter [00:11:52] I am Redrick Frederick.
Annie Jones [00:11:54] I was hoping you would say that because I really rely on that. And I have caught myself saying it, probably baby Isaac is one day going to be like-- I'm going to say, you ready to go? Redrick Frederick. And I'll be able to tell him Hunter started that. Okay. I'll get us started with my number 10 book, but I'm going to be honest this is always one of my hardest spots because to me it's pretty close on what makes the top 10 list. So did you pick a number 10 or do you have a tie anywhere?
Hunter [00:12:32] Listen, I kept it strictly to 10 books, but it was very hard.
Annie Jones [00:12:34] You did it. Okay.
Hunter [00:12:36] So you're trying to like, uh-huh.
Annie Jones [00:12:38] Uh-huh. Let me think about this. Okay. Well, one is more of an Annie pick and one I think this was better for the literary world. Which one should I pick?
Hunter [00:12:50] Pick the one that's like-- listen, it's your top 10.
Annie Jones [00:12:55] So my number 10 book is Awake by Jen Hatmaker. Have you heard of this book?
Hunter [00:12:59] No.
Annie Jones [00:13:00] Okay. Jen Hatmaker to me is relatively niche until now. I think this is the book that kind of broke her into the wider world, but she was very prominent in evangelical culture for a long time. She was married. She was a speaker and I always thought she was a good writer. This year she released a book, a memoir, based on fact that one night while she was in bed, she woke up next to her husband of like almost three decades, I believe, and she heard him talking. He was talking to his mistress at 2 a.m. in the same bed as her, which what a move.
Hunter [00:13:36] What?
Annie Jones [00:13:36] Wild. So she winds up writing this memoir called Awake, and what I thought easily could have been a tell-all, super gossipy kind of book. Instead, I think is about midlife and a woman coming to terms with previous life decisions. And now her whole world has been turned upside down and where does she go from here? She fell out of grace with a lot of the evangelical world because of her stances (this is sad sounding) on racism or the LGBTQ community. And so she was shunned from the Christian evangelical world. And so this to me was her offering to a larger audience. She was interviewed in the New York Times. It kind of bubbled up. And for me, part of the reason I paid attention to this one, I was familiar with Jen Hatmaker from her previous work. But it released around the same time as the Elizabeth Gilbert book.
Hunter [00:14:35] Yeah.
Annie Jones [00:14:36] It's hard for me to even talk about Awake without referencing the Elizabeth Gilbert book because for me as a reader All the Way to the River felt like a fire hydrant to the face of vulnerability, maybe some oversharing. Like it just was a lot. And I like Elizabeth Gilbert. I like her writing. I think she's extremely talented. I don't know if that book was for me. But at the same time, near the same point, I read Awake and I thought, oh my gosh, this is her best work. I think it is Jen Hatmaker's best writing. I think it is a really interesting look outside of Christianity, though she kind of goes back in time to her teenage hood. She talks about being raised in purity culture, how that affected who and why she got married. And then she delves into the aftermath of her marriage falling apart, but what that really meant for her as a woman. Like she didn't know how to pay the utility bill or all these things that she kind of had lost in her own identity too on a bigger picture scale. Anyway, I think the writing is great. And when I look back, one of my ways that I make my top 10 list is I think what will I remember from this year? And I do have a distinct memory of reading this book this summer. I read it as an advanced copy and I remember thinking, oh, this is going to hit with a lot of people. And I think it did. And as I approach my own midlife point, I'm very interested in women who are writing about that. So, Awake by Jen Hatmaker is in my number 10 spot.
Hunter [00:16:08] That sounds so good. Also, I did meet Elizabeth Gilbert and I got her book. This is why the Lord would never grant me the opportunity to meet anyone real famous because I would drop names so hard. But I did start Gilbert's book and I was like, girl, you are so crazy. I need a minute.
Annie Jones [00:16:30] I wondered and I have been desperate to know if you read it because I knew you met her. You met her the same time you met Oprah. And I can understand by the way why her book was like a celebrity book club pick because it absolutely is a book that you would want to talk about with your book club. It is absolutely a gossipy talk about this over your Mimosa's book club book. But it is, whoa... And what made the news was like her planning to kill her lover. And y'all if you read the book, that is a blip. There is a lot more going on in that-- like I remember thinking that's weird that that made the headlines. To me there's a lot more going on in that book. Anyway I'll be interested to see if you finish it.
Hunter [00:17:17] Okay, so my number 10 spot, which is not Gilbert's book, is Alligator Tears by Edgar Gomez, which was on my previous top 10. It's gone down a bit just because this is hard year to pick and choose. But it's an essay collection about this queer Latinx writer who is kind of tracing basically his journey as a writer and also just the experience of being like queer in Florida. This book resonated on a personal level, but especially-- and I think I talked about this in the mid-year recap. But there is an essay where he talks about how so much of his time so consumed trying to write this, his first book, a high risk homosexual. He put so much energy into it because he thought if I can make enough money with this book, I can get my family out of poverty and slowly realizing how unrealistic that idea was, but still holding so tight onto it. And it's one of those things where I do think that when you come from a poverty-stricken home and when you are queer in the South, and add onto this fact that he's a person of color, I think that all of that makes you often feel like you really do have to have this Cinderella-type fantasy in your head of like, okay, this big, big thing is going to be the thing that pulls me out. Because you don't really see a way in the typical like go to college, like all these other things, it just doesn't always resonate in the same way.
Annie Jones [00:18:46] No, I think we acknowledge it in the sports space a lot more. Do you know what I mean? I think we acknowledge it like, oh, I'm going to go and I'm going to buy my mama a home because I made it big in the NFL or whatever.
Hunter [00:19:01] Well, Casey Gerald literally wrote about that in his memoir, There Will Be No Miracles Here, which was in my top 10 in 2018, but loved that. This book is really funny. It's very charming. He narrates the audio book and he has a little list that I think is so cute. But yeah, I love this one. So highly recommend.
Annie Jones [00:19:21] Okay. My number nine is Life and Death and Giants by Ron Rindo. I would be remiss-- I want to also just talk about the audiobook narration of this particular book because I thought the audiobook was fantastic and probably part of the reason I loved it. I was looking to see what their names were. So the audiobook was narrated by a few different voices, Christina Moore, Johnny Heller, Roger Wayne, and Will Damron. So it was like a cast of characters, which I really liked. But this one was introduced to me by Erin from The Bookshelf. I also think our friend Meg, who runs Meg's Reading Room, she talked about this book a lot. But the premise I thought was pretty creative where a young boy is born to his mother and he's born at 18 pounds and then he becomes a giant and he lives in this Amish community. His mother dies during childbirth. And so his grandparents helped raise him and his grandparents are Amish. You know very well that one of my favorite elements that I'm kind of always looking for in books is an element of faith and a faith experience and how it affects a person's day-to-day life, decision-making, how it shapes who they are. And so I thought the look at Amish culture was extremely realistic and interesting. And he was a young man who is working out in the fields with his granddad one day and a local football coach spies sees him because he's huge. And so the book also takes some sports adjacent turns. Let me be very clear, these are not books similar necessarily at the front at first glance, but I do think there's a world in which life and death and giants exists alongside Margo's Got Money Troubles. So I think that is because there is a professional wrestling element of Life and Death and Giants that is prevalent also Margo Has Got Money Troubles. But it's also about people who are trying to find their way in a world that no longer fits them or suits them. I thought this book was beautiful. I think the audio book narration is fantastic. It was not an unsung book at The Bookshelf. We talked about it all the time, but I don't know that it made a national bestseller list. I could be wrong. I'm not sure. But I think if you're looking at an end of the year book to try to like squeeze in before you finish 2025, I thought the book was excellent and really deserving of praise. He's doing a lot with this story. And it never feels cheesy or schmaltzy. At the same time, I feel like I could hand sell it to almost anybody and there would be something there for them. So that is Life and Death and Giants by Ron Rindo.
Hunter [00:21:58] That sounds so good.
Annie Jones [00:21:59] It is really good.
Hunter [00:22:01] Do you think I'd like it?
Annie Jones [00:22:09] Did you like how I just said I would hand sell it to almost anybody? Okay, wait, you know what I would say for real? Listen to it. I think you should listen to it. I do think you would like the audio book because of the cast of characters and I think that would hold your attention.
Hunter [00:22:25] Okay. I mean that's kind of like typically with books that I'm not entirely sold on if I did the audiobook I'm like...
Annie Jones [00:22:30] I think you would like the audiobook a lot, actually.
Hunter [00:22:34] Okay. My number nine, which I'm wondering if this will be in your top 10 because it was in your top 10 of the mid-year, but it is The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnet. It's so funny because I almost didn't include it because I there were other more "literary books" that I was thinking about. But this book was so-- the first 30 pages are bonkers. And I think maybe a blurb or something compared to Little Miss Sunshine. And I think that is so accurate. Because there's like this cat, and actually it's so funny, there's a cat that knows about death. It kind of reminds me of a similar thing that happens in Doctor Sleep by Stephen King.
Annie Jones [00:23:17] That's funny how worlds collide.
Hunter [00:23:19] I'm telling you. For anyone who doesn't know, this book is about this family that's kind of mismatched and complicated. And they go on this road trip, but a lot of other stuff. It's hard to talk about without spoiling anything because so much happens in the first 30 pages. If you read the first thirty pages, I promise you'll be like, oh, wow, I get it now.
Annie Jones [00:23:42] Well, and I don't think you'll be able to put it down. I think that once you get started and once you fall in love with the characters who I think could be in a different writer's hands, they could be like too quirky, too over the top, or this plot could be too weird. And instead, it's kind of like if folks like Kevin Wilson, don't you think they would like this? Like family fan. You know what else I will say? If you can write children in adult lit who are not obnoxious and too precocious, like unrealistic-- I think it is very hard to write children. I think Annabel Monaghan wrote children really well in Nora Goes Off Script. And I think Annie Hartnett writes kids really well.
Hunter [00:24:26] Well, I also think if you like-- I don't know how to pronounce this last name, but I'm reading his book now, J. Ryan...
Annie Jones [00:24:32] Somebody told me. Somebody did inform me via DM that I've been pronouncing it wrong my whole time.
Hunter [00:24:38] Straddle.
Annie Jones [00:24:38] Sure. I'm not even going to attempt it.
Hunter [00:24:41] The guy who wrote Kitchens of the Great Midwest, I think if you like his books, I do think they have a very similar tone that I really enjoy.
Annie Jones [00:24:48] Yes, and you know what, justice for books that aren't literary. Do you know I mean?
Hunter [00:24:54] Yeah.
Annie Jones [00:24:56] This is an exceptionally well-written book. And I totally know what you're saying because as a bookseller too you have to categorize literary fiction versus other fiction. But this book is really well- written. And just because a book is a good time doesn't mean it's less literary.
Hunter [00:25:13] In 2017, when you hand sold me the Vacationers by Emma Strobe, you said, "This is so good. It's a literary beach read. You're going to love it." And ever since then, anytime that something is well written, a really well done book but it is also so hard to put down, I always say, "Oh, it's a literary beach read."
Annie Jones [00:25:34] Listen, because I think too we talked about being kind of insider-y into the book world. We had a podcast listener, I think Maysoon is who asked me this, but she said, "How would you describe literary fiction to people who don't maybe know?" Because that's not a genre you see in the bookstore. Like if you go to Barnes and Noble, I don't think there's a literary fiction section. But what I finally said was it's like Oscar nominated films or an indie film. And here's the thing about Road to Tender Hearts, that could be an indie. Film. Easily. Gretta Gerwig could direct that film and it would be nominated for an Oscar. And so that's why it's literary, but it also could be award-winning, I think.
Hunter [00:26:14] I agree.
Annie Jones [00:26:15] You're going to hear me talk about that one later. Okay, number eight for me is Buckeye by Patrick Ryan. I made this list and I still am confident, but I feel like I could move this one down if I needed to, but I didn't need to. So, okay, Buckeye by Patrick Rian is a multi-generational novel about two couples. I think some readers asked me if it reminded me of Dearly Beloved. No, it didn't. No, I'm sorry to say it didn't. But it's like two couples living in middle of nowhere, Ohio. And it starts during I want to say World War Two. And then goes through the Vietnam War era. And so it's not just about those characters, although it very much is about them and how their lives kind of intersect over the years. But it's also very much about the place. And I love books about a place. And so even though this book does not remind me of Dearly Beloved, it does remind me of Wallace Stegner. And I also think Kristen Hannah's The Women is a little bit more commercial. But if you liked some of that, I think you will like Buckeye a lot. I think it's very well written. It might have been a Jenna Bush Hager pick, which makes sense to me. It feels like one of her books. If it wasn't, it could have been. Great for book clubs. I don't normally like a spanning generations kind of epic story. I don't always love that. I kind of like vignettes almost, or I don't know, just glimpses into a season of somebody's life. But I really fell in love. There's one character in particular; he was wounded so could not fight in World War II. So he kind of runs his family hardware store. That character I think will stick with me for a long time. I just kind of fell in love with him. And then there's also a character who his wife predicts or prophesies. Or what is the word I want to say? She communes with the dead. That's the word. So she doesn't predict people's death. She communed with the dead. And I thought at first that would be so weird and add an element of magical realism that I wasn't looking for, but it's not that way at all. Again, I think in a different writer's hands, it could have felt kind of oddly placed like that detail, but instead it totally makes sense with the family conflicts. I loved this book. Probably would be great for gifting to maybe the mom reader, the grandma reader. And I mean that in a complimentary way. It's really probably your well-read aunt who reads everything is going to be talking about Buckeye by Patrick Ryan.
Hunter [00:28:47] Do you know he sent me several books, like--.
Annie Jones [00:28:50] Patrick Ryan did?
Hunter [00:28:51] Yes. And he was just like, "I think you might really like these." And he sent them to me and I still have not read them.
Annie Jones [00:28:59] Wait, is he an editor or agent or something or did he send you his books?
Hunter [00:29:05] His books.
Annie Jones [00:29:06] Okay, his book.
Hunter [00:29:07] Yeah, he was just like, he said, "I think you'd like these." So sweet. I am a terrible person. It's fine.
Annie Jones [00:29:12] Can I tell you, Buckeye has some semblance to In Memoriam. I think you could like Buckeye.
Hunter [00:29:27] Okay, that's good to know. Okay, my number eight pick it's Middle Spoon by Alejandro Varela.
Annie Jones [00:29:36] Yes, I wondered about this because it's such a great title, great concept.
Hunter [00:29:40] Okay, so it's this epistory novel. It's about a man who's in an open marriage, whose boyfriend dumps him basically. And the whole book is written in these emails to this boyfriend that he's like just yearning for him wanting to get back with and his husband is like calm down, it's okay. And it is such a beautiful, interesting, honest look at what it means to be in an open marriage and to love more than one person romantically. And, listen, I think this book is a really great companion book to Crush.
Annie Jones [00:30:15] I loved that book
Hunter [00:30:16] Who was that by?
Annie Jones [00:30:18] Ada Calhoun.
Hunter [00:30:19] Yes. Okay. I read these books back to back and they're so good because they have completely different outcomes. And what's interesting is that crush is about someone who's in a marriage. It's not bad, but it's not maybe like always happy and what that means. And Middle Spoon is about a really happy loving marriage that also happens to be open and allow for more love in a different way and it is messy. And also he goes on these random tangents about Oscar-winning people and how Amy Adams deserves an Oscar.
Annie Jones [00:30:52] Oh, so speaking your language.
Hunter [00:30:54] Literally. I was like gays talking about Amy Adams, sign me up.
Annie Jones [00:31:00] Well, and that's interesting that you say that because the Ada Calhoun book goes off on tangents because it's a novel, but she's kind of referencing her own life. And she goes off in these tangents about poets and novelists. Like it's so smart. That book is so smart. That's an unsung book actually of 2025.
Hunter [00:31:17] I agree.
Annie Jones [00:31:18] So that's interesting. I also did not know-- it makes me want to read it more. I did not know Middle Spoon was an epistolary novel. I feel like I would love that.
Hunter [00:31:26] Yeah, like I said, the email situation it's like very modern, but it still has that feeling of just, yeah.
Annie Jones [00:31:35] Okay, my number seven was also in my top 10 at the beginning of this year. Was Buckeye in my Top 10? No, okay, I read some good books in the latter part of this here. My number seven was also in my top 10 in July and it is Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks. I don't know what this says about me. I think it means that I feel like I'm practicing grief all the time. Don't worry, I'm talking about it in therapy. It's okay. But I think I am frequently drawn to grief books even though I don't know that Geraldine Brooks really would want her book to be stacked among grief books. It is about the loss of her husband, the novelist writer, Tony Horowitz. But particularly in my mind, it is a book about navigating grief in America. So I did not realize, and this is me being dumb, that Geraldine Brooks is Australian. And so she talks about trying to navigate the American system. Her husband died while he was on a book tour actually. And so the way she's trying to make phone calls and she winds up having to do all of the day to day nitty gritty, menial grief tasks while grieving. So trying to plan a funeral, trying to get his body back to their home, all these things that you forget you will have to do and you'll have to it while you're out of your mind. And so after all this happens, she goes to Australia to finally set aside some specific time to grieve, which is not something I think Americans are very good at. And so I just like how she's personally writing about her interaction with these things. But then to me she's also got a broader thing to say about the American personality and maybe some things that are wrong with how we grieve and what we require of people when they are grieving. I really liked it. It's beautiful writing. And I don't know if you were this way, but when I'm writing my top 10 of the year, of course, I'm thinking like what will I remember at the end of this year? But the books that frequently stick out to me, and this goes back to, you're right. It's our list. It not necessarily an objective list. It's like what books met us right in a moment when we needed them. So I was reading Memorial Days when Jordan and I were on-- and boy do I hate this term, but we were on a baby moon, whatever. But we were in Savannah. I wasn't really sure. I don't know. I didn't actually believe we were going to have a baby. I really didn't until we did. I really didn't believe that a child was going to come out of any of this. And so I remember reading it and feeling like, oh, I can read. Like, do you know what I mean? Like when you're going through a big something in your life and you haven't maybe been able to finish a book in a long time. And I remember reading that book in one sitting and thinking, oh, am still me. I still like books. I still liked the books I've always liked. It was very comforting to me in that moment.
Hunter [00:34:26] Do you ever feel like the books that managed to break through a really hard moment in your life are the ones that you like? Because I think about I read Fates and Furies the first time when one of my best friends and I we had a falling out. And I was like trying to push past all those feelings and the emotions I was having to try to focus on the page. And I think that's one of the reasons why it like stuck with me was that it was the only book that managed to kind of push aside all of that noise.
Annie Jones [00:34:54] Yes, absolutely. That's exactly what I mean. Like reading Memorial Days, I finally-- I feel like I was kind of told that pregnancy would totally change me and motherhood would totally change me. And I think when people told me that they meant it as a positive thing, but I felt very scared by that and a little bit lost by it. I thought, Well, no, wait a minute, I like me. I've come to terms with me. I really like her. And so getting to finish a book, and a book with heavier subject matter where I was like, oh, I still like this. Just because I'm in a different life stage or life season doesn't mean I like this any less. It was very comforting to me. And you're right, pushed through the noise and the static.
Hunter [00:35:41] Not to be too woke, but I think whenever people say that like having a baby pregnancy changes you, I think that's sexist.
Annie Jones [00:35:50] Thank you, Hunter. Thank you. Actually, this is a little insight into our friendship, but I will never forget I had told some people I was pregnant and everybody was super kind. Everybody was super nice. But I told you when we went out to brunch, when you were home for Christmas and we sat and we had breakfast together and I think that is when I told you. And like, literally, I am pretty sure the first words out of your mouth were like, "Oh my gosh, well, Joyce Carol Oates and Tony Morrison wrote some of their best work after being mothers or something." You named two authors. I know one of them was Tony Morrison. I can't remember the other one. And I came home to Jordan and I said, everybody needs somebody like Hunter because it wasn't like, oh my Gosh, you're so different now. Or you'll be so overwhelmed or just you wait. I mean, everybody was so happy for us and I'm grateful for that. But you were one of the only people who I think unwittingly immediately gave me comfort because one of my big concerns was like, oh no, what if I don't write anymore? Like, what if I don't have the creative capacity anymore? And I don't even think I knew how to articulate that fear and you immediately assuaged that fear. So anyway, just some friendship insights.
Hunter [00:36:59] Listen, I have one good quality. Are we on number seven?
Annie Jones [00:37:05] Yes, number seven. I digress, sorry.
Hunter [00:37:09] So my number seven was also in my-- wow, I guess I've loved a lot of books in the front half. My number seven is Mothers and Sons by Adam Haislett. This book is about several mothers and sons, but the one at the center is this man who he's like-- it's been the beginning of the year since I read it, but I think it's like an immigrant attorney or something like that. He's like something along those lines. And he's gay, but he has this like trauma from when he was a teenager that you don't really know about. And his mom is now like an out lesbian pastor type thing. And so it's like dealing with like a lot of relationships between multiple mothers and sons in the book. But it's specifically dealing with the fact that you know that when he was a teenager that some traumatic thing happened that complicated the relationship with him and his mom, and they have not been able to completely reconcile it since then.
Annie Jones [00:38:04] We talked about this one a lot because you loved this book.
Hunter [00:38:07] Oh, I loved it.
Annie Jones [00:38:08] I think I would like to read it. I feel like I would like it.
Hunter [00:38:11] Did you read Imagine Me Gone?
Annie Jones [00:38:13] No, you ask that every time, and every time I'm sorry to report it's a no.
Hunter [00:38:16] Listen, [inaudible]. It's fine, there's next year.
Annie Jones [00:38:20] Which should I read first, Imagine Me Gone or Mothers and Sons?
Hunter [00:38:24] I think Mothers and Sons is a faster read. Imagine Me Gone is so good though. I think that you'd need a little bit more time to sit and read it, but it's worth it.
Annie Jones [00:38:37] That is one that I'm sorry I didn't get to this year. So hopefully next year, hopefully 2026. Okay, my number six book is another memoir, actually memoir heavy this year, but number six is Things in Nature Merely Grow. This is by Yiyun Li. I am pretty sure this was number four earlier this year. I love this memoir. It is brutal. And again, it's another book that I might put in the grief canon, but Yiyun Li would probably not want me to. At least she had some things to say about grief books. But this is about her two sons. Each of them took their own life at different stages and seasons of their lives. And it is not just about Yiyun Li's grief as a mother, but it is also about how she is trying to honor her sons. And I thought it was also an interesting look at writerly life and where do the limits of everything is copy exist? She's really trying to grapple with what is hers to share and what parts of her son's story does she want to share with the world? I thought this was beautiful, gut-wrenching. It's to me very gut- wrenching book. The writing is outstanding as I have come to expect from Yiyun Li. Was this shortlisted or longlisted for the National Book Award for nonfiction?
Hunter [00:39:55] I know it was longlisted I don't know if it was shortlisted or not.
Annie Jones [00:39:59] I think it was longlisted, but, anyway, well worth the praise. Sometimes an author will show up in the national book award where you're like, oh, that's just because of who they are because it's Yiyun Li. But no, I think this book is outstanding and I'm afraid some people will shy away from it because of the subject matter and I wish you wouldn't. I think there's a lot to glean from it. Yeah. Things in Nature Merely Grow. I also think the title is beautiful. She's just an outstanding writer. So that's my number six.
Hunter [00:40:27] It was shortlisted, by the way. And I'm mad because I made a list of books and whenever we did this last time in our mid-year, I said, I was like, oh, I completely forgot, because I didn't write it down. And I forgot to write it again this time because it would be in my top 10, but I'm not going back, but it would my top 10 because I did love that book.
Annie Jones [00:40:47] Yeah, I've thought you read that one too. I really liked it a lot.
Hunter [00:40:52] My number six, which I feel like will probably be in yours, but it could be wrong, but is a Guardian and a Thief by Megha.
Annie Jones [00:41:01] Majumdar, yes!
Hunter [00:41:02] Let me tell you, here's the thing. I enjoyed A Burning, but people had a lot of opinions about it whenever I read A Burning. I was like I can't deal with all these opinions. I can do it right now. I'm too stressed. When I went into A Guardian and A Thief, I was not sure. I said thank goodness I have an early copy because I can read it without the noise. And I could not put this book down. I thought it was truly one of those one sitting kind of books. It's so funny because Oprah-- it wasn't Oprah's book club pick and she will tell you sometimes it's one person is the guardian and the other person is the thief and other times the other persons is the guardian and this person's the thief. And it is true though. It is true, but in a near future-- it's like the near future, right?
Annie Jones [00:41:49] Yeah.
Hunter [00:41:50] Yeah, and [inaudible].
Annie Jones [00:41:54] Listen, I love this book. I love it. And part of the reason I liked it was because Oprah is right. And yes, sometimes we're guardians, sometimes were thieves. This book could have been a preachy, parable, moral tale, and it could have almost felt heavy handed. Instead, I was on the edge of my seat. I was stressed out. I was living it. It is set in the near future, near future Calcutta. This mother is trying to get her father and child to I think it's like Ann Arbor, Michigan, and they're trying to go be where her husband is. They need a climate passport. It all felt very believable and yet came straight from her imagination. It totally feels like something that could happen in the future. It felt like what is that? Like in school when you're like what would you do? Would you run over a train with one person or a train [crosstalk]. Do you know what it's that dumb-- yeah, somebody is laughing at my description of the trolley problem. It's fine. The trolly problem. Yeah, that kind of stuff irritates the snot out of me. But I think this could have felt like the trolley problem, but it doesn't. It's so good.
Hunter [00:43:10] I love this book. Also, here's the thing. So much restraint, it's so tight.
Annie Jones [00:43:17] So few pages! It's practically a novella!
Hunter [00:43:20] Truly. And let me tell you something, probably the last 20, 30 pages, I was gooped, gagged, shaken, stirred, mixed, like thrown upside down. I was like, what is happening?
Annie Jones [00:43:32] Yes. Same. You know what it reminded me of? It reminded me of The Land of Milk and Honey.
Hunter [00:43:41] Yes.
Annie Jones [00:43:43] I think they're very similar sensibilities, but I thought this one was extremely readable. Oh my gosh, like could not put it down. Okay, that was your number six.
Hunter [00:43:54] Yes.
Annie Jones [00:43:55] Okay. My number five was The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hart. So I will not belabor it. We've already talked a lot about it, but this was a book that I got to read. Have you ever had this experience where I read the like Bound Galley? Like it was big.
Hunter [00:44:11] Yeah.
Annie Jones [00:44:11] And I felt like I was Miranda Priestly.
Hunter [00:44:13] Yes.
Annie Jones [00:44:14] Pre-reading a book, I felt so important. Listen, if I were to become a book editor, I would be insufferable. But I loved that feeling of getting to read it before anybody else. And I treasured the reading experience. It was fun, laugh out loud funny, but also the people were really endearing. I do think Little Miss Sunshine is completely the right comp. I had a great time with this book and I actually weirdly think it deserves more praise. It's one of those books that published in the spring and so I think we forgot about it, but I loved it. That is my number five.
Hunter [00:44:49] So good. My number five is Minor Black Figures by Brandon Taylor.
Annie Jones [00:44:55] Okay.
Hunter [00:44:55] It's funny because like I have loved his other books, but I don't know why I wasn't expecting to love this as much as I did. But I actually think it's his best book yet. It's about this black artist who is doing all these paintings of black figures in kind of set up in these inspired by older paintings or different films almost like Woody Allen type films. Like all these older movies are typically with white people, but he puts like black people. And initially everyone kind of gives him a hard time about it. And they're like, well, this isn't really... Like what are you doing? And then at some point in 2020, he posts one and it's misread as being an act of protest and he kind of blows up as an artist. And he's like prickly about it because he's like, no, I'm not actually trying to do some protests. I'm truly just trying to like make this art. And this book it's having the same argument that a lot of other books like Hell of a Book or Invisible Man even like any of these other books have had, which is what is the responsibility of any marginalized writer really or any marginalized artist at all? What is the responsibility of them to make something that is also educational or also protesting? And like why is that responsibility put on them when it's not put on like especially white male writers? And so that's a big point of conversation. But the way he handles it is so good because it never feels like anyone's like a talking head to some point he's making. It all just feels like it's very much lending itself to the story. And I think he writes so beautifully about art. And you haven't him yet, right?
Annie Jones [00:46:43] No. Family Meal is one that I started.
Hunter [00:46:46] Yes. That's Brian Washington.
Annie Jones [00:46:48] Oh wait, what's the other Brandon Taylor? Name me some of his.
Hunter [00:46:52] Real life is the one that you...
Annie Jones [00:46:54] That one.
Hunter [00:46:55] Yeah, well, because remember, I read you... Listen, I've read you a really intense scene from Real Life. Yeah, when it first came out.
Annie Jones [00:47:01] Yes. And I started real life. Is Family Meal the one that's set on the-- which one is set on college campus?
Hunter [00:47:07] Real Life is something that--
Annie Jones [00:47:08] Okay.
Hunter [00:47:10] So, Brian Washington did Memorial, Family Meal, and now Palaver. And Palaver is shortlisted for the National Book Award. It's not my favorite of his. It's fine. Anyway.
Annie Jones [00:47:23] Sorry to have confused them. Brandon Taylor-- Real Life was the one where like somebody is a scientist.
Hunter [00:47:28] Yes.
Annie Jones [00:47:29] Am I making this up? Okay, I'm sorry. I had those two books confused. I thought Family Meal was that, but no, this is Real Life.
Hunter [00:47:36] Yes, Real Life also is Stream of Consciousness, which I think is a little bit harder for you sometimes.
Annie Jones [00:47:40] Yes, it is. I have to really get into it. I had to be in the right mood. Okay my number four, which was my number one in July, my number four is Tilt by Emma Pattee. I loved this book. Again, probably a situation where this book especially spoke to me in 2025 when I was also pregnant. The main character of Tilt is pregnant in I want to say Portland, Oregon. And she experiences an earthquake at Ikea. And she's trying to make it home to her partner without essentially giving birth. I have had a few DMs that have asked me how on earth I could have read this while pregnant. And I want you guys to know that I didn't read What to Expect When You're Expecting. I only partially read Emily Oster's book, Expecting Better. Tilt was my preparation for giving birth. I honestly read it and thought, well, if this woman can do it while in the middle of an apocalyptic event, then surely I can do it. That's how I felt. I loved it.
Hunter [00:48:42] That's the thing. Sometimes whenever people are like how could you read that going through what you're going through? I'm like, oh, believe me, it gives me so much comfort.
Annie Jones [00:48:48] Yes, it gave me so much comfort. I was like, well, this woman can do it and she is going through it. So surely I can give birth at my hospital on time. I think the writing is good. I believe it was a debut. I thought it was excellent. And again I think I've asked this question on Patreon before and there's probably a different answer depending on what season of life you're in or whatever. But as a reader, what are you drawn more towards? Like, is it the big tome of a novel or is it tight-taught prose in like a short book? And for me maybe it's my current season of life, but I am wildly impressed by a book that is short and that tells a complete story with no extra, nothing extra.
Hunter [00:49:38] Yeah, I ended up reading that book after you mentioned that and I also I finished it one sitting because I was like this is so good
Annie Jones [00:49:43] It's so good!
Hunter [00:49:45] I do have to say a very quick funny aside, talking about like reading books like during stressful things. I don't know if you remember whenever there was that shooter at the yoga studio that Ashley and I used to go to.
Annie Jones [00:49:56] I do because that was on soup night. Do you remember that? I think about it every time there's a soup night.
Hunter [00:50:03] Dark. Because I was supposed to go to that class and I was running late because of the-- but anyway it was so funny because after that happened I ended up reading a book I think it was by John Updike that's about like an active shooter. And I read it right after and people are like why are you reading that? And I was like I'm just curious.
Annie Jones [00:50:27] What is that? I am that way too. I think some people, some readers don't want to touch things that are too close, which by the way, I understand that. I'm just saying my impulse is to do the opposite. My impulse is to be like, well, wait, I want to delve into this, I'm curious about this. I need to know what this would look like.
Hunter [00:50:50] Which is funny because that's one of the reasons why I never hesitate to recommend books to you, even if I think it's something that's like close to something that is going on with you because I'm like that don't matter.
Annie Jones [00:50:57] It doesn't bother me. Okay, can I tell you my number 11 book? Would have been Fox by Joyce Carol Oates?
Hunter [00:51:07] Oh yeah. Okay, same.
Annie Jones [00:51:09] Okay. And that is interesting, right? Because that is a book about a predator, a pedophile. I read that literally. That's the first book I finished after giving birth to a son. And to say that I loved that book feels weird, but I thought that book was so good. And I know when I reviewed that book people were like what in the world is wrong with Annie B. Jones? And I don't know, guys. I don't know, but I really liked that book.
Hunter [00:51:41] Okay, let's see. I know you're going to hate this, but now I feel like you should read Tampa by Alissa Nutting because [crosstalk].
Annie Jones [00:51:47] I might as well. Bring it on!
Hunter [00:51:48] Listen, they're in such conversation. Anyway, okay. My number four-- I'm so tongue-tied today. My number four is when I just finished like a week or so ago, which is light breakers by Aja Gabel.
Annie Jones [00:52:03] I'm so mad, I got to read this Hunter. I have to read it, I haven't. I highly anticipated it. I didn't get an ARC. I'm mad about it.
Hunter [00:52:10] Let me tell you, I started it when I was at the Reader Retreat, like a week or two ago, and I don't know what I expected from it. So it's about this married couple who the woman's an artist, the man is a scientist, and he was married before, and him and his ex-wife had a young daughter who died. And he's kind of caught up in this in this new project that he's been invited to work on that is basically dealing with some form of time travel. And, of course, his grief kind of leads him into different territories of that. But this book is so beautiful. It's so well written. It's very charming. But the way she handles grief and the way that she writes about Emma Straub's, I think it's This Time Tomorrow, did you read that?
Annie Jones [00:53:04] Yes, loved that.
Hunter [00:53:06] Okay, so Light Breakers handles time travel in a similar way, in some ways, but the way that this book-- I don't know. I don't want to give anything away. The three main characters are the wife, the husband, and then the ex-wife, and it kind of revolves around all of their stories, and I just thought she did such a beautiful job. I was never bored with it at all. I was invested the entire time, and I cried.
Annie Jones [00:53:32] Can I ask you a question about it? Is it convoluted?
Hunter [00:53:39] I didn't find it to be.
Annie Jones [00:53:42] Far be it from me. You know I loved The Ensemble. I've been waiting for the Aja Gabel book. That's why I'm perturbed that I did not get an ARC, but whatever. I will read it, but I have been hesitant because the description to me is convoluted. And this is where you are probably benefited because you don't read the descriptions. You just probably went into it, but I feel like the publisher did not do her service in my mind by how they wrote about the book.
Hunter [00:54:10] Okay, but also I actually loved The Ensemble, but I found it a little bit messy at times.
Annie Jones [00:54:16] Yes. Well, I think that was if you read reviews because I did a podcast episode about that where I dig into the back list and I looked up reviews of the book when it came out. I loved that book. And I recall it for me being-- I don't even know if I was doing star ratings at that time, but I loved it. Okay. I loved it. But a lot of reviews, if you go look at critical reviews of that book, they talk about it's a little messy, like too many characters, like a little confusing. And so, anyway, after I hang up with you, should I go back to The Bookshelf and get it?
Hunter [00:54:47] Yes.
Annie Jones [00:54:47] How fast did you read it?
Hunter [00:54:49] It was like two days.
Annie Jones [00:54:51] Okay. That's what I want. Okay, maybe I'll read it this weekend. Thank you.
Hunter [00:54:53] It's also really good on audio too, because I did listen to part of the audio when I was walking.
Annie Jones [00:54:57] Okay. I'm almost done with an audio book right now. So maybe I will download it. Okay. Let me find mine. Okay. My number three, I will be curious if this is on your list. My number three book is Flashlight by Susan Choi. I loved this book. We all know-- just kidding, but I think Hunter knows how I felt about trust exercise. And I think you're right. It was the stream of consciousness of it all, which maybe, I don't know, maybe I should try. I feel like I'm a little snotty about it. Maybe I should go back and do Duck's Newberry Port. Do you remember that book? Should I go back into that?
Hunter [00:55:27] We should have a Ducks Newberry Port summer where we'd spend the whole summer like...
Annie Jones [00:55:32] That'd be fun. Yeah. That'd be really fun. Okay. Put a thumb in that. Put a thumb down. What is the word?
Hunter [00:55:40] It doesn't matter.
Annie Jones [00:55:40] Put a pin in that. Jordan says put a thumb down, which I'm not even sure is a thing. I think it's like a Southern... So I just said put a thumb in it, which is disgusting. Don't do that. Put a pin in it. Okay. Yeah, that's a great idea. And then we could go. Then should we go to Newberry Port? That's what we should do.
Hunter [00:56:02] Yes.
Annie Jones [00:56:02] That sounds great. Okay. Wait, let me get my train of thought. I loved Flashlight. And the reason that I liked Flashlight, interestingly enough, because I've just talked about these books that are tight and taut and like tell complete story in a few pages. What I liked about Flashlight that I typically don't like, and maybe it's because I haven't read enough that are very good, but I feel like she's doing so much. There is so much happening in this book. There's the family conflicts at the heart of the book is a husband that goes missing, and now his children and wife have to grapple with the loss of him. But then the author is also dealing a lot with history, and so there's like a historical fiction element. You get a lot about this man's personal history and his maybe generational trauma, maybe his immigrant trauma, all these different kinds of things, identities are at stake and playing a role in the book. I thought it was masterfully handled. I think it is now long list, short list for the National Book Award? Now I can't remember.
Hunter [00:57:03] This is long listed, yeah.
Annie Jones [00:57:05] I thought it was excellent. It's my favorite of her works. There is a world in which this could have been my top book of the year. I really liked it that much.
Hunter [00:57:13] Yeah, I love Flashlight. I will have more to say about it in a minute, but when it did not make the shortlist because I thought she was the winner.
Annie Jones [00:57:22] I was peeved.
Hunter [00:57:22] Listen, I was messaging a lot of people in publishing. Rumaan Alam was the chair of this year's fiction stuffer.
Annie Jones [00:57:33] I didn't know that.
Hunter [00:57:35] Yeah. He has not read it, but it's fine. But I messaged him. I was like, I am outraged. I was like something feels like something's wrong here. It's fine. I said something so shady to Brandon Taylor. I was like I feel they swapped some of these books on accident when they were... Anyway, so but my number three is Ordinary Time by you. It has stayed. It is really funny, though, because like I actually did have a lot of people who whenever we came out with the mid-year and you just dropped out, everyone was like wait a minute. What? Listen, this should prove I am not biased.
Annie Jones [00:58:14] That's right.
Hunter [00:58:15] Yeah. But this book I thought it was so beautiful, so well written, so moving, so funny. Somebody from my old CrossFit gym read it. And she was like, she goes, yeah, the way that she writes, particularly about faith, it's not really like a faith book. She said, but the way she wrote about it was so accessible and I really enjoyed that. And I said, I was like, I think that Annie writes really like a Southern Christian type. It's not specifically Southern, but it does feel like the roots are there. But I think you write Southern Christian experience for a secular crowd in the same way that Mary Carr writes Catholicism for a secular crowd. But I also think that you pull in-- so yeah, I think that you have some of the humor and the awareness and the ability to pull in a wider audience that Mary Carr has. But I also think that you have the tenderness and the nuance and just the total brilliance of someone like Marilyn Robinson and I think that it is one of my favorite books of this year and also it is a book that-- truly I've said this to you before, it is a book that changed my life. It will probably go down as one of my top 10 books of all time but yeah I love this book.
Annie Jones [00:59:36] I wrote a book about staying and then you left me. That's all I want to say.
Hunter [00:59:38] I know. It is so funny because I feel like those things happen so like I feel like you first...
Annie Jones [00:59:49] I mean, I reference it in the book. I never name you. In one of the essays I say two of my friends just moved because you and Ashley moved back to back. And I was like, yeah, love this for me.
Hunter [01:00:00] Which is so funny because when you were first working on the essays, you even talked about our friendship.
Annie Jones [01:00:10] Did you see I posted today on Instagram like some of the original book proposal and there was a whole essay, but I didn't flesh it out and I didn't want to tokenize our friendship. So I scrapped it. One day.
Hunter [01:00:24] See, I give you the opportunity to call me your gay best friend. And then you're just like, oh, next year.
Annie Jones [01:00:32] Okay, my second best favorite book of the year is The Correspondent by Virginia Evans. I think this is a beautiful book. I think that this is the kind of book I wish I had written. It's an epistolary novel about a woman who is losing her eyesight, but her whole life she has written letters. What I was delighted by was she hasn't just written letters to her friends and family, although those letters are in this book. She has also written letters to Larry McMurtry, Ann Patchett, Joan Didion. And so it is the most wonderful encapsulation of the readerly life. It is also a book that is dealing with a little bit of grief. And when we reach the end of our lives, what are we examining? What are we grappling with at the end-of-life? So if Awake was about mid-life, I think The Correspondent is about end- of-life. This book finally did make it to the New York Times bestseller list. It is now everywhere. Now I have seen it everywhere. I think it's been difficult for us to keep in stock, but I adored this book. I'm pretty sure Ashley, who owns the St. Joe's Story Collective Bookstore in St. Joseph, Missouri, she was who really pushed me to read this one. It had been on my radar, but again, did not receive an ARC. So I downloaded it to my Kindle and now I'm so mad because I feel like I need a copy printed that I can mark up. But I loved this book and I think it's book for anybody. All of my aunts read it and loved it. My mom read it and loved. But it's not just that. I think it's a book for readers, but I think I don't know. Anybody. Maybe if you read the Frank Bruni memoir about him losing his eyesight. I just think there's a lot worth talking about. We did it for our book club for Reader Retreat. And it was just a lovely book to talk about. We talked a lot about the lost art of letter writing. Anyway, loved it. That is The Correspondent by Virginia Evans.
Hunter [01:02:24] Should I read that?
Annie Jones [01:02:25] Yeah, I do think you should read it. I think you would love it. I also think you'd like it at this season in your life.
Hunter [01:02:31] As someone who needs to update their prescription on their glasses.
Annie Jones [01:02:36] I think this would be a good follow-up to a J. Ryan Stradal or however I'm supposed to pronounce it.
Hunter [01:02:46] Okay, so my number two is Flashlight.
Annie Jones [01:02:50] Okay. I do still love when we have our little Venn diagram.
Hunter [01:02:54] Let me tell you, this book it's so funny because I hadn't read it yet whenever we did our last one.
Annie Jones [01:02:59] I never beat you to books anymore.
Hunter [01:03:01] I'm telling you, it's so funny you get a book deal and I'm like, congratulations. You read a book before me and I was like, oh, I see. Well. No, it's fine.
Annie Jones [01:03:12] Because I feel like you are definitely the influencer. Meaning the influencer of me. Like you read books before I do. I'm always texting you, like, have you read this? Publishers love you. They send you books all the time.
Hunter [01:03:25] Do you know what it is? Every time I meet somebody, I'm like, oh my gosh, you have really cute earrings. Or oh my gosh, I love your bracelet. And they remember that and they're like, oh, you complimented me. Here's a book.
Annie Jones [01:03:35] You and Jordan Jones are so good at that and I am so not.
Hunter [01:03:40] See, you're like everybody's ugly. I'm just kidding.
Annie Jones [01:03:46] Yeah, that's it. That's me.
Hunter [01:03:51] I love Flashlight. I knew I was going to love it even before I read it because I took an online class with her and I thought that she was so brilliant and I loved hearing her talk about it. But reading it, especially, listen, you and I talk all the time about like last lines, last pages, the way that book ended gutted. So good.
Annie Jones [01:04:12] It was so good and so hard to do because that was a book that really was kind of epic and sweeping in its storytelling, but it was so good. I know. Okay. My number one book. Hunter, my number one book is A Guardian and a Thief.
Hunter [01:04:27] I knew it was going to be.
Annie Jones [01:04:29] It sure is. Listen, now I loved A Burning and I did read A Burning, as I recall, before the internet read A Burning and I think that was a benefit to me. I read A Guardian and a Thief. I think I texted you the moment I finished. I was in my bathtub and I was like, Hunter, what just happened to this book? I loved it. I think the ending was bonkers brave. Like I said earlier, it easily could have been preachy. It easily could've felt like some kind of moral dilemma book, but it didn't. It just felt really well-drawn characters. Loved it. Shocking. It'll stand out to me, obviously, through the year.
Hunter [01:05:12] My number one, which has been my number one all year, is Audition by Katie Kitamura. This book is it pulls a little bit from like Fates and Furies and Gone Girl and stuff, but it is a book about this woman, she's an actress, and one day this man comes into her life. This young man comes to her life and he's like, I think you're my mom. And she's like I think I'd remember that. But Katie's idea was she loved all these books about men who randomly have a child that's possibly there stumble into their life. And she thought it'd be so interesting. Like, what would it what would look like if that happened for a woman? And the way she pulls it off is so smart. But what's even smarter is that there's a woman who's an actress, she's doing a play. And the play itself is confusing to the actress. But if you pay attention to the play when you're reading it, the play is telling you how the book functions and how to read and understand it. And I think that is so smart to me to be able to tell your reader, without you even realizing, here's how this book functions in literature.
Annie Jones [01:06:33] I know this is my second Margo's Got Money Troubles reference, and I'm sorry about it. But you know in Margo's Got Money Troubles where she's talking about and playing with narration?
Hunter [01:06:46] Yes.
Annie Jones [01:06:46] Do you know what I mean? Like where you feel like you're almost a student learning. Because she, as I recall as a student. Anyway, she's playing with narration in that way. I wonder if there's a similarity there.
Hunter [01:06:58] Listen, this book is so beautiful. Also, the way she writes about being a woman who's an artist, who's not a parent, the way that she writes about the idea of being an artist who as a parent and the way the she writes about marriage, the way that she writes about unhappy marriage or happy marriage. This book does such an interesting trick that never feels gimmicky. I think it's just pulled off in such a smart way that I was so impressed by. And there's like a whole chapter in the first half of the book that it's about breakfasts between this couple that is like seared into my mind. Listen, if you don't love this book, I don't know.
Annie Jones [01:07:43] I think I would love it. Okay, now that I've heard your top 10, I feel like I need to for sure read Lightbreakers and Audition. And then I also think I could read Mothers and Sons and maybe Minor Black Characters.
Hunter [01:08:01] Figures.
Annie Jones [01:08:03] Figures. I'm just screwing that up all over the place.
Hunter [01:08:05] You should try to read just a couple of short stories by Brandon Taylor.
Annie Jones [01:08:11] You know what, okay, now am I going to screw this up again? Does he have a really fun email newsletter or sub stack?
Hunter [01:08:18] Yes.
Annie Jones [01:08:19] Okay. I'm like, God, please don't tell me I've gotten him confused this whole time because that will be mortifying. Okay. I really like his writing style, so I think that I would love him. I just need to find the right book for me from him.
Hunter [01:08:32] Yeah, I agree.
Annie Jones [01:08:33] Are there any books off my list that you are going to try to read?
Hunter [01:08:37] Hold on. I'm going to go back. I think that like because I always end up reading, I feel like I always ended up-- wait, I love how I was going to, oh no, it's Google Docs. I love like, yeah, we always send each other these things. Did you update yours? Okay.
Annie Jones [01:08:47] I did. Well, and I colored that. It was white. I had it in white ink.
Hunter [01:08:51] Awake. Okay. I was like I'm going to scroll and I was like, oh, she did it again. I'll probably read Awake for sure.
Annie Jones [01:09:00] I've heard that's great on audiobook, by the way, too.
Hunter [01:09:02] That's good to know. I'll probably read The Correspondent. Memorial Days, I don't know why I didn't read that but I'm really interested in that.
Annie Jones [01:09:10] Yeah, I think you'd like it.
Hunter [01:09:14] I guess I'm reading all of these that I didn't read.
Annie Jones [01:09:16] What'd you say?
Hunter [01:09:17] I guess I'm going to read all of the ones I didn't read.
Annie Jones [01:09:20] Well, you read faster than I do, so you might be able to pull it off. Okay, now that I've talked through it, maybe this was a great reading year. Maybe I was underselling it.
Hunter [01:09:28] Yeah, this is what happens. Listen, every time we report a podcast, it's so funny, no matter what it is, even if it's Conquer A Classic, we start and it's like, all right, here we go.
Annie Jones [01:09:40] And then by the end, look how happy we are!
Hunter [01:09:42] I know, listen, you know what, maybe it's not the books. Maybe it's just us.
Annie Jones [01:09:47] Maybe it's us. Maybe it's Maybelline. Maybe it's us. Thank you so much, Hunter. We would love to know y'all's top 10 of the year. So feel free to comment on Instagram, message us, DM us, we'd love to know what books made your top 10. Hunter, thank you so much and I'll see you in 2026.
Hunter [01:10:05] Bye!
Annie Jones [01:10:13] This week, I'm reading Grace and Henry's Holiday Movie Marathon. Hunter, what are you reading?
Hunter [01:10:18] I'm reading Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club by J. Ryan Straddle.
[01:10:19] 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
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