Episode 528: May New Release Rundown
This week on From the Front Porch, it’s another New Release Rundown! Annie, Erin, and Olivia are sharing the May releases they’re excited about to help you build your TBR. When you purchase or preorder any of the books they talk about, enter the code NEWRELEASEPLEASE at checkout for 10% off your order!
To purchase the books mentioned in this episode, stop by The Bookshelf in Thomasville, visit our website (search episode 528) or download and shop on The Bookshelf’s official app:
Annie's books:
Poetry is Not a Luxury by Anonymous (5/6)
My Friends by Fredrik Backman (5/6)
Sleep by Honor Jones (5/13)
Olivia's books:
Billions to Burn by Taylor Banks (5/6)
The Language of the Birds by K.A. Merson (5/13)
The Ascent by Allison Buccola (5/20)
Erin's books:
The Names by Florence Knapp (5/6)
Run for the Hills by Kevin Wilson (5/13)
The Love Haters by Katherine Center (5/20)
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 Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins. Olivia is reading King of Ashes by S.A. Cosby. Erin is listening to The Small and the Mighty by Sharon McMahon.
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:
[squeaky porch swing] Welcome to From the Front Porch, a conversational podcast about books, small business, and life in the South. [music plays out] “He would often try to think that perhaps that has to be the case: that our teenage years have to simultaneously be the brightest light and the darkest depths, because that’s how we learn to figure out our horizons.” - Fredrik Backman, My Friends
[as music fades out] I’m Annie Jones, owner of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in beautiful downtown Thomasville, Georgia. Today I’m joined by Bookshelf operations manager Olivia and online sales manager Erin to give you a rundown of our favorite new books releasing in May. If you’re a new or newish listener, you might not realize that From the Front Porch is a production of The Bookshelf, a small, independently-owned bookstore in rural South Georgia. By listening to our show and recommending it to friends, you’re helping to keep our indie bookstore in business, and if you like what you hear, one way you can financially support us is through Patreon. Last year, we read the classic American novel Lonesome Dove with over 1,000 Patreon supporters, and in January, we kicked off our 2025 reading of Don Quixote. For $5 a month, you can access our monthly Conquer a Classic recaps, as well as our Porch Visits, which are monthly live Q&As where we talk about everything from pop culture to nail polish to what books you should take on your next vacation. To learn more about our Patreon tiers and benefits, you can visit patreon.com/fromthefrontporch. Now back to the show. Hi guys.
Erin [00:01:59] Good morning.
Olivia [00:02:01] Hello.
Annie Jones [00:02:02] We're here, believe it or not, to talk about May books. We're just flying through this year.
Olivia [00:02:06] We really are halfway.
Annie Jones [00:02:08] It's simultaneously dragging and blink and it's over. So, as we go through these main new releases, do keep in mind, listeners, that Erin has made browsing the podcast book selections so easy. Just go to bookshelfthomasville.com and type episode 528 into the search bar. There, you'll see all of today's books listed, ready for you to preorder or purchase. You can use the code NEWRELEASEPLEASE at checkout for 10% off your order of today's titles. Okay. There's a lot coming out in May, actually.
Erin [00:02:43] Yeah, really good books.
Annie Jones [00:02:45] Really good books. I think it's like summer kickoff. Is what it feels like. Okay, I'll get us started. And I am going to start with, I don't know, a different kind of book for me, maybe. It is Poetry is Not a Luxury. This is an anthology collection of poetry released this week. I follow Poetry is Not a Luxury on Instagram. We're going to link to them in the show notes. Well, I think it's a great way to take in poetry every day. I love the poems that they feature and they do such a great job of both modern poetry and classic poetry. It's a good introduction if you are one of those people who thinks poetry is not for you. And I think there are a lot of people who think it is not for them. I almost think it's like short stories where we associate it with English class. And if you have positive memories of English class, that excites you. And then if you have negative feelings and memories of English class, maybe it's overwhelming. So I think this is a great collection. And at The Bookshelf, we don't have a huge poetry selection, but we do have a decent-sized one, and we do really well, particularly with well-compiled, thoughtfully-compiled collections. So, here's what I like about this one. This is compiled by the same person who, by the way, is anonymous, which I'm like, oh, I want to do a dep dive.
Erin [00:04:15] I didn't know that.
Annie Jones [00:04:18] Yeah. Now watch this episode release and there's some kind of reveal about who it is. But to my knowledge, this person anonymously runs the Instagram account and has anonymously compiled and edited this collection. It's divided up into seasons, but maybe not just your typical interpretation of those seasons. So in the first section, it's called Summer, which is perfect, because that's what we're entering right now. It's all about love poems for weddings and anniversaries. There are poems about travel, protest, joy, exhilaration. Then it moves into Autumn, which is more nostalgic poems about home and family and friendship, gratitude. Then Winter, it's poems about grief, loneliness, mourning, comfort. And then spring, which has celebratory poems, nature poems, lots about rain and flowers, new beginnings. So I love this. I love when somebody gives thoughtful consideration to how a book is structured. I think about a bit much, which is divided up into mood.
[00:05:28] And so, again, this really does lend itself to picking up and putting down. You're not meant to necessarily read poetry start to finish. You can just pick this book up as you want. I think it'd make a great graduation gift, potentially a great Mother's Day gift. It's got a really lovely, colorful cover. I'm excited about this one. I am going to be buying this one. If I had to bet, it'll be right up Caroline's alley as well. And so this it has poems. If you follow the Instagram account-- and in fact, go to the Instagram account and see what you think to know if this is for you. But the poems are both old and modern; though, there is an emphasis in this collection on living poets. So I also think it's great if maybe your last time to experience poetry was like Keats or something. This might expand your knowledge of the genre beyond maybe what you learned in high school English class. So that is Poetry is Not a Luxury. It's an anthology that came out this week and I'm really excited about it.
Erin [00:06:32] That's right. There's another book I'm not talking about it today, but there's another great poetry book coming out by this month in May by Josie Balka. I don't know if you've seen her on Instagram, but she reads her poetry like real close to a microphone and it's such a pleasant sound. And she has a poetry collection coming out called, I Hope You Remember in May. And it's also categorized by longing, loving, and living, I think. So they're are poems [inaudible]. So I do love it when they kind of say, “Hey, these poems are for this season of life or this season of the year.”
Annie Jones [00:07:06] Yeah, I do, too. I love that.
Olivia [00:07:08] I do feel like poetry is coming not back in style, but more in style.
Annie Jones [00:07:14] I think Instagram has helped. I really do. I think about poets like Kate Behr or Lindsay Rush. There's another-- Erin, I think you follow maybe Hannah Rowe? She's got a collection coming out. Anyway, I just feel like Instagram has made it maybe more accessible seeming. But I think you're right, Olivia, like you, I hesitate to say it's making a comeback like it ever went anywhere. But I think we're selling it more than we used to.
Erin [00:07:45] Yeah. I agree
Olivia [00:07:48] Absolutely. I'm one of those people who is not a poetry person, mostly because you guys might not know this about me, but I'm a very literal person.
Annie Jones [00:07:56] It's not really shocking that poetry is not your thing.
Olivia [00:07:59] It is almost Fidelia Fidelio over here. And so English was a struggle, but maybe this is my time to shine.
Erin [00:08:12] There you go. I think poetry is intimidating if you think you think you're not getting it. But I think if you just remove that, sort of like art, like you can know a lot about an art and really enjoy our piece or you can just stand there and look at it for what it is and enjoy it. And I think everyone can enjoy poetry if they just read it for what it is, and don't try to think too hard about it.
Annie Jones [00:08:33] Yeah, you don't have to write a grad level paper about it.
Olivia [00:08:37] I remember going into English class and they would be like, all right, what did everyone get from this poem? And everyone got the same thing, except for me. And I was like, I really thought this was obvious.
Erin [00:08:48] You're like, he's comparing her to a flower, guys. A flower.
Olivia [00:08:52] He likes flowers.
Annie Jones [00:08:53] Isn't it obvious?
Olivia [00:08:59] Okay, my next book is a middle grade book called Billions to Burn by Taylor Banks and this is out May 6th. This one I picked up on a whim because middle grade for me flies by so fast and I needed a fast read. This is about a kid named Zeus. All of his siblings are named after Greek gods. They didn't really address that in the book, but--
Annie Jones [00:09:23] Just kind of glossed over that detail.
Olivia [00:09:25] Yeah, it was kind of fun. But his grandfather or his great grandfather, I can't remember. This is also slightly futuristic. It's set in, like, 2036. So technology is a bigger thing than it is right now, which I think we all see coming. And Zeus's family is very wealthy. But his grandfather or his great grandfather (sorry, I can remember) he owned a printing company during the Harlem Renaissance, and it was kind of like this tell all newspaper. And then the place where they did all the printing burnt down. And he left clues to a secret page that has like a secret to billions of dollars, basically. So Zeus is going to visit his grandfather like he does every summer for like a couple of weeks. And his grandfather just never shows up. It's just Zeus and his grandfather's butler who's a very nice guy, young too. He's like in his 20s and just kind of like there to help out. It was a really cool character. But Zeus thinks that something has gone wrong because his grandfather isn't answering his phone. Like it's just very unusual circumstances.
[00:10:43] So he calls on the four grandchildren of the almost founders of this newspaper company because all of them have their own special first edition. And with those first editions, they start to piece together all of these clues and work their way to the secret page. I was worried during this book that it would be repetitive, like clue after clue. And there's people chasing them because that's what happens when you have a secret treasure. But it really didn't feel repetitive at all, because also the relationship between the four kids was tense. There was like a big falling out between them, and now they're kind of trying to not only get to the puzzle, but also be friends again. It was really fun. It was really entertaining. I read it in one sitting because it was just really fun. That was Billions to Burn.
Annie Jones [00:11:44] Yeah, it sounds a little different from we're always talking about where the fun middle grade books are. You know what I mean? And this one sounds like this is fun. Like kids will enjoy this.
Olivia [00:11:56] We don't need a moral here. We just need like a fun [crosstalk].
Erin [00:12:01] Yeah, 14-year-olds like the idea of searching for a billion dollars, too. So yeah.
Annie Jones [00:12:07] Yeah, don't we all?
Olivia [00:12:07] Yeah, who wouldn't?
Erin [00:12:07] Okay. My first book, I'm sorry to say, takes a bit of a darker turn, but it's okay.
Olivia [00:12:17] You don't have to be sorry about that.
Erin [00:12:18] That's usually your job Olivia. So today I'm taking that role. This is a book I love. I think I love it all the more because I picked it up with zero expectations and it just surprised me. It just blew me out of the water. It's called The Names by Florence Knapp. I believe she is a British author. This book is set in England, in Ireland, but it comes out May the 6th. And we opened the book by meeting Cora, who is a new mom, and she has a nine-year-old daughter named Maya, and they are on their way, they're pushing her, the new baby, to the registry office so that they can decide on what the name for the baby will be. And so we don't know much, but we know that their father, the father, the husband, his name is Gordon, and he wants the baby to be named Gordon because it's his name, it's father's name. And it's sort of a family tradition to pass this name down, but Cora doesn't want to name him Gordon. And so we're left wondering why, which we'll figure out pretty quickly. And the daughter, Maya, wants to name him Bear because she says it sounds cuddly and soft. And Cora herself wants to name him Julian because it means sky father. She likes the name of it and she likes the sound of it. And also she thinks it might be a good compromise between a name like Bear and a name like Gordon.
[00:13:48] So we meet her and in the first part she chooses the name Bear and she goes home. And basically what happens from there, from that day, I don't know that they tell you that particular day what she chooses, but then there are three sort of storylines that branch off from that day. And it's all dependent on what she named the child. So in one scenario, she named him Bear. They went with Bear, Maya's choice. In one scenario, they named him Julian. In one's scenario, they named him Gordon. And these three storylines they go off from that decision and it really shows you what everyone who is involved lives become because of that day. And one of the main storylines, I'm sorry to say, is that Gordon, the father, is a terrible person at home. He's a charming doctor out in the world. People love him. He is beloved. But at home, he is an abuser. And so she is scared. She doesn't want to name the baby Gordon, you find out, because she hates her husband. He a terrible person. And she doesn't want the baby to grow up to be like him.
[00:15:02] So these three storylines do all contain a bit of abuse. And that is hard to read. And I hate sending out books like that into the world and recommending them, but it's so beautiful. The writing is so incredible. And just showing who this baby will become based on the names that he's given at birth was just such a neat experience. And it just shows how it affects Maya, how it effects Cora, how it affects Gordon and the grandparents and friends and family, everyone. You kind of see what happens. And so it has a bit of not a thriller aspect to it, but you are kind of turning the pages to see because it jumps ahead seven years each time. Like it'll tell you what happened in that time period based on those names. It'll jump ahead seven. And as I'm sharing about it, it sounds very confusing, but I wasn't confused once. It was very clear what timeline we were in and each chapter has a little heading that either says bear or Julian or Gordon's that you know what storyline you're in. But I loved it. It's a gorgeous book and I want everyone to read it and then come back and tell me what they thought about it. It's called The Names by Florence Knapp. It comes out May 6th.
Annie Jones [00:16:18] I think this is going to be based on publisher descriptors. I think somebody's going to pick this, meaning a celebrity.
Erin [00:16:24] They have to. I wrote on my Instagram, if you don't see this everywhere, something has gone wrong because this is an incredible book.
Annie Jones [00:16:34] I think it's going to have some kind of celebrity book club potentially. How did you read this? Because this has been on my list. Did you read it electronically?
Erin [00:16:45] I read the e-copy. I downloaded it.
Annie Jones [00:16:49] I'll have to do that because I'm really excited about this one, too. I just think it's such a fun premise, like such a thoughtful, interesting premise.
Erin [00:16:57] It is.
Annie Jones [00:16:58] Okay, my next one is highly anticipated. I think probably people listening to this podcast know more about it than I do because they're so excited. But it is My Friends by Fredrik Backman. Of course, we all know Fredrik Backman as the author of A Man Called Ove, Beartown, Britt-Marie Was Here, Anxious People, you name it. I feel like every book he releases into the world is super popular and deservedly so. Like every book I've read by him, I really, really liked. I think this one is a little bit different; although, again, he kind of runs the gamut. It's not like he's writing the same book over and over again. I have not read this yet because my dad took this one home. I used to pick my dad's options for Shelf Subscription. Like I would give him a stack. But these days, whenever he's at The Bookshelf, he just goes upstairs and shops the ARCs himself, which I think is fun. And so he picked this one and he didn't know anything about Fredrik Backman, which I thing is kind of delightful because most people do. I won't say most people, but a lot of our readers certainly do.
[00:18:08] And so, he was telling me how excited he was about this book and he was talking all about it. And because of course it's just funny how you connect with your [inaudible], I said, "Did you ever see the movie A Man Called Otto?" Which is just the kind of movie my parents would love with Tom Hanks? And dad was like, yeah. And I was like okay, well, that was based on this book. This author is pretty prolific. Anyway, it was just fun to like take my dad down that rabbit trail. And I think my dad's like maybe I'll read more by him. But, anyway, my dad is in the middle of this book right now. And basically the premise is that there's a woman named Louisa and she is obsessed or somehow comes into the possession of this work of art, this relatively well-known work of art. And she is one of the first people who, I guess, because of her proximity to it, she really starts to investigate it and really ruminate on it. And what she sees in the painting are these three teenagers at the end of a pier. What I'm curious about and what I could not find out without reading the book, is this a real work of art that Fredrik Backman has based? And I think maybe it's too early for interviews with him or whatever as of this recording.
[00:19:26] Because I am just curious if he used his imagination and based this on an actual work of famous art. I don't know. Somebody's probably yelling at their phone right now because they know. But, anyway, she investigates and studies this piece of art, and she notices that there are three teenagers at the end of a pier. And then the book goes back in time 25 years and it then is the story of these four friends. And it's all about their friendship, their devotion to art. Each friend, each teenager has a very distinct kind of personality. And my understanding is the novel kind of goes back and forth between Louisa who wants to know the story of this painting and goes on this journey to figure out where this painting was originally created, what the inspiration was. So she's going on her own journey. And then we as the reader are going back 25 years and perhaps seeing what Louisa is trying to discover. I'm excited about this. I am going to read this. It weirdly sounds summery to me. Maybe it's because of the coming of age, teenager element. But I like Fredrik Backman a lot. And I don't read all of his books. I'm not a completionist when it comes to Fredrik Backman, but this one I'm intrigued by. And so this is My Friends by Fredrik Backman. My dad is reading it right now and is loving it. So for what that's worth.
Erin [00:20:58] Yeah, I know people will be very excited about this one.
Olivia [00:21:02] Have you seen his award speech? What was it? I think it was something with Simon and Schuster, but he gave a speech and his publicist made him do it. It was so good.
Annie Jones [00:21:12] yes. Listen, it's not like a rule for me or anything, but I don’t follow a ton of authors, but every so often he like pops up maybe in my for you section on Instagram or something. He's fun. He seems delightful.
Olivia [00:21:28] Love his dry humor.
Annie Jones [00:21:28] He seems like a good time. Yeah. Which is kind of what you'd expect maybe based on reading his books, but he's somebody I would love to see in person. I think that'd be really fun.
Olivia [00:21:42] He'd be a reluctant, but a great speaker. My next book is called The Language of the Birds by K. A. Merson. This is out May 13th. I hadn't heard of this author before I picked up this book, but I guess this is not her debut novel. She has written a couple other things as well. I picked it up because the title of it had like puzzle solving, like cryptology, and I was like, yes. The main character is a 17-year-old named Arizona, which I keep trying to remember what Jeff Zentner said about where they draw the line between young adult and adult novels with the protagonist. Because this is like the second or third adult novel that I have read with a teenage protagonist.
Erin [00:22:33] Interesting.
Olivia [00:22:35] I don't remember what he said, but he said something because when he was writing adult versus YA, they told him there's a distinction. But Arizona, she lives in a van with her mom and her dog Mojo. She loves geocaching, cryptology, like solving puzzles. She's very, very smart. Her and her mom are on their way to this-- it's like an abandoned town, somewhere out and like--
Annie Jones [00:23:05] Yes, one of those towns...
Erin [00:23:09] Ghost town.
Annie Jones [00:23:10] Yes, a ghost town.
Olivia [00:23:12] And there's a national park connected to it. And they're going there because that's where they're going to let go of, not bury, disperse her father's ashes. So they get there and Arizona and her mom are like, all right, we'll meet at this church at 4 p.m. And Arizona goes off with her dog. Her dog is like a big part of the story because they're very close. Arizona is on the spectrum of some sort. So her dog is also her companion, very, very close to her. Nothing happens to the dog.
Erin [00:23:52] Thank you.
Olivia [00:23:53] The dog is fine.
Annie Jones [00:23:54] Good clarification.
Olivia [00:23:56] Well, the dog does maybe end up in some danger at some point, but the dog makes it through.
Annie Jones [00:24:00] Nobody panic.
Olivia [00:24:01] Yeah, nobody panic. Mojo's fine. So they go back to meet at 4 p.m. And her mom doesn't show up. She finds out her mom got kidnapped. And the people who kidnapped her mom basically leave her with this puzzle that she has to solve and as she digs further and further into it she realizes it's this puzzle that her father had supposedly started to solve. It has to do with like a cult that deals with alchemy, like an ancient sort of thing. And her father had almost solved it and now this organization is ready to get the treasure from it. And so they think Arizona can do it because they know about her through her father. So Arizona and her dog are now out in the world trying to figure out this puzzle with the hopes that she can get her mom back in time. It's definitely tense at some points, but you're also just rooting for Arizona the whole time. I felt about Arizona how I feel about Harriet from The Little Friend by Donna Tart, where you're just watching this child and you're like, go do it, go to it. And then at some point you're like, wait, hold on. You are still a minor.
Annie Jones [00:25:17] Please be careful.
Olivia [00:25:22] Yeah. You do get chapters from her mom's point of view. And her mom is this person who just like she's not scared of being kidnapped. She tries to escape several times during this. So there's not any fear or worry in that way. You're just like, all right, these two women know how to handle themselves. They kind of somehow know what they got themselves into. And we'll see it through. It did end. They solved the puzzle, but not in the way I thought they would solve the puzzle. Which was really refreshing. Again, this is my second treasure hunting novel that I'm talking about on this podcast. It did not feel repetitive. I was hoping that it would be something like The Fellowship of the Puzzle Makers, where I can also solve the puzzles along with them. It was not. This was a very intense puzzle, but it was so well done. I loved Arizona and her dog Mojo. You fall in love with those characters and you're there to see them through. So that was The Language of the Birds.
Annie Jones [00:26:28] And that's an adult novel?
Olivia [00:26:31] It's an adult novel.
Erin [00:26:32] Okay. That was my question. I couldn't remember what you said if it was middle grade or adult. That sounds good. Lots of treasure hunting. I'll get in on that.
Annie Jones [00:26:43] It's time for adventure. It's summer. Go to a ghost town, split up with your mom, see what happens.
Olivia [00:26:49] Last summer was missing child. This summer is treasure hunting.
Erin [00:26:56] Okay, my next book is Run for the Hills by Kevin Wilson, it comes out May 13th. I really love Kevin Wilson. I haven't read all of his books, but I've read quite a few. Nothing to See Here was I think my entry to Kevin Wilson and then I really loved Now is Not the Time to Panic, which came out a few years ago. So I was very excited about this one, was not disappointed. He writes quirky families and quirky characters so very well, where they're lovable and slightly imperfectionist so that you have empathy for them or and you want to root for them. And so this book when it opens, we meet a young Madeline Hill with her father and they're sitting there, they're talking, they're on a farm, they are running a farm. And you can really see the sense the love between them. And then the very next chapter, they've skipped ahead to where Madeline is an adult and her father has left and she's running the farm with her mom. And a man in a PT Cruiser shows up one day and says his name is Ruben Hill and he is her half-brother and they have the same father and his father left their family to start Madeline's family. And Madeline is like, yes, well, my father left. And he says, "I know, because I've been researching this. And it looks like we have two other half-siblings scattered across the country who have also been fathered by our father."
[00:28:29] So they want to confront their father and also find out more about their father and more about these siblings that they didn't know about until today. So they agree to go on a road trip, which I do love a good road trip novel. They agree to go on a road trip, go pick up the other siblings, head to California, where they will confront their father and mostly just ask him questions like why did you leave? I thought the fun part about this book is that it could have been depressing. A father leaving all these families, it could've been depressing. But it's just funny. It's sweet. The father kind of reinvents himself. Like when he is Ruben's dad, he's a writer, they live in Boston. When he leaves there, he says he's farmer; he lives in Tennessee. When he leaves there, he says he's a professional basketball coach, and that child he has ends up being a NCAA college basketball star, and they had to go pick her up actually like basically at the March Madness tournament. They go pick up at the tournament where she's playing. And then he leaves again, says he is a filmmaker, and the little boy that he has there is really into films.
[00:29:42] So it's just fun to watch him reinvent himself and how each of the children take on that personality. So, of course, it's moving because they have a lot of questions for each other and for their father and like why did he leave us? Why did he have these other families and not ever contact us again? And so really it's about letting go of that idea of family that you may have in your head and embracing the family you have. So the family they've made without him. And then as they meet each other, they have these new brothers and sisters that they've made their own little quirky family because they've bonded over the loss of their dad and also just being alive in this world. So it's super, super sweet and it has a good kind of touching ending, I think. And so I feel like with Nothing to See Here there was kids who started on fire, there's nothing like that in this book, no sort of magical realism, but it's just a sweet cross-country family story. So that's called Run for the Hills by Kevin Wilson. And I literally didn't think about the title being the fact that their last name was Hill. It hit me and I was like, okay, all right, I get that Kevin. Good job.
Annie Jones [00:30:58] Clever Kevin.
Olivia [00:31:01] I have so many questions for that father.
Erin [00:31:02] Okay. Yeah, right?
Olivia [00:31:03] How did he hold so many different jobs?
Erin [00:31:05] Yeah, I don't know. He's just one of those like catch me if you can type characters where he just reinvents himself so well.
Olivia [00:31:12] Fake your way into becoming a like major basketball coach.
Annie Jones [00:31:16] I envisioned that he was lying. I didn't envision he was a real coach.
Erin [00:31:20] No. I mean, he worked [crosstalk].
Annie Jones [00:31:22] I envision that that's what he told people. I don't know. I'm going to read this. I like Kevin Wilson a lot as well. I think the only one I haven't read is actually Nothing to See Here, which I don t know how that one missed me.
Erin [00:31:37] Yeah, that's a great one.
Annie Jones [00:31:38] But Family Fang is where I was introduced to him, and he writes these quirky families so well. Interestingly, Erin, the names and Run for the Hills, there's some serious overlap there about how our names and our parenting affects who we are.
Erin [00:31:52] That's very true. What's interesting is because he gives them all names, like their names are Ruben, Madeline, but then he gives him nicknames. So like he calls Ruben Rub, he calls Maddie Mads, he has another daughter calls her Pep. And so they bond over that, too. Like what? He called you what? Like that's your nickname?
Annie Jones [00:32:14] Okay, I'm going to read that. I'm excited. I also love a road trip book this time of year.
Erin [00:32:17] And there's basketball involved, slightly. So you'll like that.
Annie Jones [00:32:22] Yeah, sold. Okay, speaking of maybe summer books, although this one does feel a little heavier in nature, I'm going to close out with a debut novel called Sleep. This is by Honor Jones. It releases next week, May 13th. This a debut by a senior editor at the Atlantic. So Honor Jones works for the Atlantic. Admittedly, this one caught my eye for two reasons. It's got a great, to me, very striking summery cover, a girl in a swimming pool. And then it's blurbed by Anne Patchett. And I know as booksellers, we kind of know that blurbs are kind of about who you know and stuff like that. But my interest is still piqued when I see an author I respect blurb a book. And so Anne Patchett blurbed this one. And so I started reading it and was immediately hooked. The book opens with a young girl named Margaret. You can sense maybe that she's a little bit of a tomboy, a little but precocious, and she's playing hide and go seek with her neighborhood friends. And it really does feel very summertime. Like they're outside, you can sense the heat. The adults are drinking lemonade on somebody's porch. It just feels of a certain time. And so Margaret is hiding I think it's like under the steps or near a blackberry bush or something. And you almost feel like you're reading about Scout and Jim in To Kill a Mockingbird or something like that. Like these kids having fun.
[00:33:57] And then her mother, Margaret's mother, enters the picture and immediately the novel becomes tense. It's nuts to me how this author was able to immediately change the tone of the book within a few pages because you can see that something is perhaps wrong with Margaret's motherboard and also Margaret is frequently in her mother's like-- I don't know how to describe it-- cone of rage. It just feels like she has her eyes set on Margaret. Margaret is a tomboy. Her mother is very put together. And so she snaps at Margaret, tells her to go clean up. And immediately the novel shifts in tone. Like you kind of think this is going to be fun, summery coming of age story or something like that, and instead you're like this is a mother-daughter story. This is what this is going to be. And so fast forward and the book pretty immediately fasts forward to Margaret. She's playing hide and go seek again, but she's now 35 and her two little girls are hiding somewhere in the house and it's her childhood home.
[00:35:03] She has come back here after or during a divorce, kind of a marital separation. And so now Margaret is having to figure out who she is as a daughter, who she as a mother and how she was affected by her own mother's mothering. I love books like this. This is definitely soundly literary fiction, but I do feel like the parts I've read at least are pretty propulsive. Like enough is happening with the characters that I do really care. Margaret is the star of the show, but certainly this is a mother-daughter story. And I do think because of the setting and because of this house that I think is going to play a pretty significant role, it feels summer time to me, like something like The Paper Palace, or, I don't know, a Barbara Kingsolver's Unsheltered or something like that. So I'm really excited. I'm about a third of the way through and I'm loving it so far. Hard to believe it's a debut. That is Sleep by Honor Jones.
Erin [00:36:06] I see that everywhere, so I know it's going to be good.
Annie Jones [00:36:07] Yeah, I think it's going to pop up a lot of places.
Olivia [00:36:11] Well, I have another kind of mother daughter story. OK, this is The Ascent by Allison Buccola. It's out at the end of the month, May 20th. And this is about everyone's favorite, a cult.
Annie Jones [00:36:30] Yeah, it is.
Olivia [00:36:33] So this girl Lee, I believe her full name is Ophelia, but everyone just calls her Lee. She grew up in a cult in Philadelphia, which is what caught me at first because I did listen to a podcast from Stuff You Should Know about the Move cult, which ended with a bomb being dropped on their little home. Yeah, wild. Check it out. And then I thought I was like is she referencing this? She is not. She is not, although there's probably other cults in Philadelphia. Just like there's cults everywhere not just in Philly.
Annie Jones [00:37:07] Don't worry, there's cults everywhere.
Erin [00:37:07] Standing up for Pennsylvania.
Olivia [00:37:08] Everyone gets their own cult okay? But Lee grew up in this cult in Philadelphia. They didn't have like a name for themselves, but one day she woke up and everyone was gone. And from that day forward, they were known as the 15 because they were 15 people, 16 including her, that just went missing one day and no one ever found out where they went. Lee just woke up one morning, she has no memory of anything happening in the night, sounds of people leaving at all. All she knows that her mother took her little sister and the rest of the cult and they all just disappeared.
Erin [00:37:51] Oh, no.
Olivia [00:37:52] She was 12 at the time, I want to say, and so she just ended up wandering around Philadelphia. A cop found her and they did their next of kin research and she ended up living with her aunt from that day forward. Her aunt kind of knew her mom. I mean, she obviously knew her mom was in this cult, but she had no point of communication with her after she joined the cult. And Lee, this was all she knew. She was a baby when her mom joined the cult, and so from that day forward, this is just what she knew. She grew up with her aunt then and her cousin, who is an awful person and did not like Lee, did not the intrusion that Lee put in her family, and the attention that inevitably she stole from her own mom, because her aunt was like this girl knows nothing about the real world and needs a lot of help and has a lot of issues because her mom just abandoned her with her younger sister and she doesn't know why she was left.
Erin [00:38:55] Yeah.
Olivia [00:38:56] So then you flash forward and you meet Lee, she has just had her first child. She's working on getting that baby to sleep through the night. Her husband and her are struggling because of that. He thinks the baby should be in her own room. Lee is kind of afraid to let the baby be out of her sight for obvious reasons. But her husband doesn't know these obvious reasons because Lee neglected to tell him anything about her past, which was a point that did anger me throughout the book. If you're going to marry someone, come clean.
Annie Jones [00:39:37] Just tell them about the cult you were raised in, it's okay.
Olivia [00:39:41] You at that point need to trust that your husband will be okay with that.
Annie Jones [00:39:45] He can handle it.
Olivia [00:39:46] Or he should maybe not be your husband.
Erin [00:39:49] Good marriage advice this morning. Thank you.
Olivia [00:39:53] And that's Olivia's Corner. So then one day documentary starts coming out about-- and she had been contacted by a reporter, but now the reporter's done trying to contact her and get her story. The documentary is coming about out about the 15. So it's now like in the world, zeitgeist sort of thing. And then one her sister just shows up on her doorstep. And now Lee's world has just like flipped upside down. She's just like you're alive and you're here. And where have you been and what's going on? And that's all I'm going to say. You have to read the book to find out what happens next.
Annie Jones [00:40:34] I might read that book for real.
Olivia [00:40:37] It was a good cult story.
Annie Jones [00:40:40] E-book, literal, ARC, what did you read?
Olivia [00:40:42] E-book. I didn't get the ARC of that one.
Annie Jones [00:40:49] I'm on the book train. I'm reading things via e-books and it does work for me; I do use e-Books.
Olivia [00:40:56] It's hard to pick up, though.
Annie Jones [00:40:58] But it is, because truly out of sight, out of mind, and I don't see the cover. In fact, the other day I was like what am I in the middle of reading? I know I'm reading a book. And I was, like, what is it? And I didn't know because it was on the Kindle. Anyway, I do just want to read a physical book sometimes.
Olivia [00:41:18] Yes, it truly is out of sight, out of mind. And I don't like that I can't see the cover because I'm such a visual person.
Annie Jones [00:41:25] Yes, same.
Olivia [00:41:25] And this cover for me didn't really do the book total justice. It almost looks a little bit fantasy-esque and plays more into the cult aspect of her life than like what's currently going on with her sister showing up, her dealing with first time mom things and being a liar to her husband.
Erin [00:41:52] Harsh words from Olivia.
Olivia [00:41:54] Am I wrong?
Erin [00:41:56] No. But I do like the drama it provides within fiction, not real life. That shouldn't do that in real life. Well, talk about summer, my last book from the cover to the content is a true summer read. It's The Love Haters by Catherine Center. It comes out May 20th. So at the end of the month. Catherine Center is always an author I will be interested in. I may not read every single one of her books, but I've read a few of them and I feel like they always sell really well for us. And she wrote an author's note at the of Hello Stranger, which was one of her previous books, that was so moving to me. It was basically about how everyone likes to poo-poo, like, it's just a romance book or just a romcom. But it was just such a moving note about how the romances and romcoms provide us a brain pleasing thing in the midst of like a difficult world. And I could not agree more. And so I love her take on a romcom and on writing romcoms, and what they do for us in this space.
[00:43:09] So this is a book we meet Katie Vaughn; she's the main character. She is about to get laid off from her job as a video producer. So in one last attempt to save her job, she agrees to go do a video, like a segment, sort of a video. I don't know what you call it. For TV or something, for about a renowned coast guard rescue swimmer down in Key West. So she's going to have to go to Key West. She's going to have to jump in the water, jump out of helicopters and all these things. But the problem is, and this is just funny, this is a very romcom thing to happen, she doesn't know how to swim. And she hasn't worn a bathing suit in 25 years. She doesn't want to wear them. She doesn't like wearing them. And the person asking her to do this segment is the brother of the coast guard man that she's about to go do this profile on. And so there's a lot of tension between the brothers. And, of course, this coast guard rescue swimmer is incredibly handsome, has a rescue Great Dane named George Bailey. So if you love dogs, this is going to have a dog plot line.
[00:44:20] There's an eccentric angst involved. It's Key West. I mean, there's nothing more summary than that. So as you can imagine, Katie has to do a lot lying to get this role and a lot of lying to stay down there to save her job. And I haven't finished reading this yet, so I cannot tell you what happened. But we'll all be surprised together. But what I can't imagine, of course, as most romcoms go, is that she starts to be truthful about who she is or she's found out about who she is, learns to love and accept herself and maybe find a new version of herself at the end of this. It's called The Love Haters by Katherine Center. It comes out May 20th.
Olivia [00:45:04] She's definitely going to have to get rescued at some point.
Erin [00:45:06] For sure.
Annie Jones [00:45:09] That swimmer is going to have to come save the day. I like Katherine Center. She's reliable to me, and we do really sell a lot of her books. She's another one who I think would be fun in person.
Erin [00:45:25] Yeah, and her last two books, Rom-commers, came out with these gorgeous pink sprayed edges, and this one will have gorgeous blue sprayed edges to sort of match the-- it's fun that they're doing that now for those editions.
Annie Jones [00:45:41] I'll probably read that one, too. I'm just mentally making my list of things that...
Erin [00:45:45] You're adding to your own TBR?
Annie Jones [00:45:47] Yeah, to my own TBR. Okay, so those are some of the books. And I will say some, because even while we were just sitting here, I was like, why am I not talking about the Annie Hartnett book? I don't know. I don't know why I didn't talk about that book. But there was just too many to feature, and I wanted to feature the poetry book as an unsung kind of book. Anyway, these aren't all of the books coming out in May, but these are some that we think you might really be interested in. As I said at the top of the episode, you can go to bookshelfthomasville.com, type episode 528 into the search bar, and you'll see all of these books listed. You can pre-order or purchase, and you can get 10% off by using the code NEWRELEASEPLEASE. This week I'm reading Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins. Olivia, what are you reading?
Olivia [00:46:35] I'm Reading the King of Ashes by S.A. Cosby.
Annie Jones [00:46:39] And Erin, what are you reading?
Erin [00:46:40] This week I'm listening, finally, to The Small and the Mighty by Sharon McMahon.
[00:46:42] 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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