Episode 576 || What Would the March Sisters Read?

This week on From the Front Porch, Annie shares the modern books she would recommend to the March sisters from Little Women. Listen to find out what books Annie would recommend for Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy if they walked into The Bookshelf.

To purchase the books mentioned in this episode, stop by The Bookshelf in Thomasville, visit our website (search episode 576), or download and shop on The Bookshelf’s official app:

For Meg

For Jo

For Beth

For Amy

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 Love By The Book by Jessica George.

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...Ashley Ferrell, Beth, Cammy Tidwell, Gene Queens, Jammie Treadwell, Joseph Shorter IV, Kimberly, Linda Lee Drozt, Nicole Marsee, Stephanie Dean, and Wendi Jenkins.

Transcript:

Welcome to From the Front Porch, a conversational podcast about books, small business, and life in the South.  

“Nearly every guy I've dated believed they should already be famous, believed that greatness was their destiny, and they were already behind schedule. An early moment of intimacy often involved a confession of this sort, a childhood vision, teacher's prophecy, a genius IQ. At first, with my boyfriend in college, I believed it too. Later, I thought I was just choosing delusional men. Now I understand it's how boys are raised to think, how they are lured into adulthood. I've met ambitious women, driven women, but no woman has ever told me that greatness was her destiny.”  

-Lily King, Writers & Lovers.  

[00:01:11] I'm Annie Jones, owner of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in beautiful downtown Thomasville, Georgia. And this week we're continuing our new occasional podcast series, where I imagine what books I might hand-sell to our favorite authors and fictional characters. This week, I'm recommending books for the March Sisters. If you like my book reviews here on the podcast, you might be interested in joining my private Instagram account, Annie's Five Star Books. For $50 a year, you can become a part of my bookish community online. Through the private Instagram account you'll get access to my book review both frontlist and backlist titles. I host monthly Instagram Story Q&As and share about the books I start but never finish. If you follow me personally online, you've seen my reviews for years, and of course, From the Front Porch listeners will always have access to my Reading Recap episodes. The private Instagram is just a place separate from The Bookshelf, where I get to be more detailed with my reviews, and 5-star book club members can also choose if they want to order my five-star reads each month from the store. There's a quarterly newsletter option for the social media averse too. For more information or to sign up for 2026, visit annabjoneswrites.com/fivestar-book-club. There's also a link in the show notes. It's never too late to join.  

[00:02:35] Now back to the show. A few months ago, during one of our Patreon porch visits, there's a plug for Patreon, podcast listener Courtney asked me what books I'd recommend to my beloved March sisters. I loved the question and the resulting thought exercise so much, I decided I needed to try my hand at selecting books for other fictional characters and authors I love. Back in January when we debuted this series, I had some recommendations for Jane Austen. But for April, I'm turning to Courtney's original question and recommending titles for the March Sisters, all four of them. Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy. What would these women read now in 2026? If they walked into The Bookshelf, what books would I put into their hands? Dysfunctional family lit? Titles about homesteading and the tradwife life? Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird for the aspiring writers and artists? Here's what I came up with, settling on two books per sister.  

[00:03:35] So first, I have some recommendations for Meg. If you're not familiar with Little Women, which, okay, but you should be. But no shame. I don't want to shame people on From the Front Porch. So if you're not familiar, Meg in Little Women is the stereotypical and literal eldest sister. She is responsible and courteous, looking out often for her younger siblings, kind of an old soul. Maybe not in the way we think, but in the fact that she's very motherly nurturing. She reminds me a lot of Marmee. She's patient with her younger sisters, particularly her youngest sister, Amy. She reminds Jo that she is ambitious, but not in the way that maybe Jo or Amy are ambitious. She wants a family, she wants to be married, and she wants raise her children and live a quiet life and work with her hands. So, for Meg, who I often think is a little bit misunderstood, maybe even misunderstood by me. I would first recommend the book, The Hidden Art of Homemaking. This is by Edith Shaffer. And what I want you to know right off the bat is I have not reread this in its entirety in, I'm going to say 13 years. But I did love this book when I first encountered it in 2008, 9 10, somewhere around there. It was originally published in 1985. It is not a joke. It is a real book. The Hidden Art of Homemaking, it is a real book.  

[00:05:11] And then when I took over The Bookshelf-- actually before I took over The Bookshelf, when I was the manager of The Bookshelf in Tallahassee, now former Bookshelf owner, then current owner, Katie, gifted me a book for my birthday and this was the book she gifted me. And it's one of many ways actually in which Katie and I had overlapping tastes. I already owned this book and I loved it, but I kept Katie's copy that she gifted me because she had left notes inside, which I loved. So I have two copies of this book. And although on its face, if you were to Google it right now, and I believe it is in stock, like I believe, it is a book you can still order. If so, you can find it at The Bookshelf website. But if you look at this book, it looks like it was published in the 70s. Like I said, it was originally published in 1985. So it looks like I'm joshing with you. Like surely Annie B. Jones is not recommending a book called The Hidden Art of Homemaking, but I am. I found this book to be beautiful when I first read it. Now, yes, it has religious undertones for sure, probably even overtones. It is a religious book for sure. However, how Edith Schafer approaches homemaking is as a creative, life-giving, artistic pursuit. She talks about everything from making a meal to decorating a living room to filling your bookshelves. It's a thin little book. And, to me, this is the perfect book for Meg because it elevates the things that maybe when we read Little Women, maybe we disregard Meg's interests because so many of us grew up idolizing Jo and wanting to be Jo. And again, maybe I'm speaking for myself here.  

[00:06:59] But in the 2019 film adaptation of Little Women, there's this great line that Meg gives Jo, letting her know her ambitions are just as important as Jo's. I really like that The Hidden Art of Homemaking touches on the fact that at its heart, creating a home, whether you're single, married, married with kids, whatever, creating a home is a creative pursuit. And it can be an immensely beautiful one. If you have heard me talk before about The Supper of the Lamb by Robert Farrar Capon, that is to meals and mealtime as Hidden Art of Homemaking is to creating and crafting a home. There are literal tips and projects to do in here because of course there are, but to me, that's not the point. Some of that advice is pretty dated. But when I first encountered this book and Katie, who gifted it to me in 2013, I do not know how Katie had discovered it. It's not like it's a popular just stumble upon it at the bookstore kind of book. I don't know how Katie found it. I don't even know how I found it, except maybe I did have a friend named Cory who I think might have put this in my hands.  

[00:08:15] Anyway, in the current trad wife of it all, I'm not sure how this one lands, but I still do believe that the heart of the book is still true and good, which is working in our homes, whatever that looks like, however you pursue it, whether it's in cooking a beautiful meal for your family, putting planters on your front stoop, sprucing up your backyard. Whatever it looks like to you, it is a worthy pursuit and it is worthy in and of itself. Meg doesn't need to have other ambitions if she doesn't want them. And so I like this idea that we might think to be creative and artistic, you've got to publish a book. You have to produce a film. You have to write a song. But Edith Schaffer's point is maybe it's in the quiet act of hospitality and homemaking. So I have not reread this since 2013, but when I reread it in 2013, I loved it. I still think it applies. I don't know in 2026 what it will look like, but I do think Meg March, Meg Brooks, would adore it. So that is The Hidden Art of Homemaking by Edith Shaffer. Then I would hand her Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner. This was published in 1987. It is the classic story, at least in my mind, it's a classic story of the Morgans and the Langs. They are lifelong friends, couple friends, the rarest friends of them all, who meet at the University of Wisconsin when a couple of them are professors and their friendship winds up spanning decades.  

[00:10:10] The reason I would recommend this for Meg is because of how much Meg values her partnership with her husband, John, but also how much she clearly respects and admires her mother's marriage and how much Meg loves her friends. I think actually one of the most vivid scenes in Little Women to Me is when Meg goes-- it's early in the book, so it's before Meg is really a full-fledged adult, but she's close, she's on the cusp of womanhood. She goes to this party and she allows her friends to dress her up and then at the end she's kind of humiliated. She kind of feels like she's maybe done a disservice to her family. She hasn't been proud enough of where she's from and instead has kind of allowed herself to become a little bit silly and she regrets it. But what that story also tells me is how important Meg's friendships were to her. And so I would want to put this in Meg's hands because I think Meg values marriage and friendship and relationship. And I think she would love reading this pretty ordinary story about the Morgans and the Langs. Meg strikes me as someone who needs the ordinary stories. She's not like her writerly sister, her artistic sister. She's the sister who is content to stay. And in that, I find a deep kinship with Meg. Meg's not the sister I identify with the most, at least not typically, but I think Meg is the sister who is intent with life as it is. And so in both The Hidden Art of Homemaking and in Crossing to Safety, these are both good, worthy, excellent books, but they're not loud. They don't have these big climactic moments. They're just quiet books about normal everyday life. Now for each sister, I do have a runner up and I'm not going to go into detail but I will just give you the title. So it's like two books that I'm going to dive a little deeper in and then one runner up. My runner up for this is Dearly Beloved by Cara Wall. So I'd probably hand the stack of three to Meg.  

[00:12:12] And next, Jo. Jo is still the sister I identify with the most. In fact, she might be the character with which I identify the most in all of literature. I'm not sure. When we reread Little Women together in our Little Women book club a few years ago, I was struck by it's not just the ambitious writerly nature of Jo who I feel a deep kinship with. It is the fact that Jo wants everything to stay the same. Jo loathes change. She doesn't want them to grow up. She doesn't want Meg to get married. She doesn't want anybody to leave. She loves things as they are. And I think that's why she and Meg really do understand each other at their heart. They understand each other. And so as much as, sure, I was a tomboy-- I don't even know if we use that term anymore-- but as much I was a tomboy or a wannabe writer as a kid, certainly that's the part of Jo that stuck out to me the most as a kid. But as a grownup, when I read Little Women, I just think, oh, Jo, me too. I don't want anybody to grow up either. I don't want anybody to grow up and I like life as it is. Anyway, I have a couple of recommendations for Jo. Especially perhaps that writerly version of her. First is, of course, Writers and Lovers by Lilly King. This book is set in the summer of 1997. The main character is Casey. Casey is an aspiring writer and she is perhaps the last of her friends to kind of hold on to that hope, to hold on that perhaps naive, childish ambition that she could one day be a writer. She's living in Boston. She's working as a waitress. There's actually some really great scenes at the restaurant where she works. And she eventually has a relationship, a romantic relationship, that takes up a lot of that summer and affects her for the rest of her-- I would argue for the rest of her life. So much of this I feel like would appeal to Jo.  

[00:14:18] First of all, the Boston setting would be familiar to her. Second of all, this romantic relationship that maybe starts as almost kind of a professorial teacher type relationship. The fact that Casey is the last one of her friends to cling to the hope that one day she might publish something great, even though all of her other friends have kind of resigned themselves to a life of normalcy or ordinariness. I loved this book when it came out and that quote at the top of the episode about ambition and how little boys are raised versus how little girls are raised. I just think Jo would eat that up. I think she would eat it up. And I think she would either agree a hundred percent or she would push back talking about maybe how Marmee raised her. So, Writers and Lovers by Lilly King was the first book that immediately came into my mind for Jo.  

[00:15:19] The second book is a little bit different. I think I would put in Jo's hands A Swim in a Pond in the Rain. This is by George Saunders, originally published in 2022. George Saunder's is of course the award-winning short story writer. He also wrote Lincoln in the Bardo, probably one of my favorite books of the last-- now I'm wondering when he published it. Let's say the last decade. And he just recently released Vigil, which I liked, but a lot of people didn't. A lot of people really didn't. And so maybe I'm alone in that fact, but I liked Vigil. Anyway, he also is a professor at Syracuse University. He teaches MFA students a class on the Russian short story. And in this book, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, he takes that class and puts it into book format, offering some of what he and his students have discovered over the years together. So he takes these short stories by Chekhov, Tolstoy, Gogol, et cetera, and writes seven essays about their structure, their meaning, and the whole point is that he's making the class that he teaches to his MFA students accessible for anybody, particularly anybody interested in fiction. And he's trying to articulate why fiction is important, maybe now more than ever. George Saunders he was interviewed recently, I want to say it was the New York Times interview podcast. I'm not entirely sure, but he was interviewed recently and he was so thoughtful and wise and I sat watching it because there was a video component and thought to myself, I mean, he must make a great professor and we all know how much Jo March loves a professor Do I understand her relationship with Professor Baer? Not fully. I think I still am pretty bitter about that relationship based on my eight-year-old reading of the text. Now that I'm a grown-up, I understand that a little bit better.  

[00:17:22] But I think Jo would really appreciate being guided through some works with the hand of a talented instructor, like by the hand of a talented Instructor. There's this great quote from the introduction of A Swim in a Pond in the Rain in which Saunders writes. We're going to enter seven fastidiously constructed scale models of the world, made for a specific purpose that our time maybe doesn't fully endorse, but that these writers accepted implicitly as the aim of art. Namely, to ask the big questions. Questions like how are we supposed to be living down here? What were we put here to accomplish? What should we value? What is truth, anyway? And how might we recognize it? This is just a great book's class. That's all that sounds like to me. That sounds like a great book's class. It sounds like it would put me right back in the classroom, but maybe I don't need my MFA. Maybe I just need to read A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders. So I would hand Jo a work of fiction and a work of non-fiction. And then my runner up would be Bird by Bird by Anne Lamont as alluded to at the beginning of this episode.  

[00:18:35] And then there was Beth. Beth is alive and well and visiting my bookstore. And so I'm going to recommend some books for her. And we're not going to think about what is actually true. We're just going to think about Beth as she lived and breathed. And so, I am going to hand her To All the Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han. This might be an obvious pick if you're familiar with the backstory behind To All the Boys I Loved before by Jenny Hann. I loved that movie when it released in 2018. And after watching the movie, I read the books. It's a trilogy. I still rewatch that first movie in the series To All the Boys I've Loved Before. That has rewatchability. And I remember reading the books and thinking that I liked the books, but as they progressed, I didn't love them as much as I loved the first book and the first movie. Then I read this interview with Jenny Han in which Jenny Han says that she wrote To All the Boys I Have Loved before because she wanted to write a book about a Beth. Meaning she wanted to write a romance novel for a homebody, somebody who loves her sisters, who is content to stay at home. She doesn't need to go to the parties. She doesn't need to have a big social life. She's got her people and that's all she needs. And so Lara Jean, the main character in To All the Boys I've Loved Before, was designed to be a Beth type character. And I think the best of the world still deserve romance. Of course they do. They deserve their Peter Kavinsky's. And so I would hand Beth To All the Boys I've Loved Before. I think she would find it enjoyable and playful. She, I suspect, would find herself, see herself in Lara Jean and in Lara Jean's relationship with her sisters. Her older sister, who's ambitious, ready to leave home. Her younger sister, who's snarky and funny and witty. I think that's Meg, that's Amy, or that's Jo. And I just feel like Beths get books too. Beths gets romances too. So, To All the Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han is a young adult novel. Beth is a young adult. That is what I would hand her.  

[00:20:45] If Beth was an adult, and alive, and well adult, I would give her the second ending by Michelle Hoffman. This to me is an unsung gem. It released in 2023. I think it was at first intended to be a hardback, but if I'm not mistaken, it did ultimately release as a paperback original. Backlist-ish title that I do not think got nearly enough praise. It is delightful and quirky. It's if the Trouble with Jenny's Ear-- that is a book title. It's called The Trouble with Jenny's Ear. If The Trouble with Jenny's Ear had a book baby with Where'd You Go Bernadette, it would be The Second Ending by Michelle Hoffman. Why am I recommending it for Beth? Well, because Prudence is our main character. Prudence is a former child prodigy in classical piano. And although she has left her past far behind her, it comes calling when she's invited to perform on a rigged reality TV talent show. It's rigged because there's like this-- as I recall, I read this a couple of years ago. But as I recall, Prudence is supposed to be kind of a foil to who ultimately wins the competition, which is like this young wunderkind. And, of course, can Prudence go along with that? Well, you'll have to read the book to find out.  

[00:22:00] So chaos ensues, complete with some madcap escapades and seemingly silly side characters. But Michelle Hoffman does a beautiful job of making those characters develop into something more. Beth has her own quirky side characters. I think about Grandpa Lawrence, and yes, Teddy ultimately becomes a main character, but her quirky neighbors are a big part of her adolescence and who she ultimately becomes or who she would have become. And so I like that the second ending is a fun story. I think Beth needs to lighten up a little bit sometimes. It's a lot of fun. It's a great beach read that's not a rom-com or a thriller. We all know Beth needs go to the beach. She needs to breathe in that seaside air. And so I think she should take in her beach bag The Second Ending by Michelle Hoffman. So To All the Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han with The Second Ending by Michelle Hoffman. And on top of the stack, perhaps most importantly, Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green because I don't know, maybe that would help.  

[00:23:03] Last but not least, Amy. Now, you know, if you're a long time listener of this show or a person I love and know in real life, Amy is hard for me. Amy is petulant. She is whiny. She is the sister who burns Jo's book and I will never forgive her. And then she marries the love of Jo's life. At least that's what I thought when I was eight years old. It's also what I thought when I 16 and 18 and 22. But then there was a film adaptation in 2019 by Greta Gerwig in which Amy is portrayed by Florence Pugh. And all of a sudden, I was struck with the realization that Amy is the youngest sister that we meet at the beginning of the book. So she's younger than everybody else. She's supposed to be petulant. She's supposed to be whiny. She's a kid. A kid who ultimately grows up and isn't just as ambitious as her sister Jo. And then when you learn a little bit about Louisa May Alcott's background and her own relationship with her sister, May, you realize that tension is real. And the tension between these two sisters and both of their ambitions is an accurate portrayal of sister dynamics. And so thanks to Florence Pugh's portrayal of Amy. I have forgiven Amy. I have given Amy of almost everything. The book burning is still rough. The teddy of it all, it's still hard. Still hard. Even as I try to articulate my forgiveness, I'm wondering if it's accurate. Yeah, I think I have forgiven her. Anyway, I'm able to look beyond it. That's what I'll say.  

[00:24:39] So if Amy were to walk into The Bookshelf, I would hand her Loving Frank. This is by Nancy Horan. It is a backlist title, deep in the backlist, though maybe not as far back as some of the Meg picks. This was released in 2008. The book was recommended to me. When I was early in my Bookshelf tenure, people were still talking about this book. It's actually kind of amazing that it released in 2008. I feel like it had serious longevity. The book is historical fiction based on Frank Lloyd Wright and his affair with Mamah Borthwick Chaney. Back in the early 1900s, Frank Lloyd Wright was tasked with designing and constructing Mamah's house that she had with her husband, Edwin. But in the process of designing and building that house, Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah fall in love with each other and they have this really intense love affair, even though Mamah is obviously married to Edwin and Frank Lloyd Wright is also married. Isn't it funny how I have to say his whole name, Frank Lloyd Wright. This is a true story. In fact, I was in the middle of reading this book for the first time and all of a sudden I flashbacked to this episode of Gilmore Girls where Lorelai Gilmore kind of tells the whole story of Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Borthwick Chaney. And all the sudden, like when I had seen that episode, I do not think it really registered in any way. But then when I was reading this book, I thought, oh, wait, Lorelai Gilmore already told me this story. It is a wild story. It's a fantastic little blip in history to expound upon and make a book out of. I think Nancy Horan did so much research.  

[00:26:34] The reason I would recommend this to Amy is because the character of Amy is based on Louisa May Alcott's actual sister, May, who was a prolific artist in her own right. Amy is ambitious too. I think that's one of the reasons she and Jo butt heads. Amy is ambition, she wants to be an artist, she wants to be a painter. She goes to Paris with Aunt Marge, that is actually one of the other things that I cannot quite forgive her for. So she goes to Paris and I want Amy to see the difference especially in the early 1900s, how Frank Lloyd Wright's ambition was treated versus how Mamah's ambition was treated. So this woman is forced to choose, mother, wife, lover, intellectual. And even though the book is called Loving Frank, it really belongs to Mamah. And I have not reread this book since, I guess, 2014/15, whenever I read it for the first time, but I loved it. And I think it's a worthy work of historical fiction. You get a lot about Frank Lloyd Wright, obviously, and the work that he did on houses. This one was built in Chicago. But then you also get a a lot about ambition and how that was treated in a man versus how it maybe had to be buried if you were a woman. That's something that I think Marmee's girls were already well aware of, even when Little Women was written and released into the world.  

[00:28:08] So the first book I would hand Amy is Loving Frank by Nancy Horan. The second book I give her is a little book because I actually don't know if Amy has a huge attention span. But I would give Amy this little novella called Glaciers by Alexis M. Smith. This is a backlist title that was re-released by 10 House, the publisher 10 House in 2023. That is when I discovered it. It has a pretty recognizable or really striking cover. Isabelle is our main character. She's a single 20-something living in Portland, Oregon. She repairs damaged books in the basement of the local library, which is not a job she really wants to keep having, but I think it sounds like a really pretty great gig. She dreams of more. She wants a life that she can't quite seem to grasp. She's filled with longing. She wants a life in Amsterdam, even though she's never visited there. She has a crush on a coworker, even though they've barely spoken. She dreams of her simple childhood growing up in Alaska. And one of the many ways in which Isabel reminds me of Amy is much like Amy just needs those limes, Isabelle needs the perfect vintage dress to wear to a party at the end of the day because she thinks going to this party could change everything. So the book is set over the course of a single day. And, truly, I didn't mean any shade to Amy. She does strike me as somebody who doesn't sit still for very long. She has to be doing, she likes to be painting, she likes to be doing stuff with her hands. And so I think this would be perfect for her because it is a thin little, like I called it, probably a novella. A thin little novella set over the course a day. While Isabelle dreams of this party and getting to the party and finding the perfect dress.  

[00:29:52] I loved this book so much. You certainly can finish it in one sitting. And in fact, that's almost how I think it should be read. It shows us how maybe even the fleeting, seemingly simple, everyday ordinary moments can actually give us a deeper picture of a fuller life. There's great little scenes in a couple of different thrift stores. There's some stories about photographs and postcards. I loved this book. And I really do think that Amy would love it too. This is the story of a young woman's love for the past and how she wants to build her own new and exciting life, which it doesn't that sound just like Amy? So Loving Frank by Nancy Horan, Glaciers by Alexis M. Smith. And then especially, I guess, if teenage Amy was coming into The Bookshelf, I would put on her stack Kisses and Croissants by Anne-Sophie Jouhanneau. This is a fun little Parisian rom-com, which isn't that essentially what Amy got? A Parisian rom-com. Isn't that what we all wanted and Amy got it and that's why we're all jealous? It's fine. We're fine. So those are the books I would recommend to the March sisters if they were to waltz into The Bookshelf one day, which I'd like to think could actually happen. I mean, it couldn't actually happen, but I do think if the March Sisters were A, real, and B, alive in the year of our Lord, 2026, I think they would love The Bookshelf. I think it matches their vibes.  

[00:31:23] So for Meg, The Hidden Art of Homemaking by Edith Schaffer, Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner, and Dearly Beloved by Cara Wall. For Jo, Writers and Lovers by Lilly King. That one is so spot on you guys, I'm so proud of it. A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders and Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. For Beth, To All the Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han. The Second Ending by Michelle Hoffman and Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green. Last but not least for youngest sister, Amy: Loving Frank by Nancy Horan, Glaciers by Alexis M. Smith and Kisses and Croissants by Anne-Sophie Jouhanneau. What books would you recommend for the March Sisters? I would love to know. I am pretty sure that Caroline will have a post up on Instagram today asking for your takes on the March Sister's book tastes. So please let us know on Instagram which books you would hand sell to the March sisters. And if you have ideas on who I should hand sell books to next, leave a comment about that as well. I'd love to what we should feature in the next installment. This week, I'm reading Love by the Book by Jessica George.  

Annie Jones: From the Front Porch is a weekly podcast production of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in Thomasville, Georgia. You can follow The Bookshelf’s daily happenings on Instagram at @bookshelftville, and all the books from today’s episode can be purchased online through our store website: 

bookshelfthomasville.com 

A full transcript of today’s episode can be found at:  

fromthefrontporchpodcast.com  

Special thanks to Studio D Podcast Production for production of From the Front Porch and for our theme music, which sets the perfect warm and friendly tone for our Thursday conversations. 

Our Executive Producers of today’s episode are… 

Cammy Tidwell, Linda Lee Drozt, Martha, Stephanie Dean, Ashley Ferrell, Gene Queens, Beth, Jammie Treadwell… 

Executive Producers (Read Their Own Names): Nicole Marsee, Wendi Jenkins 

Annie Jones: If you’d like to support From the Front Porch, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Your input helps us make the show even better and reach new listeners. All you have to do is open up the Podcast App on your phone, look for From the Front Porch, scroll down until you see ‘Write a Review’ and tell us what you think. Or, if you’re so inclined, support us over on Patreon, where we have 3 levels of support - Front Porch Friends, Book Club Companions, and Bookshelf Benefactors. Each level has an amazing number of benefits like bonus content, access to live events, discounts, and giveaways. Just go to:  

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We’re so grateful for you, and we look forward to meeting back here next week. 



Caroline Weeks

a weekly conversational podcast on books, small business, and life in the South