Episode 595 || Literary Therapy. Vol. 28

Episode 595 || Literary Therapy. Vol. 28
From the Front Porch
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This week on From the Front Porch, it’s a Literary Therapy session! Our literary Frasier Crane, Annie, is back to answer more of your reading questions and dilemmas. If you have a question you would like Annie to answer in a future episode, you can leave us a voicemail here.

To purchase the books mentioned in this episode, stop by The Bookshelf in Thomasville, visit our website (search episode 595) or download and shop on The Bookshelf’s official app.

Lizzy:

Kate:

Literary westerns

Rachel:

Books about Spain

Ellen:

Fantasy

Romantasy:

Lindsay: Literary palate cleansers

Humor/memoir

Kid lit

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 listening to Tenderness by Rowan Beaird.

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

Transcript:

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

 “The most valuable commodity in business today, if people would only recognize it, is enthusiasm.”

  -Rona Jaffe, The Best of Everything.

[00:00:38] I'm Annie Jones, owner of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in beautiful downtown Thomasville, Georgia, and this week it's time for an episode of Literary Therapy. If you're a new or new-ish listener, you might not realize that From the Front Porch is a production of The Bookshelf, a small independently owned bookstore in rural South Georgia. By listening to our show and recommending it to your friends, you're helping keep our indie bookstore in business. And if you like what you hear, one way you can financially support us is through Patreon. Last year, we read the classic work Don Quixote together, and this year we switched gears to conquer the American classic The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor. For $5 a month, you can access those monthly Conquer a Classic recaps, as well as our Porch Visits, monthly Q | & A's 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 Patreon tiers and benefits, visit patreon.com/fromthefrontporch.

[00:01:42] Now, back to the show. If you're new to From the Front Porch, every once in a while, I dive into the metaphorical mailbag and peruse your readerly hang-ups and bookish conundrums like a literary Frasier Crane, tackling your issues on air. If you have your own readerly riddle you'd like me to solve in a future episode, you can leave me a voicemail at the From the Front Porch website. That's fromthefrontporchpodcast.com/contact. There's a link in the show notes, too. You'll scroll until you see the orange button on that page that says 'Start Recording' click or tap there, leave your name, where you're from, and your literary dilemma, and I would love to hear from you and possibly feature you in a future episode. Today, let's get started with a voicemail from Lizzie. 

[00:02:33] Lizzie: Hi, Annie. My name is Lizzie. I live in New York City, and I love your podcast. Thank you so much for all you do. My daughter also loves your podcast. You can hear her in the background. I would love your help picking out the next book for my book club. We are a group of five women that live in New York City, and we have a book club called The Bluestockings based on the 18th century literary feminist movement. And we read classic novels, and we meet quarterly. And with our classic novels, we pair it with excursions in the city or around or in the state. And for example, in the fall, we read The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and The Picture of Dorian Gray, and we went upstate for a day trip to Sleepy Hollow, the town. In the winter, we read The Brothers Karamazov, and we went to the New York City Ballet and got vodka martinis and just talked about our books. So we are always looking for classic novels to read, but also excursions to pair them with. So would love to hear your thoughts on this, and what are some excursions you recommend we do or that you'd want to do? You would totally be a Bluestocking, so if you ever move up here, you're invited. Thanks so much. Have a great day. 

[00:03:47] Annie Jones: First of all, Lizzie, thank you for answering the first question that popped into my brain, which was, "Can I please join your book club?" Can I please join your book club? It sounds amazing. I am so sad that I live so far south because this sounds like exactly the kind of book club I would love to be a part of, and I love a bookish field trip. I've got a mental file folder full of business ideas, ways to grow The Bookshelf. I don't know. And one of my ideas, I almost hesitate to say it here, but I love the idea of Reader Retreat on the Road, and doing these literary itineraries in different places. We're actually going to take some Patreon listeners, I hope, this fall to Milledgeville, Georgia, where Flannery O'Connor had her home in Andalusia. So anyway, this concept is near and dear to my heart, and I love that your book club does this together. So I tried to brainstorm books that were in the more classical literature vein, and then places, and luckily where you live, there are plenty of places where I think you could visit and read the corresponding book. So first of all, perhaps this is obvious to you, but I thought about Edith Wharton. She's been on my brain. And I thought about reading The House of Mirth or The Age of Innocence, either one. I think Ann Patchett recently said that The House of Mirth was her favorite, but of course, she won the Pulitzer for The Age of Innocence.

[00:05:09] And then The Mount is Edith Wharton's home in Lenox, Massachusetts, which isn't too far from New York. If I did my MapQuesting-- does anybody MapQuest anymore? If I did my mapping correctly, I think this would be like a weekend trip for you guys. But you could visit The Mount, which is Edith Wharton's home in Lenox, Massachusetts, or I believe it's The Age of Innocence that has a scene at Grace Church in New York City. I did Google Grace Church just to see if sometimes churches in big cities I think do more than religious services. They offer gallery viewings or author talks or what have you. Guess what I found? Grace Church does a silver polishing party every month. You do not have to be a member to help, and you just gather with what I assume, and maybe I'm making assumptions here, but I'm picturing older ladies sitting around chewing the fat, metaphorical, while they polish silver for the church. And that feels very Edith Wharton coded to me. Now, I do not have a lot of understanding of Edith Wharton, but my understanding that I do have is that her books are about the upper crust of New York, and what could be more upper crust than sitting around and polishing your silver. So read House of Mirth or The Age of Innocence, then visit the Mount if you want to take a weekend trip, or go to the Grace Church website in New York City and see when their next silver polishing party is.

[00:06:42] And please, I'm begging you, if you do this, please send me pictures. Please send me pictures and tag me on Instagram. Okay, then I thought of The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Then you can of course visit the house and museum in Salem, Massachusetts. That's on my personal bucket list. The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. This is interesting. I did a little bit of research, and it looks like Ellison conceived this idea for The Invisible Man at a barn in Vermont that you can actually tour or visit, and that sounds like a lovely autumnal activity to me. Maybe that's because I'm currently recording this in July, which as I think my friend Katie said, is the armpit of the summer. And so the thought of putting on a flannel and going to a barn in Vermont for literary purposes sounds ideal. A very New York book that maybe your book club hasn't read yet is The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe. I quoted it at the top of the episode. This was a book I read, gosh, last year or the year before, and it was a discovery for me, and I really loved it. But anyway, it is all about these women in the publishing industry, and I did Google, and it turns out Random House, they don't do it. No publishing house does tours, which no wonder publishing feels shrouded in mystery. And I think they've made it that way. I think that's on purpose. But anyway, apparently twice a year Random House does open houses, and I feel like you need to get on an email list or something. Go to the Random House Events website.

[00:08:16] That sounds like an ideal outing for a book club, but they only do it twice a year. So if you can't do that, the Harvard Radcliffe Institute does all kinds of author talks, and I think that would be very fun and would tie into the book. Same goes for The Group by Mary McCarthy. And then of course you could read a Truman Capote classic and then go get drinks at The Plaza. I did come up with a lot of take a train. I think that's what you do in big cities. Take a train and get out of there kind of thing. But if you want to stay in the city and just do something small, my brain went big, but if you want to go small, you can get drinks at The Plaza and read a Truman Capote novel. Anyway, those were my recommendations. If you do any of these, would you please report back? Because I am invested in this. And if I am ever up your way and I happen to be in town at the same time as your book club, I would love to join. You guys sound delightful. 

[00:09:07] Kate: Hi, Annie. This is Kate from Maryland. First, I want to say how much I love your podcast. Whenever I have time to listen, it feels so comforting, and I always enjoy the conversations So here is my question for literary therapy. After an entire childhood of teasing my dad for his love of John Wayne movies, I read My Antonia by Willa Cather, and I realized that I actually do love a literary Western. And don't worry, he saw me reading Lonesome Dove at Thanksgiving a few years ago and he was able to get me back for all the teasing. I'm looking for suggestions you might have for books about the American West that are literary and which don't romanticize or gloss over the difficult parts of that period of history, particularly the treatment of Native Americans. Books that I've loved include Lonesome Dove, Whiskey When We're Dry, The Orchardist, True Grit, and of course, Willa Cather. One that I did not finish was These Is My Words. Looking forward to your recommendations. Thanks. 

[00:10:14] Annie Jones: Kate, it is funny you should ask this question because Hunter and I have been dreaming and scheming about Conquer a Classic 2027, if you can even believe it. And we talked about how much we loved Lonesome Dove. And a conversation we have been having at The Bookshelf lately is how it feels like, as a team, we are ahead of the curve. And you would think that would be fun for us, but instead it's really not, in that it feels like now in 2026 everyone's talking about Lonesome Dove. And we read Lonesome Dove in 2024. So it just feels like we're always one step too far ahead. We can't quite capture a trend because we've already done it. So I don't know what that says about us. I think one of our staffers said it means we're pioneers in the industry, which sure I'll take it. But anyway, Hunter and I were talking about how much we loved Lonesome Dove and how fondly we look back on that reading experience, and I'm glad it sounds like it's done the same for you, and even a way for you to bond with your dad, which I think is really sweet. So I actually, at the top of my list because Hunter and I were discussing it, and this is not something we wound up picking for Conquer a Classic 2027, but it was something we briefly discussed, was the Border Trilogy. This is by Cormac McCarthy. All the Pretty Horses is probably the most well-known of this particular trilogy. But I wondered if you had read that yet. So the Border Trilogy by Cormac McCarthy.

[00:11:41] Erin and I both read, and my dad read and loved, The Bullet Swallower by Elizabeth Gonzalez James. It adds a magical realism component, but I did not mind it, and I really liked, as you referenced, the turning the stereotypes on their heads, like playing with the genre a little bit. I never read, but I did buy a copy Outlawed by Anna North. And again, never read, but very curious about News of the World by Paulette Jiles. Also, did you guys know Percival Everett, of James fame, which we of course know he's written many other books outside of James, but James is his most recent Pulitzer winner. But he actually wrote quite a few at least a handful, of Westerns, including one called God's Country. And it looked like maybe that was the most well-reviewed one, or the place to start. So you could do some searching, but it sounds like God's Country would be the way to start. On my list of backlist titles to tackle is The Round House by Louise Erdrich, and The Plague of Doves. Annie Proulx wrote several Westerns, but including Close Range, which are these short stories. I think they're connected short stories, set in Wyoming. Plainsong by Kent Haruf. The Son by Philipp Meyer Train Dreams by Dennis Johnson, Butcher's Crossing by John Williams, The Sisters Brothers by Patrick Dewitt, which I'm very curious about, The Dying Grass by William T. Vollman.

[00:13:13] And then of course this would be a classic, and you've already read some of her, but I wondered if you had read Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather. And then The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee by David Treuer would be nonfiction, but I think could be a great insight into that time in history, particularly from an indigenous people's perspective. So those are some recommendations. I love that you're-- I don't know,. It's the year I discovered Ellen Hildebrand. New York Times bestselling author Ellen Hildebrand. But it's fun, even if you're reading other things, to know that you always have this list to go back to. When you're in a reading slump or something like that, you can know it's time to mix in a Western. And many of these I think you could read alongside your dad, which I think would be really fun. So those are my recommendations for literary Westerns, and I did try to pick some too that would do a service to the indigenous people's perspective. And so hopefully this would cover some of that territory as well. So those are some recommendations for you. Hopefully there's something in that list that sticks. 

[00:14:15] Molly: Hi, this is Molly from Texas. I was curious your thoughts on annotating books. I have been thinking about getting started with that, and I wondered what supplies I might would like to use if you have any recommendations on how to get started with that and what you would do in your personal collection of books and how that might help you remember your favorite passages or mark certain things. I know how you feel about tearing pages in your books or dog-earing, but maybe love to know your thoughts on annotating. Thank you. 

[00:14:55] Annie Jones: Molly, annotating books is becoming the rage, much like bedazzling books, and I just want to say, as someone who has been tearing their book pages for years, I would like justice. I would like a little bit of credit. Now, I have not annotated books in the way that I'm seeing on Instagram. My friend Kylie, who actually owns a gift shop in Mississippi, I'll try to tag her in the show notes, she has done some Instagram stories about annotating her books. And I believe what she does, if I'm not mistaken, if I'm not confusing her with someone else, is she will annotate a book that she loves and gift it, and it's like a gift to a friend. Or she'll annotate a book they love and then gift it to them, which I think is lovely. Hunter, friend of the podcast, he is starting to annotate, I believe, a copy of The Goldfinch as of this recording, and he bought a separate copy because he could not bear-- I am disgusting with my books, a little bit messy with my books. Hunter treats his book with such care, and he is very reluctant to write in them, to mark in them, certainly, heaven forbid, you get it in the pool or something like that. He would never. So in order to annotate and not feel some kind of way, he has purchased a separate copy of The Goldfinch specifically for annotating.

[00:16:14] I am not a huge expert in this, but I would turn to Bookstagram. Now, depends on how far down the rabbit hole you want to go, because obviously you could get on Bookstagram and wind up purchasing all of these materials that you never need. But I think if I were starting to annotate books, here's what I would do. I would purchase some book darts because essentially tearing pages is the poor man's book dart. But if I were annotating a book to keep on my shelf to show, "Hey, this is one of my favorite books of all time," because that's how I would start, I wouldn't annotate just any old book. I think I would annotate Little Women or Gilead, something that I had read a couple of times and really loved and felt like it deserved some extra attention. So that's where I would start. I would start with book darts. And I love the brass book darts, I will say. I do love those. So I would purchase some book darts. I also love color-coding. So I think one of my favorites, and guys, this goes back to I'm having to dig deep. The only book I ever annotated was probably the Bible. Let's be real. But sharpie has these highlighters, I think they're called S Note Duos, and they're, like, thin on one side, thick on the other side. Anyway, I like them because they don't bleed, and so I would find some highlighters like that do not bleed, and then, designate a certain color for a certain thing. So if it's going to be a passage that you really love or a character description that you love or a quote that you love, I think that would be fun.

[00:17:47] Again, I do not book annotate, but if I did, one of my favorite things to discover is how books talk with each other. So yes, I would mark my favorite lines, my favorite passages, but I think I would also any time a book referenced another book, I might highlight that. Any time a particular passage brought to mind a different book, I would write that in the margins. Should I use this time to tell you my current favorite pen? Is that important? Is that what we're here for today? Let me tell you. One of my New Year's resolutions was to treat my friends as influencers or to discover things on my own. Novel concept. And when I was with my fantasy football league in Atlanta, we went to a Paper Source store, and hands down, the favorite pen by, I think, at least three of the women I was traveling with, was this Writech pen. I use a .5. That's my personal preference. I love the way this pen writes, and if I were a different kind of business owner, I would stock these at The Bookshelf. I've not been able to figure out how to do that, so instead I'm just going to tell you that this is my favorite kind of pen. I love the way it writes. It does not bleed. It writes really crisply, if that makes sense. So I would write in a margin what book that reminded me of or what passage. A cross-referencing guide. That's how I would use annotating.

[00:19:00] And I do think this is a really fun bookish activity. It is not for me at this current season of my life, but I do think if there was a world in which I didn't own The Bookshelf and I were reading for fun and maybe my book club was reading a book that I had already read, I might take it upon myself to get a new copy and to annotate it with the point of discussing it with my book club, or to annotate a book because it's my favorite and I want it on my shelf and showcasing how meaningful that book is to me. Or I would do what my friend Kylie does and annotate a book that means a lot to me and then gift it to someone else. I'm thinking about Kate and the previous question. Maybe she would annotate a copy of Lonesome Dove, and then she could gift it to her dad, or something like that. So I would start with a book you've already read and loved. I would purchase some book darts, think about some highlighters that don't bleed, a really good pen. And then don't get scared. I can't help but think about Hunter, and Hunter posted recently about book annotating, and he talked about his book journal he was starting. And when Hunter used to buy book journals, he would buy them from The Bookshelf, or a planner, and then he would bring it to me to write his name in because he said I had better handwriting than he did. Which he has fine handwriting, but it was a big compliment to me.

[00:20:17] But also I think we all have a little bit of fear-- maybe not all of us, but I think bookish type people sometimes have a fear of messing something up, and I would argue it's not that precious. So what's going to be important? Do I love things that are aesthetically pleasing? Yes, I do, but you're not selling it to anyone. It's just for you. So I would treat it almost like journaling or junk journaling or something like that, and I would just enjoy it. Enjoy the process of it, enjoy highlighting your favorite passages, enjoy making references to other books. And it's low stakes. It's low stakes. Let it just be something you do for fun. I wish we all would start returning to activities that we just do for fun. If you're a millennial, I do feel like we started by turning our hobbies into jobs, and guilty as charged, right? Here I am. A reader, now bookstore owner. But doing things just for the enjoyment of doing them. And so look on Bookstagram, Pinterest, get some ideas, but don't over-inundate yourself with ideas. Just get started. That would be my basic advice. Just get started. Pick one of your favorite books and go to town. You can't mess it up. We would love to see pictures of what you do. Please report back.

[00:21:28] Rachel: Hi, Annie. This is podcast listener Rachel coming to you from Columbus, Ohio. My neighbor and I just finished reading The Fountains of Silence about Spain post-Civil War and during dictatorship. And we are looking for additional books that cover Spain in the 1930s, '40s, '50s, and beyond probably leading into the '70s, post-dictatorship when Franco died. My neighbor is in her 60s, I'm in my 30s, and we are just having the best time finding books that we both love and authors that we love. And we realized we don't know a lot about Spain, and we'd love to learn more. So if you have any suggestions, nonfiction or fiction we would love to get them. Thank you so much.

[00:22:27] Annie Jones: Rachel, two things. First of all, you sent me on a deep dive because this was new. I was like, "Okay, this is new subject matter for me. This is a blind spot in my own literary readings, my own literary life. So thank you for sending me on a quest. That's what it felt like. I felt like I was on a quest. And second of all, can I tell you the joy that I felt when you talked about you reading a book with your neighbor? I've got to tell you, when the world grows dark and dim, this is what gives me hope, is neighbors being neighbors, people connecting with people who are different from them, in a different age bracket, in a different socioeconomic bracket. So the fact that you and your neighbor have connected over literature, it's exactly why I own a bookstore. It's exactly why I believe in books. So the joy this question brought me, even though I felt a little out of my depth, but I wanted to answer you because I loved this so much. So thank you for sharing this story with me. I found five books that I had either heard of them, I've heard of the author, and they all seem like they would be right in line with what you and your neighbor kind of want to read about. And I get it. You want to keep the momentum going, and you're both interested in this time in history.

[00:23:42] So first of all, a book that has been recommended to me over and over again, I think it was actually hand-sold to me by a customer when I worked at The Bookshelf in Midtown Tallahassee, which now was probably 15 years ago, and that is The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruis Zafón. I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. But that came up in my searches, and then also I do remember the person who read this raved about it, and so to me, that's the book. Like if you had to pick one to start with, I would pick that one. Lucy was also a fan of Isabel Allende, and she wrote A Long Petal of the Sea. She's written a lot of books, not all of them relating to Spanish history, but this one does. So I think that one could be accessible historical fiction. Those were two books that because, again, I had been recommended the first one by a customer, and then Lucy read and loved A Long Petal of the Sea, so I was familiar with both of those. These other three I just found through research, but I do think they would be worth looking into. So the first is called The Muse by Jesse Burton. Then there's Alberto's Lost Birthday by Diana Rosie. And Homage to Barcelona, that is by Colm Toibin. I'm afraid people aren't going to recognize his name. That is how you pronounce it, but it is spelled C-O-L-M. T-O-I-B-I-N. He's an Irish writer

[00:25:03] And this is nonfiction, so it's a history of Barcelona, and I think it starts well before the Civil War. But he also spent time in Barcelona during the '70s, I want to say. So he talks about the transition in the city from dictatorship to democracy. So he talks about the Civil War, the Franco years, and then he witnessed himself firsthand the kind of transition the city underwent. So I thought that would be interesting maybe after you read some more works of fiction, to then read this history of Barcelona. It's only 240 pages. It's a history of the city, but it's also written almost from a travel guide's perspective. It gets rave reviews. So I thought that was interesting. Alberto's Last Birthday, which I do think would be a very feel-good novel. Alberto is an old man. He doesn't know how old. He remembers nothing before his arrival at an orphanage during the Spanish Civil War. So his grandson, Tino, discovers his grandfather has never had a birthday party, doesn't know how many candles are on his cake, and so the search for Alberto's memories takes him deep into the heart of Spain and into uncovering Spain's history. So I thought that sounded really good. And then The Muse by Jessie Burton. Jessie Burton wrote The Miniaturist, which I think did well at The Bookshelf a few years ago. So anyway, this would also be historical fiction. It goes back and forth between 1967 in London at an art gallery, and the discovery of this painting, and so then part of the book takes place in 1936 in Spain.

[00:26:32] So to me those sounded like good choices, meaning rich with the history of Spain, but also good storytelling. Again, it was The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruis Zafón, which I think is kind of the book that people recommend about this, A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende, The Muse by Jessie Burton, Alberto's Last Birthday by Diana Rossi, and then Homage to Barcelona by Colm Tóibín. I think any one of those would be good, but I might start with The Shadow of the Wind and then save Homage to Barcelona for the very end, maybe after you've already read some other works. Again this question brought me so much joy. Thank you for restoring my faith in humanity. 

[00:27:14] Ellen: Annie, my name is Ellen. I'm from Cleveland, Ohio. I read all sorts of genres, but one genre I enjoy is fantasy and romantasy. The problem that I have is that most of these books seem to be parts of trilogies or really long series, and because I read across different genres, I don't like to be committed to a fantasy series of eight books. Just wondering, I know this isn't really the kind of book you read, but if anybody at The Bookshelf can recommend a standalone or even a duology in a fantasy or romantasy series. Thanks so much. Bye. 

[00:27:53] Annie Jones: Okay, Ellen. This was another tricky question. As you acknowledged in your voicemail, fantasy is not my genre. Now, I do the adult buying at The Bookshelf, so I get to order outside my genre all the time. I do a lot of research. I go to trusted readers, to fellow staffers. In this case, I went to my friend Kimberly. Kimberly is a romance reader, she is a fantasy reader, and she is very well-read. She orders from The Bookshelf all the time. She's in the store all the time. And many times we have gone to Kimberly for her expertise. And so when I heard your voicemail, I thought, "Okay, now's my chance to sell some fantasy novels, but I need some help." So I particularly reached out to Kimberly, and we discussed standalone or duologies, because you're right, the issue is so many of these become series. And I will tell you, as a buyer, this is also challenging. We do not have the shelf space of a Books-A-Million, of a Barnes & Noble, and so it is so tricky to know what to order in terms of debuts, in terms of series. Like, how many of a series do you stock? Do you stock all seven? Do you stock one, two, and seven? Like one, two, and the most recent? I think that's why I find the genre a little bit overwhelming. It's not necessarily my genre anyway, but I think as a book buyer, I also find it overwhelming. But that's where other experts come in. So my friend Kimberly immediately texted me back, and she divided these between fantasy recs and then romantasy recs.

[00:29:18] And this is interesting to me. It feels like had a moment, maybe the peak of which was Fourth Wing, and then we are going to get some Sarah J. Maas this fall. But I can't tell if the romantasy tide has turned, and maybe you guys, the readers, could let me know. But it feels a little bit like we really reached fever pitch there for a minute and then became inundated, and now it's quieting down a bit. But maybe that's just from my perspective and our customers' perspectives. Anyway, here are some standalone fantasies. Of course, The Night Circus, which to me does feel like the book that you sell to a fantasy reader. So The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, there's a reason it's the book. Kimberly said this is a kids book, but The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley. It was a Newbery Award winner, but she highly recommends it, even for adults. Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom, that is a duology, but Kimberly argues that Six of Crows actually is really strong as a standalone The Bright Sword is an Arthurian retelling by Lev Grossman. She said that it is a bit of a doorstopper, so you do have to go into it knowing that it's a chonker, but she thought it was a really great standalone. You don't get sucked into a series, so it would be one and done.

[00:30:35] Of course, Circe by Madeline Miller. It's in the fantasy category. It was excellent at release, but would be timely given the Odyssey. And then she said slightly more sci-fi, and this book did very well for us. It is slightly more sci-fi, but the book Starter Villain by John Scalzi, Kimberly and her husband Rob both really liked it. And last but not least, Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor. So those are fantasy recs, and most of those are either standalones or part of a duology, which I think, Ellen, you even pointed out, like a duology is doable. It's when you have to read six books that it starts to get a little overwhelming and you get lost. As far as romantasy, Kimberly recommends the YA novel Of Fragile Enchantment. That is by Allison Saft. The Poison Daughter gets great reviews, though Kimberly said she hasn't read that one personally. And then she said that often the first book in a series can be done as a standalone, particularly when it comes to romantasy titles. So all of these are the start of a series, but she would argue you can read one and be done. Listen, I would argue about that about the Fourth Wing. I read Fourth Wing, and I had thoughts about it. It was fine. It was fun, especially because everybody was reading it. It was like a thing we were all doing together.

[00:31:49] Did I read the rest of the series? No, I didn't need to. And so that's something to remember is that you don't have to read the whole series. Sometimes the first book can just function as a standalone. Kimberly's recs for this are Legendborn by Tracy Deonn, A Shadow in the Ember by Jennifer Larmon Trout, of course, Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros, which I've already mentioned, Quicksilver by Callie Hart, and Shield of Sparrows by Devney Perry Okay, Ellen. I did it. We went outside my comfort zone. We reached out to other experts, and she really is an expert. And that's what I love about book selling at The Bookshelf, is I've discovered so many customers who read in genres that I don't, and so I trust their expertise and their knowledge, and those are Kimberly's recs for you, both in the fantasy genre and in the romantasy genre. All of those also are listed in the show notes.

[00:32:39] Lindsay: Hi, Annie. My name is Lindsay. I am from upstate New York. I am a faraway shopper. I've never seen your shop, but man, do I want to someday. Literary conundrum is whenever I finish a really good book, I feel like I need a palate cleanser in between the really good book and the next really good book. I feel like I need something short and sweet and wonderful, not super heavy, but still engaging. So what would you recommend as a literary palate cleanser for between great novels? I can't wait to hear your suggestions. Thank you.

[00:33:16] Annie Jones: This is such a great question, Lindsay. And this is a great question because I think often we read a five-star book, and then the next book it just can't live up to the expectations of the previous book. I know that I have mentioned this many times. But years and years ago, I read Station Eleven, which was a five-star book for me. Loved it. Loved it. Thought it was excellent. And then I read The Royal We. And it was not that book's fault. My friend Kimberly, who I just mentioned, loved The Royal We. I trust Kimberly. I love Kimberly. The Royal We did not work for me, and I think the reason it did not work for me is because I read it right after this best book of the decade kind of book, and so anything I was going to read next was going to be set up for failure. But you want to keep reading. Sometimes after I read a five-star book, I do take a minute. I always like to have a book in my metaphorical back pocket, but sometimes I have noticed that if I finish a book that I just loved and I'm not quite ready to move on from the characters, I will take a minute. I'll take a beat. I won't read a book. I'll watch a show. I'll watch a movie. I'll consume some other medium, and that kind of is helpful. But I do like the idea of a literary palate cleanser. But I also don't want to set up the palate cleanser to be an epic fail like poor Royal We was for me. So the first direction I would go is humor memoir. Because what it sounded to me like, and maybe I'm projecting, but it sounded like generally when you're talking about a five-star book, you're talking about a work of fiction, maybe even a work of literary fiction.

[00:34:54] And so I think the best thing to do is to switch genres completely. So if your five-star book is nonfiction, then I would go to fiction. But if the book you've just read is fiction, I think the first choice for a literary palate cleanser would be nonfiction. I would even go so far as to suggest a micro-memoir. So Heating and Cooling by Beth Ann Fennelly, one of my favorite books. Oh, my gosh, it is so well-written. But we're talking a page or two, a line. When I say essays, micro-memoir, what I mean is teeny, tiny little snippets, little bites. Is amuse-bouche the correct term? A little amuse-bouche of a novel. Not even a novel. A little amuse-bouche of an essay collection because it's just snippets. And so to me, yes, when I'm thinking palate cleanser, do you know what I'm picturing? I bet you do. You know that I'm picturing The Princess Diaries, and I'm picturing Anne Hathaway eating a palate cleanser that freezes her mouth before her next course. You know who I'm talking about? And so Heating and Cooling, to me, you can just pick up and put down. You can read a little snippet. You can read a couple of pages. Perfect. Perfect for after reading a work of literary fiction. You could also read Nobody Will Tell You This But Me by Bess Kalb. That was one of the best books I read in 2020.

[00:36:13] Might have been the best book I read in 2020. It was outstanding, and maybe didn't even get the praise it deserved because of the pandemic of it all. That is a memoir. It's not in essays. It's just a memoir about a woman and her relationship with her grandmother. It's really almost a biography about her grandmother. Yeah. Does that make sense? I think that's why it was so fun to read. It did a little bit of genre-bending. But I think that would be a very funny. I think anything that kind of switches tones. Again, I do keep in mind Station Eleven to Royal We was too much of a tone shift, which is why I'm like, what if you just switch from fiction to nonfiction? You do a David Sedaris essay collection. You read one essay at a time. Because really it sounds like you just want a book that will keep you in the rhythm of reading, but also that will not be a giant letdown after reading your favorite book of the year. The other direction I would go with this is kid lit, which I don't often read kid lit anymore. I'm the adult buyer for the store. Olivia is the kid lit buyer for the store, and so I don't often read kid lit. But there have been many times where I have not quite known what to read, and revisiting a kid lit title has been comforting to me or grounding or recentering. I'm thinking, of course, of Bloomability by Sharon Creech, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. The Meaning of Maggie, which is a book I read probably when I took over The Bookshelf, and it is excellent, and I don't hear anybody talking about it, and then Wolf Hollow.

[00:37:41] So those are a couple of kid lit classics and then a couple of more modern works of kid literature that I have gone back to. Again, a palate cleanser because you can finish them quickly. It's children's literature, so generally you can read them probably faster than you could an adult novel. And also, the metrics are just different. How you're going to rate a kids book to me would be different from how you'd rate an adult book, and that's not me playing down the role of children's literature. I love kids’ books. But I do think if you're in the mindset of reading, I don't know, like Lauren Groff or Tayari Jones, and now you've got to switch gears, I think reading a kid lit book might help with that. And then the other thing I can think of is just a quick thriller. Nothing groundbreaking. It's not meant to necessarily be a five-star book. It's just meant to be fast and easy. And listen, sometimes a thriller is great, but what I'm not here recommending is a literary mystery or a literary suspense. A straight-up, fast-paced thriller. Gillian McAllister, Flynn Berry, Taylor Adams, T.J. Newman. For me, Andrea Mara is great for this. I read her book called Someone in the Attic, and I loved that book. Finished it in a day. Could I tell you much about it? Not really, other than the fact that there was somebody in the attic, and it was creepy, but it was fast and fun. And again, this is not to do a disservice or to poo-poo the commercial thriller. In fact, this is praise for the commercial thriller. I think they function great as palate cleansers because you can read them quickly, keeps you in the rhythm of reading, totally different. Your expectations for a book like this are different from, a Pulitzer winner or a National Book Award winner. The expectations are just totally different.

[00:39:24] So that's what I would do. I would either do a humor memoir, I would go kid lit, or I would do quick thriller, and let the palate cleanser just be the palate cleanser. You're not going into it with the wrong expectations. You're going into it knowing, "I just want to read this for kicks and giggles," and then you'll move on to your next five-star read in a couple of weeks. And then, of course, the alternative is just to give your brain a break and to not read at all. And far be it from me, a bookstore owner, to tell you not to read at all. But I do think I at least sometimes will finish a book and immediately start a new one. Partly that is my job, partly that's because I just like a book going all the time, and partly there is real joy for me in finishing a book and then figuring out which one I'm going to start next. I get real joy from that. But every so often, I do think it is good for me to not read and to just take a minute. Take a breather, do something else. Go watch a show, listen to a new album, listen to a podcast series. Give it a minute, and then, the next book you read could be your next five-star book.

[00:40:25] Thank you so much to everyone who left me a voicemail, who left me a literary conundrum. I would love to hear from you for future episodes. So if you listened to this and got inspired, and you now have a question you want to ask, feel free to go to fromthefrontporchpodcast.com/contact and leave your voice memo. I would love to hear from you. I'd love to feature you in a future episode, and thanks to everyone for submitting your questions. I loved hearing from you.

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

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Annie Jones

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