August Reader Retreat

This month I had an epic bookish weekend. I traveled to Thomasville, Georgia to attend a Reader’s Retreat hosted by the dear folks at The Bookshelf Bookstore located in downtown Thomasville. I am a long time listener to From The Front Porch Podcast, created and hosted by Annie B. Jones, the owner of The Bookshelf. When you regularly listen to people discuss their life, business, and especially books, you feel as though you know them. And even though The Bookshelf staff didn’t know me, they treated me like an old friend.

What is a Reader Retreat? Well in this case, it is a weekend filled with lots of books, book talk, and special events. Here is what we did:

• A Pen to Plate dinner. We sat down on Friday night to a long beautifully decorated table running down the length of the bookstore. An amazing five course dinner was prepared by a local chef using a cookbook from The Bookshelf. I was overjoyed when I saw it was Mediterranean cuisine and it did not disappoint. We also each received a copy of the book.

• We had bookclub, discussing This Time Tomorrow over coffee and fresh bagels. This was one of my favorite books this spring and I relistened to it leading up to the weekend.

• We attended a private panel discussion of anticipated fall releases with Bookshelf staff.

• Belle from Honeyywildd led a craft workshop where we made beautiful statement bookmarks.

• We attended a special taping of From The Front Porch Podcast with special guest Hunter, who regularly co-hosts.

• We enjoyed private shopping time at the bookstore, and shop we did. I have now spent my book allowance for 2022 and my TBR is piled high.

The nitty gritty - 22 women attended the retreat and almost everyone came from out of state. Between all the events, we had time to shop and get to know each other over food and drinks. Thomasville is a beautiful small-town to visit with great shops, bars and restaurants, and lots of southern hospitality. Some people traveled alone and others with a friend or family member, but everyone was fun and ready to talk books. Bookish people are the best people. [If this looks like something you would be interested in, The Bookshelf has plans to host three reader retreats next year and your best chance of grabbing a spot is to become a podcast Patreon member. ]

Recent Reads

I have heard so much about Taste and it is as good as everyone says. Stanley Tucci is a delight to watch on film, so to listen to him describe in detail his life through food - from childhood till now is wonderful. He is charming and this comes across throughout the pages. Taste takes delight in simple and complex foods, in the school lunch, the holiday dinner, in food prepared by his family and by that from top chefs. This is a wonderful memoir that is a love letter to Italian food and American food and Italian-American food. He takes us to New York, London, France, Iceland, Rome, Florence and the Amalfi Coast. He takes us into his home, his griefs and his loves. What a delight this book is. I listened to this book (Tucci narrates) but I also bought the hard copy, hoping my husband will read it. [Publish Date: 10/21, Pages: 304]

Dirt Creek is an excellent police procedural set in a small Australian town. When a young girl goes missing on her way home from school, the entire town falls under suspicion. I not only liked the primary investigator (an outsider with her own struggles), but that part is written from the view of the missing girl’s best friend. The author adds a third perspective - a Greek chorus that gives voices to the other children in the town. People have complicated relationships with layered pasts in this small town. Fans of Jane Harper will enjoy this novel, and not just because of the Australian setting. This is an excellent mystery with complex and nuanced characters. Sometimes in a mystery, the greatest evil is what happens after someone dies. This is a terrific debut novel and I hope the author continues this series. [Publish Date: 8/22, Pages: 336]

Fellowship Point is a grand sweeping novel follows the 60+ year friendship of Polly and Agnes. They are tied together by their lives in Philadelphia and their summer homes in Maine, where they own homes on a shared plot called Fellowship Point. Each has taken very different roads - Polly has devoted herself to her husband and family, while Agnes has chosen to remain single and write children’s books. Polly has hidden her true self most of her life, while Agnus too has kept secrets. This book is insightful and beautifully written but also a bit pretentious and filled with “well-bred sensibilities of the New Englander. These are two very affluent, very insulated women whose world is small and rich. They don’t do a lot of travel, volunteer or work (other than writing) or engage in the world except through employing people to do their cooking, cleaning, gardening. Big sweeping novels are rare these days and there are parts of this book that I love, but I found the privileged lives of these women to be distracting. There is so much to like here - the writing, the long lasting female friendship, the meandering but purposeful plotting but also some things wore my patience. [Publish Date: 7/22, Pages: 592]

Jaquiline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs Novels is a historical mystery series that is easy to dip into. The book one (written in 2003) begins after the First World War, and there are now 17 books in the series. Maisy is an investigator and psychologist so her goal is not always just to find the criminal but to understand people and help them. To Die But Once is the 14th book in the series, set early during the Second World War. Dobbs is investigating the disappearance of a young apprentice working on a hush-hush government contract. This story is sad—the hardships of this second war are only just beginning yet many characters are still struggling with the loss of loved ones from the first world war. The personal cost of war looms large in this well crafted historical mystery. [Publish Date: 3/18, Pages: 353]