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

Long ago, she'd learned that life could be bitterly disappointing if allowed. There were blows and stumbles, but your job was to say interested in the world.

Tia Williams, Seven Days in June.

I'm Annie Jones, owner of the bookshelves, an independent bookstore in beautiful downtown Thomasville, Georgia, and today I'm recapping the books I read in May.

This was kind of a different reading month for me. It feels like I was definitely reading a lot for work, for summer reading guide, for literary lunch, for shelf subscriptions, and so my reading was definitely influenced by that.

I was able to sneak in one really great children's chapter book and Jordan and I are also doing some reading aloud in the evenings as kind of part of our summer routine.

So there's some other fun things going on, but it was a reading month that was definitely inspired and influenced by my life at the bookshelf and by the work that I do.

So a lot of books that I was reading so that I could talk about them and so that I could talk well about them.

The first book I read in May and it did take me a little while to finish it was the final revival of Opal and Neve. This is by Donnie Walton.

And it has been very popular both on our shelves, but also I feel like on the internet, I've seen it a lot online and actually part of the reason I was inspired to pick it up. It is out now.

I was inspired to pick it up by our former bookseller Kate. Kate Storehoff is now we've talked about her before she is now a manager up at bookmarks in North Carolina.

But when she worked at the bookshelf, she and I often had some overlapping tastes. And when she kind of raved about this one, especially because she is a musicologist and a musicology expert, I was intrigued.

But the final revival of Opal and Neve is a fictional oral history. It is really being billed as you might guess as kind of the next Daisy Jones and the six.

But I want to push back on that a little bit. And I loved Daisy Jones and the six and I love an oral history. The final revival of Opal and Neve is dealing with so many different issues and subjects than Daisy Jones was.

And so that is part of the reason I think it took me a little bit to finish this one was because there are serious issues being tackled here.

So Opal is a black woman kind of glamorous and eccentric. I'm thinking a serial is kind of the word I keep coming back to.

And Neve is this white British kind of folk singer is what I pictured in my head, like Ed Sheeran, but in the 70s or something, not that Ed Sheeran is folk, but Neve in this book is a red headed guy. And so that's kind of what I was picturing.

So Opal and Neve join forces and create this rock duo in the 70s and they kind of have a hard time catching on, but eventually they release a record.

And then they wind up doing this showcase with several other musicians and bands from their record label. And this is all fictional kind of this really really well created and well crafted fictional world.

Much like I can see where the Daisy Jones comparison come in because when I read Daisy Jones for the first time, I immediately was like, is this a real band? Like I had to Google.

And Opal and Neve's story is very similar in that I thought it was real like the world is so well crafted and the oral history is so well done that you do think, wait a minute, is this is this something that really happened and I just ignore it.

But because of their interracial relationship and just the fact that she is black and he is white and he is from England and she is from America, there's a lot of tension and they're especially during the 70s.

...