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

Be curious, not judgmental. Jason Sudegas, Ted Lasso.

I'm Annie Jones, owner of the Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in beautiful downtown

Thomasville, Georgia, and today I'm joined by my frequent co-host, the Bookshelf's community manager, Ashley Sherlock.

Together, we're reflecting on our love for Ted Lasso just in time for the show's second season, and we're recommending books we think will help you keep the love alive after the last episode is watched.

Hi, Ashley. Hello. Okay, I'm so excited to talk about this. I've had this on the list for a while on the episode idea list for a while, but it finally makes sense because Ted Lasso's season two premieres, I think, on the date of this recording, it will premiere the next day or something like that.

Yeah, 16th I'm so ready. Okay, so very ready. Tell me why you watched Ted Lasso, what you love about it, etc.

Okay, so it took me a while to press the play button, not necessarily for any reason, but I had multiple people tell me that this was something that I should be watching.

So thought I'd give it a try. Sports aren't really my thing, but heart is my thing. So came, came because I was told stayed for the heart.

Nice. Did you just watch it once through?

Oh, no, many times. I think I've seen it three times three. Oh my god.

Jordan and I loved it so much, but I've only watched it once through. I'm a little scared to rewatch because I loved it so much, but it's nice to know that it would hold up if I chose to watch it two,

maybe three times.

We watched it last summer. I am pretty pleased that we were early adopters of this one.

We got Apple TV or Apple, whatever they call it, Apple Plus. I don't even know. We got it a while ago, but we hadn't watched a ton of stuff on it.

And this Ted Lasso came up as like a preview, you know, like it was saying, oh, coming soon to Apple TV Plus or whatever, Apple Plus. And I thought, well, that looks fun because Jordan and I do love sports.

And if you'll recall this time last year, we were being given nothing. Like the Olympics were canceled. March madness was canceled. I was having a time.

And so I was like, I don't care how dumb this looks. We're going to try this show about soccer. And instead we watched it.

Basically, I'm pretty sure I feel like they released it week by week. I might be wrong about that, but I think they released it week by week and we watched it and just fell in love with it. And you're right.

It's totally the heart. It's not just a sports show, although it definitely revolves around soccer. It's also about a man who's a fish out of water, like he is an American trying to get used to a British game.

It's about a group of British soccer players trying to get used to this American coach.

And I think the word that I've heard kind of thrown around and certainly the word that I associate with Jason Sudakis as Ted Lasso is earnest.

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