Welcome to episode 30 of From the Front Porch, a collection of conversations on books,

small business, and life in the South. I'm Annie Jones, owner of the bookshelf in downtown

Thomasville, Georgia, and I'm joined today by Katie, my co-owner and frequent podcast contributor.

Today we'll be talking about becoming educated readers and what that means in light of current events,

specifically last week's Charleston shooting.

But before we get started, I wanted to ask our listeners and friends, if you have a moment

and if you enjoy the show to rate and rank us on iTunes,

you can do that really simply by going to our link in the show notes and rating us,

giving us however many stars you think we are worthy of,

and maybe giving us a brief description or review.

We would really appreciate it. It helps spread the word about the podcast and kind of lets other people know about us. So if you've got a moment, click the link in the show notes, go on over to iTunes. You can even rate and rank us using your phone, so it's pretty easy. But anyway, thank you so much. Hey, Katie. Hey, Annie.

How are you?

Pretty good.

So I thought this week it would be worth our time to discuss the Charleston shooting,

but specifically what we as readers can do.

So I thought about this after on Instagram, you know, and I'm sure on Facebook too,

all these conversations kind of started coming up.

And I saw on Shauna Nequist's Instagram, Shauna is one of my favorite faith writers,

and I think we've talked about her on the podcast before.

But Shauna's Instagram had a picture, I think, of the Charleston Church.

And then it said, she said that she was heartbroken by the events in Charleston.

And she wanted specifically to know what books she should be reading about the history of racism in America.

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