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

But none of that matters. All that matters is that it's Christmas, and we're family.

This might be a weird Christmas, but that's okay, because Christmas is unruinable.

Carrie Winfrey, faking Christmas.

I'm Annie Jones, owner of the bookshelf, an independent bookstore in beautiful downtown Thomasville, Georgia, and this week I'm recommending some of my favorite holiday books for

cozy reading.

Do you love listening to From the Front Porch every week?

You can spread the word by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. All you have to do is open up the podcast app on your phone, look for From the Front Porch, scroll down until you see Write a Review, then tell us what you think. Here's a recent review from Meredith. New and hooked. From the sound of the squeaky chain on the porch swing to Annie's

voice to what she's saying about books and life in a small town, I love inhabiting this podcast.

It feels like a conversation, albeit one-sided. I like to think of this podcast as a conversation,

too, Meredith. Thank you so much for sharing a review. And thank you to all of the reviewers

who've left kind and thoughtful reviews for our show. We're so grateful anytime you share from the front porch with your friends. Thanks to you for spreading the word about our podcast and our bookstore. Now, back to the show. This episode is part of a series called Annie Recommends. We've also done Shop Dad

recommends in this format, but basically we like to talk about a kind of book stack of books

that I would hand sell you if you were in the store. We've done this several times,

so you can go back. There are links in the show notes, but episodes 463, 473, 481, 498, 504, 511, 516, 550, 550, 55. We've done this a lot. It's in the show notes. But we've done this for audiobooks. We've done it for spooky reads. We've done it for campus novels, rom-coms. So sometimes all you want is a good book list. We know this because customers

come in the store or email Kila all the time asking for recommendations based on a specific

genre or criteria. A bookseller's favorite task, at least in my experience, is to go around the

shop and put together a stack of books for a customer who's on the hunt. Even if they don't

buy every book we pick, the fun is in the discovery. I do this all the time. I don't get to work on the floor as much anymore, but I really do love when somebody comes in and they say, oh, I just finish this, what should I read next or, you know, what should I add to my list? And I like giving them a stack truly of about four or five books and then I tell them whatever you don't want

I'll put back. I did this recently for a customer, hi Karen, who had just read Catherine Newman. And I think I found a couple of books for her. It was trickier for Karen because she's read so much. And then I did it for another customer who was shopping for somebody who had been through a grieving season.

She wound up going with the boy, the mole, the fox, and the horse. But anyway, I love doing this. To me, it's one of the most fun parts of the job. So that is exactly what we're trying to mimic on these episodes of From the Front Porch. Every so often, I'll put together a book stack around a certain theme. This month, since we're smack dab in the middle of the holiday season now, I've got books to cozy up with for the holidays. I've made a short list

of some of my favorite current and backlist titles. And just like I wouldn't overwhelm customers

...