Episode 560 || Best Books of the Year

From the Front Porch

The Bookshelf Thomasville

Arts:books, Arts, Books, Fiction, Society & Culture

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 18 December 2025

⏱️ 71 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week on From the Front Porch, Annie and Hunter discuss their top 10 favorite books of 2025! Annie 1. A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar2. The Correspondent by Virginia Evans3. Flashlight by Susan Choi4. Tilt by Emma Pattee5. The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett6. Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li7. Memorial Days by Geradine Brooks8. Buckeye by Patrick Ryan9. Life, and Death, and Giants by Ron Rindo10. Awake by Jen Hatmaker Hunter 1. Audition by Katie Kitamura2. Flashlight by Susan Choi3. Ordinary Time by Annie B. Jones4. Lightbreakers by Aja Gabel5. Minor Black Figures by Brandon Taylor6. A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar7. Mothers and Sons by Adam Haslett8. Middle Spoon by Alejandro Varela9. The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett10. Alligator Tears by Edgar Gomez Annie - July picks1. Tilt by Emma Pattee2. Flashlight by Susan Choi3. The Correspondent by Virginia Evans4. Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li5. Show Don’t Tell by Curtis Sittenfeld6. Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks7. Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green8. The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett9. Lucky Night by Eliza Kennedy10. Playworld by Adam RossHunter - July picks1. Audition by Katie Kitamura2. Ordinary Time by Annie B Jones3. Mothers and Sons by Adam Haslett4. Alligator Tears by Edgar Gomez5. Among Friends by Hal Ebbott6. The Wilderness by Angela Flourney7. Open, Heaven by Sean Hewitt8. The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett9. Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico10. Exit Zero by Marie-Helene Bertino From the Front Porch is a weekly podcast production of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in South Georgia. You can follow The Bookshelf’s daily happenings on Instagram, Tiktok, and Facebook, and all the books from today’s episode can be purchased online through our store website, www.bookshelfthomasville.com. A full transcript of today’s episode can be found here. Special thanks to Dylan and his team at Studio D Podcast Production for sound and editing and for our theme music, which sets the perfect warm and friendly tone for our Thursday conversations. This week, Annie is reading Grace and Henry’s Holiday Movie Marathon. Hunter is reading Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club. If you liked what you heard in today’s episode, tell us by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. You can also support us on Patreon, where you can access bonus content, monthly live Porch Visits with Annie, our monthly live Patreon Book Club with Bookshelf staffers, Conquer a Classic episodes with Hunter, and more. Just go to patreon.com/fromthefrontporch. We’re so grateful for you, and we look forward to meeting back here next week. Our Executive Producers are...Beth, Stephanie Dean, Linda Lee Drozt, Ashley Ferrell, Wendi Jenkins, Martha, Nicole Marsee, Gene Queens, Cammy Tidwell, Jammie Treadwell, and Amanda Whigham.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to From the Front Porch, a conversational podcast about books, small business, and life in the South.
0:08.0	There are always two stories taking place at once.
0:27.6	The narrative inside the play and the narrative around it.
0:31.6	Wait, it's cutting off.
0:33.6	Starting over.
0:35.6	There are always two stories taking place at once.
0:39.0	The narrative inside the play and the narrative around it.
0:42.4	And the boundary between the two is more porous than you might think.
0:46.2	That is both the danger and the excitement of the performance.
0:51.4	Katie Kidamura Audition.
0:54.1	I'm Annie Jones, owner of the bookshelf, an independent bookstore in beautiful downtown
0:58.1	Thomasville, Georgia, and this week I'm joined by my friend Hunter McClendon to talk about
1:02.5	our favorite books of 2025.
1:05.1	If you love hearing from Hunter, and who doesn't, you might consider joining from the
1:09.5	front porch on Patreon in 2026.
1:12.4	There, Hunter and I will be sharing our monthly recaps of Our Conquering of The Complete Stories
1:17.5	by Flannery O'Connor.
1:19.4	Episodes will air on the last Friday of each month beginning in January, which means you've
1:23.4	got plenty of time to join or to cajole friends and family into joining us too.
1:28.1	Shop Mom and Shop Dad and several Bookshelf team members will be following along in 2026.
1:33.3	To join Patreon, just visit patreon.com forward slash from the front porch.
1:37.8	Three tiers are available. The $5 a month tier will give you access to all of our Conqueror
	...

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