Episode 563 || What Would Jane Austen Read?

From the Front Porch

The Bookshelf Thomasville

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

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 8 January 2026

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week on From the Front Porch, Annie shares the modern books she would recommend to Jane Austen, in honor of Jane’s recent 250th birthday. Listen to find out what books Annie would put in Jane’s hands if she walked into The Bookshelf. To purchase the books mentioned in this episode, stop by The Bookshelf in Thomasville, visit our website (search episode 563) or download and shop on The Bookshelf’s official app: Matrix by Lauren Groff Miracles and Other Reasonable Things by Sarah Bessey Take Good Care of the Garden and the Dogs by Heather Lende Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi Tom Lake by Ann Patchett The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry The Complete Stories by Flannery O’Connor 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 Mona’s Eyes by Thomas Schlesser. 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	How strange she thinks.
0:26.8	Belief has grown upon her.
0:29.4	Perhaps, she thinks, it is something like a mold.
0:34.6	Lauren Groff Matrix.
0:41.5	I'm Annie Jones, owner of the bookshelf, an independent bookstore in beautiful downtown Thomasville, Georgia, and this week we're kicking off a new podcast series
0:46.5	where I imagine what books I might hand sell to our favorite authors and fictional characters.
0:52.7	First up, Jane Austen. If you like my book reviews
0:56.5	here on the podcast, you might be interested in joining my private Instagram account, Annie's
1:01.3	five-star books. For $50 a year, you can become a part of my bookish community online. Through the
1:07.8	private Instagram account, you'll get access to my book reviews, backlist, and front list titles.
1:12.9	I host monthly Instagram story Q&As and share about the books I start but never finish.
1:18.4	If you follow me personally online, you've seen my reviews for years, and of course, from the front porch listeners will always have access to free monthly reading recap episodes.
1:28.3	The private Instagram is just a place separate from the bookshelf, where I get to be more
1:32.5	detailed with my reviews, and five-star book club members can also choose if they want to order my
1:37.1	five-star reads each month from the store. There's now a quarterly newsletter option for the
1:42.1	social media averse as well. For more information or to
1:46.0	sign up for 2026, visit annie bjoneswrites.com forward slash five star dash book dash club.
1:54.2	There's a link in the show notes too. Now back to the show. A few months ago during one of our Patreon porch visits, there's a plug for you for Patreon,
2:05.0	podcast listener Courtney asked me what books I would recommend to my beloved March sisters.
2:11.4	I loved that question and the resulting thought exercise so much, I decided I needed to try my hand at selecting books for other fictional characters and authors I love.
2:22.6	And since we just wrapped up the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen's birth, she immediately came to mind.
	...

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