Episode 560 || Best Books of the Year

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 Majumdar
2. The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
3. Flashlight by Susan Choi
4. Tilt by Emma Pattee
5. The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett
6. Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li
7. Memorial Days by Geradine Brooks
8. Buckeye by Patrick Ryan
9. Life, and Death, and Giants by Ron Rindo
10. Awake by Jen Hatmaker

Hunter
1. Audition by Katie Kitamura
2. Flashlight by Susan Choi
3. Ordinary Time by Annie B. Jones
4. Lightbreakers by Aja Gabel
5. Minor Black Figures by Brandon Taylor
6. A Guardian and a Thief by  Megha Majumdar
7. Mothers and Sons by Adam Haslett
8. Middle Spoon by Alejandro Varela
9. The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett
10. Alligator Tears by Edgar Gomez

Annie - July picks
1. Tilt by Emma Pattee
2. Flashlight by Susan Choi
3. The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
4. Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li
5. Show Don’t Tell by Curtis Sittenfeld
6. Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks
7. Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green
8. The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett
9. Lucky Night by Eliza Kennedy
10. Playworld by Adam Ross

Hunter - July picks
1. Audition by Katie Kitamura
2. Ordinary Time by Annie B Jones
3. Mothers and Sons by Adam Haslett
4. Alligator Tears by Edgar Gomez
5. Among Friends by Hal Ebbott
6. The Wilderness by Angela Flourney
7. Open, Heaven by Sean Hewitt
8. The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett
9. Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico
10. 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.