Front Porch Book Club Front Porch Book Club
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Every month the Front Porch Book Club features two episodes on our selected book. The first episode is Linda and Nancy discussing the book from their perspective. The second episode invites the author or an expert to delve deeper into the book. Our book selections are eclectic: fiction, autobiography, history, memoir, investigative journalism, and classics. They are books that give us insights into how we may be more intentional, creative, and loving in our lives. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/frontporchbookclub/support
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Jennifer Cumming on Carrie Soto is Back
We learn about mental skills athletes use to compete at the highest levels. Dr. Jennifer Cumming, former competitive athlete and now sports psychologist and professor, describes techniques for building mental skills. She trains professional and recreational athletes, and applies her work in other fields such as medicine, law enforcement, and the military, as well as working with youth who are experiencing homelessness. She shares how mental skills training could have helped our April book protagonist, Carrie Soto, in Taylor Jenkins Reid’s Carrie Soto is Back.
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Carrie Soto is Back
Carrie Soto is Back, by best-selling novelist Taylor Jenkins Reid, plunges us into the world of professional tennis. We meet retired phenom, Carrie, who decides to return to the circuit to defend her Grand Slam titles record. Carrie's singular focus on her tennis legacy has Linny and Nancy talking legacy, what it means, and why it matters.
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Dr. Sara Brenneis
We take an incredible journey through Spain's 20th century, the setting of this month's book, The Shadow of the Wind, with our guest Sara Brenneis, an Amherst professor specializing in this era. Delving more deeply into Spain's social, political, religious, and economic context opened up this book in ways we never expected. Linny has a new admiration for the women in the book. Nancy is amazed by the authorial restraint of not explaining everything shown by the author, Carlos Ruiz Zafon. And yes, we also have some great laughs, too!
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The Shadow of the Wind
In post-civil war Spain, young Daniel is cast into danger when he refuses to sell his rare copy of a Julian Carax novel to a mysterious cloaked man intent on destroying all copies of the author's books. Over a ten-year period, Daniel uncovers old resentments, past loves, deadly lies, and true love as he learns the secrets of the mysterious man and of the author who has disappeared. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon sets this unforgettable novel in Barcelona, a city teeming with secrets of its own.
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Author Shelby Van Pelt
Shelby Van Pelt's debut novel, Remarkably Bright Creatures, has become a word-of-mouth bestseller. No surprise, since this warm and generous novel introduces three very different characters all facing their own "stuckness": a grieving widow, an aquarium-confined octopus, and a struggling young man. Shelby joins us on the front porch to talk about her journey as a first-time author, these remarkable characters, Community Reads programs, and so much more. Yes, we also laugh!
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Remarkably Bright Creatures
Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus, has lived most of his life in the Sowell Bay Aquarium but yearns for the ocean's currents while he watches the humans who pass his tank with disdain. That is, until Tova, the night janitor saves him from dying on one of his nighttime expeditions. They form a sort of friendship that will change their lives and the lives of those around them, including Ethan the small town's grocer and Cameron an aimless newcomer. This warm and generous novel by Shelby Van Pelt is a celebration of the power of connection and of second chances.
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Customer Reviews
Love these ladies!
I love their hearty laughs together!!! So sweet!