Lessons Learned While Staying Put | Hardcover | Biography & Autobiography / Memoirs In her first book, the popular From the Front Porch podcast host and independent bookstore owner challenges the idea that loud lives are the ones that matter most, reminding us that we don't have to leave the lives we have in order to have the lives of which we've always dreamed. Can life be an adventure, even when it’s just . . . ordinary? Annie Jones always assumed adulthood would mean adventure: a high-powered career; life in a big, bustling city; and travels to far-flung places she’d longed to see. But her reality turned out differently. As the years passed, Annie was still in the same small town running an independent bookstore —the kind of life Nora Ephron dreamed. During that time, she hosted friends’ goodbye parties and mailed parting gifts; wrote recommendation letters and wished former shop staffers well.