Ordinary Time

Lessons Learned While Staying Put

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Pub Date Apr 22 2025 | Archive Date Jun 17 2025

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Description

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. She stayed in her small town, despite her love of big cities; stayed in her marriage to the guy she met when she was 18; and she stayed at her bookstore while the world outside shifted steadily toward digital retailers. And she stayed loyal to a faith she sometimes didn’t recognize.

After ten years, Annie realized she might never leave. But instead of regret, she had an epiphany. She awakened to the gifts of a quiet life spent staying put.

In Ordinary Time, Annie challenges the idea that loud lives matter most. Rummaging through her small-town existence, she finds hidden gifts of humor and hope from a life lived quietly. Staying, can itself be a radical act. It takes courage to stay in the places we’ve always called home, Jones argues, as she paints a portrait of possibility far away from thriving metropolises and Monica Gellar-inspired apartments.

We’ve long been encouraged to follow our dreams, to pack up and move to new places and leave old lives—and past selves—behind. While there is beauty in these kinds of adventures, Ordinary Time helps us see ourselves right where we are: in the middle of messy, mundane lives, maybe not too far from where we grew up. We don’t have to leave to find what we yearn—we can choose to stay, celebrating and honoring our ordinary lives, which might turn out to be bigger and better than we ever imagined. 


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...


Advance Praise

“Oh, wow, do I love this book! Annie B. Jones has written something so thoughtful and beautifully earnest in the best way. Ordinary Time wears its earnestness as a well-deserved badge of honor; it's an inspiration to all of us to be true to ourselves, true to what we love, and true to the quiet voice within us. What a gift! This book is an ode to loving where you are, loving the small places, the cracks where the light gets in, the deceptively simple, the small yet impossibly intricate. Ordinary Time is a book for anyone who has wondered about their place in the world. I can't wait to return to it again and again.”   — R. Eric Thomas, bestselling author of Here for It, or How to Save Your Soul in America

“In Ordinary Time, Annie Jones turns mundanity into meaning—giving her readers a beautifully told and deeply considered account of the everyday choices that pile up to become a life. It reads like a soothing conversation with a trustworthy friend.” — Mary Laura Philpott, author of I Miss You When I Blink and Bomb Shelter: Love, Time, and Other Explosives

“Thoughtful childhood nostalgia and stories that find the magic in the mundane will be especially touching for millennials.”— Erin Napier, bestselling author of Heirloom Rooms and Make Something Good Today

“Annie B. Jones gently and deftly pushes back on the idea that an interesting life has to be an adventurous one. Through stories of friendship, marriage, and running a small town bookstore, she shares a life rich with beauty and meaning. Ordinary Time will make readers reflect on their seasons of letting go and the merits of staying put.”         — Laura Tremaine, author of The Life Council and Share Your Stuff, I’ll Go First

“Ordinary Time is like a hug from an old friend in sentence form." — Sean Dietrich, columnist, podcaster, and author of Kinfolk and You Are My Sunshine

“I thought I was coming for the book talk, and it didn’t disappoint. But the stories that really captured my imagination and have lived in my head since I first read them are about entirely different things: line dancing in a high school gym, the virtue of affability, a house with a pool. Ordinary Time feels like a long conversation with a good friend about the things in life that matter most, the kind of talk that leaves you feeling both grounded and inspired. Until now, most of us have known Annie B. Jones as a reader and bookstore owner. Now I'm excited for the world to get to know her as a writer as well.” — Anne Bogel, host of What Should I Read Next and the author of I’d Rather Be Reading

“Turns out, our generation’s Kathleen Kelly loves empty churches and The Book of Common Prayer but also Fleabag and dancing something called the Sleazy Slide. This book proves that real life—surprising, heartbreaking, seemingly simple life—will always be better than the movies. Lucky Thomasville that Annie stuck around, and lucky us that she shares her stories.” — Elizabeth Passarella, author of Good Apple and It Was an Ugly Couch Anyway

“Annie writes a love letter to everyone who's ever wondered if they made the right choice to stay, to stick around, to continue on. I absolutely adored the tender way she carries her stories of remaining, and how she shares them to remind us of our long obedience in the same direction.”— Erin Moon, author of I’ve Got Questions and host of the Faith Adjacent podcast

“What a privilege it is to go along with Annie B. Jones on her journey of staying put. Earnest, graceful, and beautifully written, this book is an exquisite reflection on the art of finding enchantment in ordinary time. This is one to treasure and come back to again and again.” — Annabel Monaghan, author of Summer Romance and Nora Goes Off Script

“Annie B. Jones has a gift for putting complicated feelings into words—I lost count of the times I thought, “me too!” as I read these pages. Ordinary Time is a book that will help you appreciate the satisfaction of quiet days, find joy even in complicated community, and see the beauty of ending up in a life you never expected. Annie has written a lovely book about the pain of goodbyes and the surprises that can happen when you choose to stay put.” — Kerry Winfrey, author of Waiting for Tom Hanks and Very Sincerely Yours

“Oh, wow, do I love this book! Annie B. Jones has written something so thoughtful and beautifully earnest in the best way. Ordinary Time wears its earnestness as a well-deserved badge of honor; it's...


Available Editions

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ISBN 9780063411272
PRICE $26.99 (USD)
PAGES 256

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Featured Reviews

"Your ordinary life matters, and the place you're living it matters, too."

Do I know Annie B Jones? No. Do I feel like I know her because she shares her heart and soul with her bookstore, podcast and book recommendations? Absolutely. Annie feels like a kindred spirit who knows what it’s like to be decidedly uncool as a teenager, and what it’s like to be an awkward adult.

When talking about getting married young and and entering adulthood with her husband she said, "We've always been a little elderly on the inside, so maybe we were more mature than our twenty-two years suggested." I can relate to this because I joke about being 'old' on the inside. I think it is a blessing from growing up close to and spending so much time with both sets of my grandparents. Annie recognizes the value of ordinary things having the ability to be the biggest blessings in our lives.

Sometimes it's easy to feel left behind or that you aren't moving forward when your friends and peers are building their lives in big cities or at big jobs. I have found the most happiness in my adult life enjoying the things that brought me comfort in my childhood...books, familiar TV shows, time with family and friends, and food. This is the "good stuff".

I really enjoyed reading this. It felt like reading letters from a close friend who knows what it's like to feel discontent. And who knows how to move through the discontentment by celebrating your every day life, family and friends.

"The solution to an age of disenchantment? Be enchanted. Share about it." Simply put, I was enchanted by this book and I hope others are too.

Thanks to NetGalley for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

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My gosh, this is the book I didn't know I needed! Ever since the pandemic, I wish to stay home and enjoy being home more than ever. I'm not bored or longing for city life and extravagant things anymore. Ordinary Time is a well-structured book that explores everyday life and contentment with it. I loved it. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

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This book of essays is REMARKABLE. As someone who left and is now "staying" unexpectedly, each and every essay hit home. I've not thought about affability so much and this book really caused me to reflect on the impact of acquaintances. I had an opportunity to try my hand at small talk after reading "Book Club" and the essay helped to reframe my thoughts about the interaction and the importance of acquaintances. The author's experience with the church - so personal and yet relatable. The acknowledgements at the end were especially lovely too.

This is a special book.

I truly hope this book finds its audience. Calling on the marketing gods, publishers, independent bookstores - do your thing! Big thanks to NetGalley for an early copy.

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I really enjoyed this book and Annie's writing. I liked her small town perspective and her love of books. She is very honest and open and shows how life isn't always what we expect it to be. But that sometimes we are given what we need.
I liked reading about her struggles and how she overcomes them.
A lovely read for book clubs.

Thanks NetGalley for this ARC

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