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Ann Patchett
Ann Patchett is the author of Bel Canto, The Dutch House, and Tom Lake, and co-owner of Parnassus Books in Nashville. As a working bookseller she recommends titles constantly in interviews, cover blurbs, and PBS NewsHour's summer reading segment. Picks below come from her own words.
All Ann Patchett book recommendations.
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02The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny
“It is a sweeping epic about two young people who are both from the same small town in India.”source
03Mother Mary Comes to Me
“This is the story about her relationship with her brilliant and difficult mother, Mary Roy.”source
A Long Game: Notes on Writing Fiction
“She has wonderful, wonderful, tough love, direct, and very funny advice on how to be the writer you want to be.”source
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06The Correspondent
“A really beautiful, beautiful book, a debut.”source
07The Satisfaction Cafe
“A very quiet, funny, smart book... Think Anne Tyler, just beautifully written, quiet, simple, and very, very smart, very entertaining.”source
08Who Is Government?
“I cannot recommend this book strongly enough. One, it is a pure pleasure to read.”source
09Everything Is Tuberculosis
“John Green, our most famous young adult author, is obsessed with tuberculosis, tuberculosis in history, but also tuberculosis here and now.”source
10In the Wild
“Zadie Smith, our greatest writer, has written about a weird little guinea pig in a judo suit. It is such a strange, terrific book. Love it. Love it.”source
11Swimming Studies
“It's a book about showing up and practicing and doing the work.”source
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15There's Always This Year
“Hanif Abdurraqib is one of my favorite writers and just someone I learned from every time I read one of his books. Brilliant.”source
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18James
“James is funny and horrifying, brilliant and riveting. In telling the story of Jim instead of Huckleberry Finn, Percival Everett delivers a powerful, necessary corrective to both literature and history. Who should read this book? Every single person in the country.”source
19Demon Copperhead
“She means to save us by telling us stories. She comes closer than anyone else I know.”source
20The Night Watchman
“This is my very favorite of her books. It's a novel based on her grandfather's story about helping Native American people hold onto their land.”source
21Here for It
“It's a book of essays. He writes for Elle, writes a lot of political things, but these are just really laugh-out-loud funny.”source
The Story of More
“A book about climate change that is calm and kind of lays it out in a way that makes us feel more manageable.”source
23The Magician's Elephant
“My very favorite is The Magician's Elephant. She, of course, wrote Because of Winn-Dixie.”source
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