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Shelf Life: Ann Patchett - ELLE.com

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ann patchett's book recommendations

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Welcome to Shelf Life, ELLE.com’s books column, in which authors share their most memorable reads. Whether you’re on the hunt for a book to console you, move you profoundly, or make you laugh, consider a recommendation from the writers in our series, who, like you (since you’re here), love books. Perhaps one of their favorite titles will become one of yours, too.

The Dutch House

bookshop.org

$25.75

Ann Patchett has a paperback out today: The Dutch House, a 2020 Pulitzer Prize finalist in fiction, NYT bestseller, and her eighth novel. (Fun fact: She asked Tom Hanks to read the audiobook, and he said yes. Another one: She threw the first draft out and started over.) In other brushes with Hollywood, her 2001 novel, Bel Canto, was made into a film in 2018 starring Julianne Moore. She’s also written three works of nonfiction and two picture books.

The Nashville-based self-described introvert has an internal medicine-practicing husband, shelter dog named Sparky, a blog called Notes From Ann, and a love for Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast, “Revisionist History.” She went to Catholic school for a dozen years; waitressed at a TGIFriday’s; and interviews authors like Roxane Gay and Zadie Smith for her bookstore, Parnassus Books. The name comes from Christopher Morley’s Parnassus on Wheels, about a spinster who buys a horse-drawn roving bookstore—and yes, Patchett’s store has a bookmobile. It’s a blue bus bought online called Pegasus, or Peggy for short. Let’s get this show on the road!

The book that:

…helped me through loss:

The Suicide Index by Joan Wickersham. When someone recommended it to me, I thought there was no way I could read it, but it turned out to be the only book that helped. I later went on to read Wickersham’s beautiful book of short stories, The News from Spain.

…kept me up way too late:

Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke. I don’t read many mysteries but I’d follow Texas Ranger Matthews anywhere.

…made me cry:

A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines. I was crying so hard at the end I couldn’t see the page.

…I recommend over and over again:

This could be the start of a very long list, but I'm going to say The All of It by Jeannette Haien. It’s brilliant, engulfing, can be read in a single sitting. Everyone I give it to is amazed by it.

…I keep trying to finish (I will, I swear):

Middlemarch by George Eliot. Every time I get 300 pages in, something comes up that I have to read so I stop.

…currently sits on my nightstand:

The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante. I started it last night. So far, so good.

…I’d pass onto my kid:

I don’t have a kid but I keep stacks of Kate DiCamillo books around to give to any kid that may be walking past the house. I especially love The Magician's Elephant and The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane.

…I’d gift to a new graduate:

The Story of More by Hope Jarhen. It’s a book about how to save the planet by consuming less.

…made me laugh out loud:

Everything by David Sedaris makes me bark like a seal. His diaries, Theft By Finding, isn’t his funniest book but it’s my favorite.

…I last bought:

Unforgettable by Scott Simon. It’s a memoir about his beautiful mother and growing up in Chicago. It is so loving. By the time I was finished I was in love with Patricia Simon.

…has the best title:

Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It by Maile Meloy. It happens to be a really great book but the title alone is reason enough to buy it.

…has the greatest ending:

The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa. I won’t spoil it for you. It’s so beautiful, so perfect, that when I finished I started the book again.

…should be on every college syllabus:

The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich. It is a history lesson about our government’s ongoing attempts to grab Native land, a lesson in writing because there is no better writer alive today, and just a terrific read.

…I’ve re-read the most:

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It’s put together like a Swiss watch.

…I consider literary comfort food:

Love in a Cold Climate and The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford. You have to read both of them. You’ll never find anything else that good.

…features the most beautiful book jacket:

The Dutch House by me. My friend Noah Saterstrom painted the cover portrait for me in four days. It’s a portrait of the main character in the novel. It’s stunning.

…everyone should read:

Caste by Isabel Wilkerson because it explains how this country was made and what the consequences are for all of us.

…I could only have discovered at a bookstore:

Kehinde Wiley: A New Republic edited by Eugenie Tsai with an essay by Connie H. Choi. I love art books, but I have to see them in order to fall for them. This one is a treasure.

…surprised me:

Black Bottom Saints by Alice Randall. It’s the story of 52 real-life Black saints from Detroit. It is a treasure chest. Every time I opened the book it all but emitted light.

Bonus question: If I could live in any library or bookstore in the world, it would be…

Parnassus Books, an independent bookstore of independent people in Nashville, Tennessee. And I do sort of live there since I’m the co-owner.

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