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Ann Patchett

    December 2, 1963

    Ann Patchett is an American author whose work often explores the profound complexities of human connection and the idea of home. Her writing is characterized by its keen insight into character psychology and a deep appreciation for the nuances of everyday life, drawing readers into richly imagined worlds. Patchett's commitment to literary community and her belief in the power of storytelling are evident throughout her career. Her narratives celebrate resilience and the enduring search for meaning and belonging.

    Ann Patchett
    Tom Lake
    Writers & Lovers
    This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage
    Sipsworth
    The Dutch House
    These Precious Days
    • The Correspondent

      Winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2026

      • 320 pages
      • 12 hours of reading
      The Correspondent2026
    • Jezero Tom

      • 352 pages
      • 13 hours of reading

      V Michiganu je třešňová sezóna. Lara a její tři dcery mají plné ruce práce. Ale… vlastně je všechno jinak. Maisie a Nell mají být na univerzitě a třešně mají česat námezdní dělníci. Jenže se píše rok 2020 a ve světě zuří první vlna pandemie covidu 19. Lara je ale šťastná, farmaje svět sám pro sebe a ona má nečekaně celou rodinu zase pohromadě. A při česání dcerám vypráví o jednom létě kdysi dávno, o létě, které strávila u divadelní společnosti u jezera Tom s pozdější hollywoodskou hvězdou Peterem Dukem. Jezero Tom je nenápadné vyprávění o velkých věcech. O zamilování, o lásce, o divadle i environmentálním žalu. A také je oslavou rodiny a místa - farmy v Michiganu, s třešňovým sadem a hřbitůvkem na kopci, kde jednou všichni skončí. Ann Patchettová je mistrná vypravěčka, napětí střídají emoce, nostalgii nečekané dějové zvraty. A jedno je jisté, všichni bychom chtěli být u jezera Tom. Anebo česat třešně. Lara zažila obojí.

      Jezero Tom2025
      3.5
    • Sipsworth

      • 226 pages
      • 8 hours of reading

      Over the course of a single week, a woman who is ready to die discovers an unexpected reason to live.Following the deaths of her husband and son, Helen Cartwright returns to the English village of her childhood after living abroad for six decades. Her only wish is to die quickly and without fuss.Helen retreats into her home on Westminster Crescent, becoming a creature of routine and habit. Then, one cold autumn night, a chance encounter with an abandoned pet mouse on the street outside her house sets Helen on a surprising journey of friendship.Sipsworth is a reminder that there can be second chances. No matter what we have planned for ourselves, sometimes the world has plans of its own. Simon Van Booy’s lyrical storytelling is a delight even as it will fill your heart.

      Sipsworth2025
      4.0
    • Writers & Lovers

      • 336 pages
      • 12 hours of reading

      Recently out of a devastating love affair and mourning the loss of her beloved mum, Casey is lost. The novel she has been writing for six years isn't going anywhere, her debt is soaring, and at thirty-one, with all her friends getting married and having kids, she feels too old for things to be this way.Then she meets Silas. He is kind, handsome, interested. But only a few weeks later, Oscar - older, fascinating, troubled - walks into her life, his two boys in tow. Suddenly Casey finds herself at the point of a love triangle, torn between two very different relationships that promise two very different futures. And she's still got to write that book . . .

      Writers & Lovers2025
      4.0
    • The breathtaking new novel from Ann Patchett - a Sunday Times and No. 1 New York Times bestseller'Filled with the moments I live for in a story'BONNIE GARMUS, author of Lessons in Chemistry'[Tom Lake] has it all ... Young love, sibling rivalry and deep mother-daughter relationships'REESE WITHERSPOON'One of the most beloved authors of her generation'SUNDAY TIMESThere's more to every love story than what we choose to tell...It's spring and Lara's three grown daughters have returned to the family orchard. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the one story they've always longed to hear - of the film star with whom she shared a stage, and a romance, years before.Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents lead before their children are born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart.'One of our greatest living chroniclers of love and marriage ... Expect wonder; Patchett always delivers' ELLE* SHORTLISTED FOR WATERSTONES BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2023 ** A REESE WITHERSPOON AND BBC RADIO 2 BOOK CLUB PICK ** A 2023 BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR THE TIMES *

      Tom Lake2023
      4.0
    • These Precious Days

      • 336 pages
      • 12 hours of reading

      Any story that starts will also end.' As a writer, Ann Patchett knows what the outcome of her fiction will be. Life, however, often takes turns we do not see coming. Patchett ponders this truth as she explores family, friendship, marriage, failure, success, and what it all means. A literary alchemist, Patchett plumbs the depths of her experiences to create gold: essays that are both self-portrait and landscape, each vibrant with emotion and rich in insight. Ranging from the personal - her portrait of the three men she called her fathers; unexpectedly falling into a life-changing friendship with Tom Hanks; how to answer when someone asks why you don't have children - to the sublime - exploring the Harvard Museum of Natural History before its doors open; the unexpected influence of Snoopy; the importance of knitting - each essay transforms the particular into the universal, letting us all see our own worlds anew. Illuminating, penetrating, funny and generous, These Precious Days is joyful time spent in the company of one of our greatest living authors.

      These Precious Days2021
      4.4
    • The Dutch House

      A Novel

      • 352 pages
      • 13 hours of reading

      A masterpiece from the bestselling author of Commonwealth and Bel Canto, this story explores love, family, sacrifice, and the significance of place. Danny Conroy grows up in the Dutch House, an extravagant home in small-town Pennsylvania, acquired by his property developer father. Despite his father's distance and his mother's absence, Danny finds solace in his beloved sister, Maeve, whose brilliance and delicacy provide comfort. Their lives unfold under the watchful gaze of the house's former owners, captured in oil paintings and the cozy confines of Maeve's room. However, everything changes when their father brings home Andrea, a small and neat woman whose presence marks the beginning of a profound loss for Danny and Maeve. Her arrival leads to a banishment that will haunt them throughout their lives. Despite the opportunities life offers, both siblings are perpetually drawn back to the Dutch House, yearning for a past they can never reclaim. This longing is intertwined with their mother's self-imposed absence, a powerful void that shapes their existence. With her signature blend of wit and heartbreak, the author weaves a tale of family dynamics, betrayal, love, responsibility, and the enduring ties to places that define us across generations.

      The Dutch House2019
      4.1
    • Tales of Two Americas

      • 330 pages
      • 12 hours of reading

      ...masterful and affecting stories, essays, and poems by 36 writers profoundly attuned to the sources and implications of social rupture. These are sharply inquisitive and provocative works... - Booklist (starred review) Urgent, worthy reportage from our fractious, volatile social and cultural moment. - Kirkus

      Tales of Two Americas2017
    • Ann Patchett erzählt, wie sie 2011, nach der Schließung der letzten unabhängigen Buchhandlung in Nashville, entschied, selbst eine zu eröffnen: The Parnassus Bookshop. Ihr Werk ist ein kluges und wichtiges Plädoyer für den Erhalt des unabhängigen Buchhandels und des Lesens.

      Aus Liebe zum Buch2016
      3.5
    • Patchett blends wisdom and humanity jointly with the icy forensic gaze of someone not afraid to expose the frailties of human behaviour ... Read it Jojo Moyes

      Commonwealth2016
      3.8
    • This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage

      • 308 pages
      • 11 hours of reading

      Blending literature and memoir, Ann Patchett, author of State of Wonder, Run, and Bel Canto, examines her deepest commitments—to writing, family, friends, dogs, books, and her husband—creating a resonant portrait of a life in This is the Story of a Happy Marriage. This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage takes us into the very real world of Ann Patchett’s life. Stretching from her childhood to the present day, from a disastrous early marriage to a later happy one, it covers a multitude of topics, including relationships with family and friends, and charts the hard work and joy of writing, and the unexpected thrill of opening a bookstore. As she shares stories of the people, places, ideals, and art to which she has remained indelibly committed, Ann Patchett brings into focus the large experiences and small moments that have shaped her as a daughter, wife, and writer.

      This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage2013
      4.0
    • State of Wonder

      • 400 pages
      • 14 hours of reading

      There were people on the banks of the river. Among the tangled waterways and giant anacondas of the Brazilian Rio Negro, an enigmatic scientist is developing a drug that could alter the lives of women for ever. Dr Annick Swenson's work is shrouded in mystery; she refuses to report on her progress, especially to her investors, whose patience is fast running out. Anders Eckman, a mild-mannered lab researcher, is sent to investigate. A curt letter reporting his untimely death is all that returns. Now Marina Singh, Anders' colleague and once a student of the mighty Dr Swenson, is their last hope. Compelled by the pleas of Anders's wife, who refuses to accept that her husband is not coming home, Marina leaves the snowy plains of Minnesota and retraces her friend's steps into the heart of the South American darkness, determined to track down Dr. Swenson and uncover the secrets being jealously guarded among the remotest tribes of the rainforest. What Marina does not yet know is that, in this ancient corner of the jungle, where the muddy waters and susurrating grasses hide countless unknown perils and temptations, she will face challenges beyond her wildest imagination. Marina is no longer the student, but only time will tell if she has learnt enough

      State of Wonder2011
      3.9
    • Bel canto

      • 336 pages
      • 12 hours of reading

      By the author of The Magician's Assistant, the Orange Prize runner-up, this novel features the combinatin of opera and terrorism. Latin terrorists storm an international gathering, only to find that their intended target has failed to show up.

      Bel canto2002
      3.9
    • Why I Write

      Thoughts on the Craft of Fiction (A Back Bay Book)

      • 256 pages
      • 9 hours of reading

      In this anthology, 26 writers illuminate the motivations at the heart of their creative lives in original essays that are as surprising and varied as their fiction. The contributors include Pat Conroy, Norman Mailor, Rick Moody and David Foster Wallace.

      Why I Write1999
      3.7
    • Taft

      • 256 pages
      • 9 hours of reading

      Ann Patchett's second novel to be published in the UK, following the Orange Prize-shortlisted 'The Magician's Assistant'.

      Taft1999
      3.5
    • Third - and breakthrough - novel by an acclaimed American writer with an enchanting, quirky voice. `The Magician's Assistant' is at once a love story and a brilliant portrayal of reinvention about a magician who dies leaving his assistant/wife to discover he has lied about his past.

      The Magician's Assistant1998
      3.6
    • Rose, a beautiful and mysterious woman living at St. Elizabeth's home for unwed mother, has no intention of telling her mother or her husband about her pregnancy, until a healing spring near the home changes her mind.

      The Patron Saint of Liars1996
      3.8