Ann Patchett
Ann Patchett is the author of several novels, works of nonfiction, and children’s books. She has been the recipient of numerous awards including the PEN/Faulkner, the Women’s Prize in the U.K., and the Book Sense Book of the Year. Her novel The Dutch House was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her work has been translated into more than thirty languages. TIME magazine named her one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee, where she is the owner of Parnassus Books.
All Books By Ann Patchett
Bel Canto
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrator: Anna Fields
- Length: 11 hours 17 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: August 03, 2004
- Language: English
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3.93(249276 ratings)
Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award * Winner of the Orange Prize * National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
“Bel Canto is its own universe. A marvel of a book.” —Washington Post Book World
New York Times bestselling author Ann Patchett’s spellbinding novel about love and opera, and the unifying ways people learn to communicate across cultural barriers in times of crisis
Somewhere in South America, at the home of the country’s vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honor of the powerful businessman Mr. Hosokawa. Roxanne Coss, opera’s most revered soprano, has mesmerized the international guests with her singing. It is a perfect evening–until a band of gun-wielding terrorists takes the entire party hostage. But what begins as a panicked, life-threatening scenario slowly evolves into something quite different, a moment of great beauty, as terrorists and hostages forge unexpected bonds and people from different continents become compatriots, intimate friends, and lovers.
Patchett’s lyrical prose and lucid imagination make Bel Canto a captivating story of strength and frailty, love and imprisonment, and an inspiring tale of transcendent romance.
... Read moreCommonwealth
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrator: Hope Davis
- Length: 10 hours 34 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: September 13, 2016
- Language: English
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3.82(137573 ratings)
The acclaimed, bestselling author–winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize–tells the enthralling story of how an unexpected romantic encounter irrevocably changes two families’ lives.
One Sunday afternoon in Southern California, Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating’s christening party uninvited. Before evening falls, he has kissed Franny’s mother, Beverly–thus setting in motion the dissolution of their marriages and the joining of two families.
Spanning five decades, Commonwealth explores how this chance encounter reverberates through the lives of the four parents and six children involved. Spending summers together in Virginia, the Keating and Cousins children forge a lasting bond that is based on a shared disillusionment with their parents and the strange and genuine affection that grows up between them.
When, in her twenties, Franny begins an affair with the legendary author Leon Posen and tells him about her family, the story of her siblings is no longer hers to control. Their childhood becomes the basis for his wildly successful book, ultimately forcing them to come to terms with their losses, their guilt, and the deeply loyal connection they feel for one another.
Told with equal measures of humor and heartbreak, Commonwealth is a meditation on inspiration, interpretation, and the ownership of stories. It is a brilliant and tender tale of the far-reaching ties of love and responsibility that bind us together.
... Read moreEscape Goat
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrator: Ann Patchett
- Length: 7 minutes
- Publisher: HarperCollins
- Publish date: September 22, 2020
- Language: English
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3.77(443 ratings)
From the international bestselling author of Bel Canto, Ann Patchett, comes a hilarious children’s audiobook about a scapegoat who escapes blame just in time, read by the author!
The Farmer family has a big problem! Every day their goat escapes, and every day, Mr. Farmer brings him back. So when things start to go awry on the farm, it must be the goat’s fault.
Who’s to blame when Mrs. Farmer’s petunias are trampled?
Or when all the cupcakes for Archie’s party disappear?
And when the whole bucket of paint is spilled?
Of course, everyone blames the goat! But is it really his fault?
... Read moreLambslide
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrator: Ann Patchett
- Length: 7 minutes
- Publisher: HarperCollins
- Publish date: May 07, 2019
- Language: English
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3.58(506 ratings)
From the international bestselling author of Bel Canto and Commonwealth, Ann Patchett, comes a hilarious children’s story about a slide made just for lambs.
Nicolette Farmer is running for class president, and the rest of the Farmer family tells her she’ll win by a landslide. A pack of overconfident lambs mistakenly hear lambslide and can’t believe there’s a slide made just for them. But when they can’t find one on the farm, there’s only one thing left to do: take a vote!
They campaign. They bargain. They ask all the other animals if they, too, would like a lambslide.
Will the lambs ever get their special slide?
... Read moreRun
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrator: Peter Francis James
- Length: 9 hours 19 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: September 25, 2007
- Language: English
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3.62(39781 ratings)
“Engaging, surprising, provocative and moving…a thoroughly intelligent book, an intimate domestic drama that nonetheless deals with big issues touching us all: religion, race, class, politics and, above all else, family.” — Washington Post
From New York Times bestselling author Ann Patchett comes an engrossing story of one family on one fateful night in Boston where secrets are unlocked and new bonds are formed.
Since their mother’s death, Tip and Teddy Doyle have been raised by their loving possessive and ambitions father. As the former mayor of Boston, Bernard Doyle wants to see is sons in politics, a dream the boys have never shared. But when an argument in a blinding New England snowstorm inadvertently causes an accident that involves a stranger and her child, all Bernard Doyle cares about is his ability to keep his children–all his children–safe.
Set over a period of twenty-four hours, Run takes us from the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard to a home for retired Catholic Priests in downtown Boston. It shows us how worlds of privilege and poverty can coexist only blocks apart from each other, and how family can include people you’ve never even met. As an in her bestselling novel, Bel Canto, Ann Patchett illustrates the humanity that connects disparate lives, weaving several stories into one surprising and endlessly moving narrative. Suspenseful and stunningly executed, Run is ultimately a novel about secrets, duty, responsibility, and the lengths we will go to protect our children.
... Read moreState of Wonder
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrator: Hope Davis
- Length: 12 hours 22 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: June 07, 2011
- Language: English
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3.89(160338 ratings)
“A nail-biting narrative, setting stark human dilemmas against a lush, exotic backdrop.”– People
“Extraordinary. . . . Nothing is as it seems, and the ending is as shocking as it’s satisfying.” — Boston Globe
From award-winning, New York Times bestselling author Ann Patchett, a provocative and assured novel of morality and miracles, science and sacrifice set in the Amazon rainforest
In a narrative replete with poison arrows, devouring snakes, scientific miracles, and spiritual transformations, State of Wonder presents a world of stunning surprise and danger, rich in emotional resonance and moral complexity.
As Dr. Marina Singh embarks upon an uncertain odyssey into the insect-infested Amazon, she’s forced to surrender herself to the lush but forbidding world that awaits within the jungle. Charged with finding her former mentor Dr. Annick Swenson, a researcher who has disappeared while working on a valuable new drug, she will have to confront her own memories of tragedy and sacrifice as she journeys into the unforgiving heart of darkness.
Stirring and luminous, State of Wonder is a world unto itself, where unlikely beauty stands beside unimaginable loss beneath the rain forest’s jeweled canopy. Patchett delivers a gripping adventure story and a profound look at the difficult choices we make in the name of discovery and love.
... Read moreTaft
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrator: JD Jackson
- Length: 9 hours 14 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: September 10, 2019
- Language: English
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3.52(6009 ratings)
A New York Times Notable Book
“As resonant as a blues song. . . . Expect miracles when you read Ann Patchett’s fiction.”–New York Times Book Review
An ex-jazz drummer wants nothing more than to be a good father in this moving family novel by the New York Times best-selling author of The Dutch House.
When John Nickel’s lover takes away his son, Nickel is left only with his Beale Street bar in Memphis. He hires a young waitress named Fay Taft, who brings with her a desperate, dangerous brother, Carl, and the possibility of new intimacy. Nickel finds himself consumed with Fay and Carl’s dead father–Taft–obsessing over and reconstructing the life of a man he never met.
A stunning artistic achievement, Taft confirms Ann Patchett’s standing as one of the most gifted writers of her generation and reminds us of our deepest instincts to protect the people we love.
... Read moreThe Dutch House
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrator: Tom Hanks
- Length: 9 hours 53 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: September 24, 2019
- Language: English
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4.11(299881 ratings)
Audiobook performed by Tom Hanks.
Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize
New York Times Bestseller | A Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick | A New York Times Book Review Notable Book | TIME Magazine’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2019 | 2020 Audie Finalist – Audiobook of The Year & Best Male Narrator
Named one of the Best Books of the Year by NPR, The Washington Post; O: The Oprah Magazine, Real Simple, Good Housekeeping, Vogue, Refinery29, and Buzzfeed
Ann Patchett, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Commonwealth, delivers her most powerful novel to date: a richly moving story that explores the indelible bond between two siblings, the house of their childhood, and a past that will not let them go. The Dutch House is the story of a paradise lost, a tour de force that digs deeply into questions of inheritance, love and forgiveness, of how we want to see ourselves and of who we really are.
At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to begin an enormous real estate empire, propelling his family from poverty to enormous wealth. His first order of business is to buy the Dutch House, a lavish estate in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Meant as a surprise for his wife, the house sets in motion the undoing of everyone he loves.
The story is told by Cyril’s son Danny, as he and his older sister, the brilliantly acerbic and self-assured Maeve, are exiled from the house where they grew up by their stepmother. The two wealthy siblings are thrown back into the poverty their parents had escaped from and find that all they have to count on is one another. It is this unshakeable bond between them that both saves their lives and thwarts their futures.
Set over the course of five decades, The Dutch House is a dark fairy tale about two smart people who cannot overcome their past. Despite every outward sign of success, Danny and Maeve are only truly comfortable when they’re together. Throughout their lives they return to the well-worn story of what they’ve lost with humor and rage. But when at last they’re forced to confront the people who left them behind, the relationship between an indulged brother and his ever-protective sister is finally tested.
... Read moreThe Magician’s Assistant
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrator: Karen Ziemba
- Length: 11 hours 9 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: May 13, 2008
- Language: English
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3.7(30467 ratings)
From the bestselling author of The Dutch House, a secretive magician’s death becomes the catalyst for his partner’s journey of self-discovery in this “enchanting” book (San Francisco Chronicle) “that is something of a magic trick in itself.” (Newsweek)
When Parsifal, a handsome and charming magician, dies suddenly, his widow Sabine–who was also his faithful assistant for twenty years–learns that the family he claimed to have lost in a tragic accident is very much alive and well. Sabine is left to unravel his secrets, and the journey she takes, from sunny Los Angeles to the bitter windswept plains of Nebraska, will work its own magic on her.
Sabine’s extraordinary tale, “with its big dreams, vast spaces, and disparate realities lying side by side” captures the hearts of its readers and “proves to be the perfect place for miraculous transformations.” (The New Yorker)
... Read moreThe Patron Saint of Liars
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrator: Julia Gibson
- Length: 14 hours 12 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: September 04, 2007
- Language: English
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3.86(31928 ratings)
A New York Times Notable Book
Acclaimed author Ann Patchett’s debut novel, hailed as “beautifully written . . . a first novel that second- and third-time novelists would envy for its grace, insight, and compassion” (Boston Herald)
St. Elizabeth’s, a home for unwed mothers in Habit, Kentucky, usually harbors its residents for only a little while. Not so Rose Clinton, a beautiful, mysterious woman who comes to the home pregnant but not unwed, and stays. She plans to give up her child, thinking she cannot be the mother it needs. But when Cecilia is born, Rose makes a place for herself and her daughter amid St. Elizabeth’s extended family of nuns and an ever-changing collection of pregnant teenage girls. Rose’s past won’t be kept away, though, even by St. Elizabeth’s; she cannot remain untouched by what she has left behind, even as she cannot change who she has become in the leaving.
... Read moreThese Precious Days
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrator: Ann Patchett
- Length: 11 hours 14 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: November 23, 2021
- Language: English
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4.47(18179 ratings)
The beloved New York Times bestselling author reflects on home, family, friendships and writing in this deeply personal collection of essays.
“The elegance of Patchett’s prose is seductive and inviting: with Patchett as a guide, readers will really get to grips with the power of struggles, failures, and triumphs alike.” —Publisher’s Weekly
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 in these wise essays that afford a fresh and intimate look into her mind and heart.
At the center of These Precious Days is the title essay, a surprising and moving meditation on an unexpected friendship that explores “what it means to be seen, to find someone with whom you can be your best and most complete self.” When Patchett chose an early galley of actor and producer Tom Hanks’ short story collection to read one night before bed, she had no idea that this single choice would be life changing. It would introduce her to a remarkable woman–Tom’s brilliant assistant Sooki–with whom she would form a profound bond that held monumental consequences for them both.
A literary alchemist, Patchett plumbs the depths of her experiences to create gold: engaging and moving pieces that are both self-portrait and landscape, each vibrant with emotion and rich in insight. Turning her writer’s eye on her own experiences, she transforms the private into the universal, providing us all a way to look at our own worlds anew, and reminds how fleeting and enigmatic life can be.
From the enchantments of Kate DiCamillo’s children’s books (author of The Beatryce Prophecy) to youthful memories of Paris; the cherished life gifts given by her three fathers to the unexpected influence of Charles Schultz’s Snoopy; the expansive vision of Eudora Welty to the importance of knitting, Patchett connects life and art as she illuminates what matters most. Infused with the author’s grace, wit, and warmth, the pieces in These Precious Days resonate deep in the soul, leaving an indelible mark–and demonstrate why Ann Patchett is one of the most celebrated writers of our time.
... Read moreThis Is the Story of a Happy Marriage
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrator: Ann Patchett
- Length: 11 hours 36 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: November 05, 2013
- Language: English
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4(26416 ratings)
A Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick
“I had been so engaged by Ann Patchett’s multifaceted story, so lured in by her confiding voice, that I forgot I was on the job. […] As the best personal essays often do, Patchett’s is a two-way mirror, reflecting both the author and her readers.” — New York Times Book Review
Blending literature and memoir, New York Times bestselling author 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.
... Read moreTruth & Beauty
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrator: Ann Patchett
- Length: 8 hours 6 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: July 27, 2004
- Language: English
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3.96(36693 ratings)
“A loving testament to the work and reward of the best friendships, the kind where your arms can’t distinguish burden from embrace.” — People
New York Times Bestselling author Ann Patchett’s first work of nonfiction chronicling her decades-long friendship with the critically acclaimed and recently deceased author, Lucy Grealy.
Ann Patchett and the late Lucy Grealy met in college in 1981, and, after enrolling in the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, began a friendship that would be as defining to both of their lives as their work. In Gealy’s critically acclaimed and hugely successful memoir, Autobiography of a Face, she wrote about losing part of her jaw to childhood cancer, years of chemotherapy and radiation, and endless reconstructive surgeries. In Truth & Beauty, the story isn’t Lucy’s life or Ann’s life, but the parts of their lives they shared together. This is a portrait of unwavering commitment that spans twenty years, from the long cold winters of the Midwest, to surgical wards, to book parties in New York. Through love, fame, drugs, and despair, this is what it means to be part of two lives that are intertwined…and what happens when one is left behind.
This is a tender, brutal book about loving the person we cannot save. It is about loyalty and being uplifted by the sheer effervescence of someone who knew how to live life to the fullest.
... Read moreWhat Now?
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrator: Ann Patchett
- Length: 54 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: April 15, 2008
- Language: English
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3.84(3743 ratings)
“The best graduation present on the market…. A wise, generous and compact primer for life that could well become a touchstone, readers will return to this book, and probably find something new each time they do; deserves to be given often and enthusiastically.” —Publishers Weekly
Based on her lauded commencement address at Sarah Lawrence College, this stirring essay by bestselling author Ann Patchett offers hope and inspiration for anyone at a crossroads, whether graduating, changing careers, or transitioning from one life stage to another. With wit and candor, Patchett tells her own story of attending college, graduating, and struggling with the inevitable question, What now?
From student to line cook to teacher to waitress and eventually to award-winning author, Patchett’s own life has taken many twists and turns that make her exploration genuine and resonant. As Patchett writes, “‘What now?’ represents our excitement and our future, the very vitality of life.” She highlights the possibilities the unknown offers and reminds us that there is as much joy in the journey as there is in reaching the destination.
... Read more