Tuesday, November 30, 2021

Book Review: "These Precious Days" by Ann Patchett

These Precious Days is a new collection of essays by Ann Patchett that make you think, make you feel, and may even make you cry.

Patchett is a total auto-buy author for me. I’ve read all of her fiction and even though I’m not a huge nonfiction fan, I devoured her memoir and her previous essay collection. So needless to say, when I heard she had a new book of essays coming out, I had to purchase it immediately.

There’s just something about the way Patchett writes that just draws me in. There’s a quiet beauty to her words, and her essays feel like stories in many ways. I was utterly captivated by characters I’ll never meet but I was fully invested in their lives.

These essays dealt with topics such as marriage, family, writing, friendship, people she admires, her love for knitting and Snoopy, and more. Each one is insightful and what I love so much about her writing is that she never belabors a point or uses 50 words when 10 will do.

My favorite essay in the collection is the title one, the longest in the collection by far. When Tom Hanks agrees to do the audiobook of The Dutch House, Patchett forges a connection with his assistant, Sooki, a connection that transcends schedules and logistics and blossoms into a life-changing friendship. This essay truly could’ve been a novel.

Even though I don’t follow a lot of Bookstagram trends, yay me for getting in another book for #NonfictionNovember just under the wire!

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