No catches, no fine print just unadulterated book loving, with your favourite books saved to your own digital bookshelf.
New members get entered into our monthly draw to win £100 to spend in your local bookshop Plus lots lots more…
Find out more
Ann Patchett is the author of four previous novels, including Bel Canto, which won the Orange prize. She writes for the New York Times Magazine, Elle, GQ, The Paris Review and Vogue. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee.
Run, published by Bloomsbury in August 2007, and in paperback in June 2008, is a moving story of overlapping lives.
Author photo © Melissa Ann Pinney
Fellow novelist KERRY REICHS on ANN PATCHETT
Pretty much anything Ann Patchett ever wrote is a sure thing in my book. I first read Bel Canto, and quickly followed it with everything else. Patchett’s sharp eyes don’t miss much when observing the intensity of relationships and human emotion. She has a deft touch for showing without over-telling, and providing readers with a view straight to the heart of a diverse array of people. Her novel Run is a welcome reminder that there exist good people trying to good in the world, and you feel better for having read it.
Here, Ann Patchett shares entertaining and moving stories about her tumultuous childhood, her painful early divorce, the excitement of selling her first book, driving a Winnebago from Montana to Yellowstone Park, her joyous discovery of opera, scaling a six-foot wall in order to join the Los Angeles Police Department, the gradual loss of her beloved grandmother, starting her own bookshop in Nashville, her love for her very special dog and, of course, her eventual happy marriage. This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage is a memoir both wide ranging and deeply personal, overflowing with close observation and emotional wisdom, told with wit, honesty and irresistible warmth.
Shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2012. Shortlisted for the Wellcome Trust Book Prize 2011. 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.
A gripping story from beginning to end about family relationships, aspirations and dreams. Patchett creates brilliant multi-faceted characters and keeps your attention with such great plot and story telling that you will be up until the wee small hours.
Winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction 2002. Terrorists highjack a gathering in a small Latin American country hoping to hold hostage the President, however he had decided to stay home and so the terrorists find themselves with a group of foreign hostages as their bargaining tool. This is not a book about violence and terrorism though this is a book about a group of people thrown together in extraordinary circumstances and the relationships that develop. A Powerful, emotional, treasure of a book. A "Piece of Passion" from the publisher... Ann Patchett's novel is set in an unnamed South American country and is based on the 1996 Japanese embassy hostage crisis in Lima, Peru. Widely praised as one of the best books of 2001, Bel Canto went on to win the Orange Prize and become a bestseller – and rightly so. Patchett skilfully uses the dramatic events and a superb cast of characters to build a beautifully written novel, bursting with unexpected relationships and a wonderful sense of humour throughout.
An unforgettably powerful new novel of the indelible bond between two siblings, the house of their childhood, and a past that will not let them go - from the Number One New York Times bestselling author of Commonwealth and Bel Canto 'The book of the autumn. The American author of Commonwealth (brilliant) and Bel Canto (even better) releases perhaps her finest novel yet' - Sunday Times 'The buzz around The Dutch House is totally justified. Her best yet, which is saying something' - John Boyne 'Do you think it's possible to ever see the past as it actually was?' I asked my sister. We were sitting in her car, parked in front of the Dutch House in the broad daylight of early summer. Danny Conroy grows up in the Dutch House, a lavish mansion. Though his father is distant and his mother is absent, Danny has his beloved sister Maeve: Maeve, with her wall of black hair, her wit, her brilliance. Life is coherent, played out under the watchful eyes of the house's former owners in the frames of their oil paintings. Then one day their father brings Andrea home. Though they cannot know it, her arrival to the Dutch House sows the seed of the defining loss of Danny and Maeve's lives. The siblings are drawn back time and again to the place they can never enter, knocking in vain on the locked door of the past. For behind the mystery of their own exile is that of their mother's: an absence more powerful than any presence they have known. Told with Ann Patchett's inimitable blend of humour, rage and heartbreak, The Dutch House is a dark fairy tale and story of a paradise lost; of the powerful bonds of place and time that magnetize and repel us for our whole lives.
A SUNDAY TIMES TOP 10 BESTSELLER An unforgettably powerful new novel of the indelible bond between two siblings, the house of their childhood, and a past that will not let them go - from the Number One New York Times bestselling author of Commonwealth and Bel Canto 'The book of the autumn. The American author of Commonwealth (brilliant) and Bel Canto (even better) releases perhaps her finest novel yet' - Sunday Times 'The buzz around The Dutch House is totally justified. Her best yet, which is saying something' - John Boyne 'Do you think it's possible to ever see the past as it actually was?' I asked my sister. We were sitting in her car, parked in front of the Dutch House in the broad daylight of early summer. Danny Conroy grows up in the Dutch House, a lavish mansion. Though his father is distant and his mother is absent, Danny has his beloved sister Maeve: Maeve, with her wall of black hair, her wit, her brilliance. Life is coherent, played out under the watchful eyes of the house's former owners in the frames of their oil paintings. Then one day their father brings Andrea home. Though they cannot know it, her arrival to the Dutch House sows the seed of the defining loss of Danny and Maeve's lives. The siblings are drawn back time and again to the place they can never enter, knocking in vain on the locked door of the past. For behind the mystery of their own exile is that of their mother's: an absence more powerful than any presence they have known. Told with Ann Patchett's inimitable blend of humour, rage and heartbreak, The Dutch House is a dark fairy tale and story of a paradise lost; of the powerful bonds of place and time that magnetize and repel us for our whole lives.
*The Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller and a 'Book of the Year' 2019* Selected as Book of the Year in The Times, Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Washington Post, Herald and Good Housekeeping A heart-wrenching new novel of the unbreakable bond between a brother and sister, their childhood home, and a past that will not let them go - from the Number One New York Times bestselling author of Bel Canto and Commonwealth 'Do you think it's possible to ever see the past as it actually was?' I asked my sister. We were sitting in her car, parked in front of the Dutch House in the broad daylight of early summer. Danny Conroy grows up in the Dutch House, a lavish mansion. Though his father is distant and his mother is absent, Danny has his beloved sister Maeve: Maeve, with her wall of black hair, her wit, her brilliance. The siblings grow and change as life plays out under the watchful eyes of the house's former owners, in the frames of their oil paintings. Then one day their father brings Andrea home. Though they cannot know it, her arrival to the Dutch House sows the seed of the defining loss of Danny and Maeve's lives... Told with Ann Patchett's inimitable blend of humour, rage and heartbreak, The Dutch House is a book for our times; of family, love, loss, and the powerful bonds of place and time that magnetize and repel us for our whole lives. _____ Reviews for The Dutch House: 'The book of the autumn ... Her finest novel yet' Sunday Times 'A wonderful hypnotic masterpiece of a novel. The best book I've read in years' Rosamund Lupton 'What a spectacular novel. A masterpiece, I'd say' Cathy Rentzenbrink 'Indelibly poignant' Observer 'One of my top favourite contemporary writers. There isn't a book of hers that I haven't put down at the end and been haunted by for weeks after' Gillian Anderson 'The buzz around The Dutch House is totally justified. Her best yet, which is saying something' John Boyne
*The Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller and a 'Book of the Year' 2019* Selected as Book of the Year in The Times, Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Washington Post, Herald and Good Housekeeping A heart-wrenching new novel of the unbreakable bond between a brother and sister, their childhood home, and a past that will not let them go - from the Number One New York Times bestselling author of Bel Canto and Commonwealth 'Do you think it's possible to ever see the past as it actually was?' I asked my sister. We were sitting in her car, parked in front of the Dutch House in the broad daylight of early summer. Danny Conroy grows up in the Dutch House, a lavish mansion. Though his father is distant and his mother is absent, Danny has his beloved sister Maeve: Maeve, with her wall of black hair, her wit, her brilliance. The siblings grow and change as life plays out under the watchful eyes of the house's former owners, in the frames of their oil paintings. Then one day their father brings Andrea home. Though they cannot know it, her arrival to the Dutch House sows the seed of the defining loss of Danny and Maeve's lives... Told with Ann Patchett's inimitable blend of humour, rage and heartbreak, The Dutch House is a book for our times; of family, love, loss, and the powerful bonds of place and time that magnetize and repel us for our whole lives. _____ Reviews for The Dutch House: 'The book of the autumn ... Her finest novel yet' Sunday Times 'A wonderful hypnotic masterpiece of a novel. The best book I've read in years' Rosamund Lupton 'What a spectacular novel. A masterpiece, I'd say' Cathy Rentzenbrink 'Indelibly poignant' Observer 'One of my top favourite contemporary writers. There isn't a book of hers that I haven't put down at the end and been haunted by for weeks after' Gillian Anderson 'The buzz around The Dutch House is totally justified. Her best yet, which is saying something' John Boyne
From the international bestselling author of Bel Canto and Commonwealth, Ann Patchett, and the bestselling illustrator of the Fancy Nancy series, Robin Preiss Glasser, 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? Find out in this epic collaboration between Patchett and Glasser, who create the perfect children's book.
Winner of the Orange Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. The poignant - and at times very funny - novel from the author of State of Wonder and Commonwealth. Somewhere in South America, at the home of the country's vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honour of the powerful businessman Mr. Hosokawa. Roxanne Coss, opera's most revered soprano, has mesmerised 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.
Nashville: Scenes from the New American South beautifully captures my home city of Nashville in this exciting moment of change and growth.- AL GORE This book is excruciatingly gorgeous. Every page makes me homesick. -CONNIE BRITTON A great book about a great city.- JOHN PRINE This has been a time of such great change for Nashville that I think we are all very curious to see who we are now.- GILLIAN WELCH This book reminds me, in the sweetest way possible, that I probably should have never left Nashville.- CHRIS THILE Introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning Author Jon Meacham A dynamic, experiential, and intimate portrait that explores the many sides of the legendary Southern city and country music capital, from award-winning writers Ann Patchett, Jon Meacham, and acclaimed photographer Heidi Ross. Nashville is a creative collaboration that awakens the senses, providing a virtual immersion in this unique American city hailed as the Athens of the South. Patchett, Ross, and Meacham in his introduction, at once capture both the city's iconic historical side-its deep, rich Southern roots, from its food and festivals to its famous venues, recording studios, and style-and its edgier, highly vibrant creative side, which has made it a modern cultural mecca increasingly populated by established and upcoming artists in art, film, and music. Nashville celebrates Nashvillians' beloved locales and events, both established and new, that are the heart of the city's character including: Bobbie's Dairy Dip Broadway Cumberland River Buchanan Arts District Bolton's Chicken and Fish Dino's East Nashville Tomato Arts Festival Germantown The Gulch Grand Ole Opry Pie Town (SoBro) Pride Festival Prince's Hot Chicken Schermerhorn Symphony Center Stanley Cup Playoffs Tennessee Performing Arts Center Tennessee State Fair Third Man Records WXNA Independent Radio Here, too, are engaging vignettes spotlighting the diverse talent that makes the Tennessee city a significant cultural incubator and influencer, including singer-songwriters Marty Stuart, Gillian Welch, and Dave Rawlings; film director Harmony Korine, textile designer Andra Eggleston, country music fashion designer to the stars Manuel, chef Margot McCormack, acclaimed pastry chef Lisa Donovan, and model and musician Karen Elson. Blending exceptional narrative, evocative photography-including 175 black-and-white and color photographs-and a bold graphic design, Nashville is an intimate, textured panorama that brilliantly illuminates one of America's most remarkable treasures.
'Dazzling ... The combination of lightness, warmth and remarkable incisiveness creates a novel that is life-affirming and compulsively readable' Sunday Times It is 1964: Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating's christening party uninvited and notices a heart stoppingly beautiful woman. When he kisses Beverly Keating, his host's wife, he sets in motion the joining of two families, whose shared fate will be defined on a day seven years later. In 1988, Franny Keating, now twenty-four, is working as a cocktail waitress in Chicago. When she meets the famous author Leon Posen one night at the bar, and tells him about her family, she unwittingly relinquishes control over their story...
A moving story of overlapping lives from the Orange Prize-winning author of Bel Canto Tip and Teddy are becoming men under the very eyes of their adoptive father, Bernard Doyle. A student at Harvard, Tip is happiest in a lab, whilst Teddy thinks he has found his calling in the Church, and both are increasingly strained by their father's protective plans for them. But when they are involved in an accident on an icy road, the Doyles are forced to confront certain truths about their lives, how the death of Doyle's wife Bernadette has affected the family, and an anonymous figure who is always watching.
'Dazzling ... The combination of lightness, warmth and remarkable incisiveness creates a novel that is life-affirming and compulsively readable' Sunday Times It is 1964: Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating's christening party uninvited and notices a heart stoppingly beautiful woman. When he kisses Beverly Keating, his host's wife, he sets in motion the joining of two families, whose shared fate will be defined on a day seven years later. In 1988, Franny Keating, now twenty-four, is working as a cocktail waitress in Chicago. When she meets the famous author Leon Posen one night at the bar, and tells him about her family, she unwittingly relinquishes control over their story...
Ware Bert Cousins nicht uneingeladen auf der Taufe von Franny Keating erschienen, all das ware nicht passiert. Aber noch bevor der Abend hereinbricht, haben er und Frannys Mutter sich gekusst und damit das Ende ihrer jeweiligen Ehe eingelautet - und beide Familien fur immer miteinander verbunden. Die Keating- und Cousinskinder werden zukunftig die Sommer gemeinsam in Virginia verbringen. Sie schmieden uber die Jahre ein dauerhaftes Bundnis, sowohl aus Enttauschung uber die eigenen Eltern, als auch aus echter, stetig wachsender Zuneigung. Bis es zwanzig Jahre danach ein neues Familiendrama gibt: "e;Taufling"e; Franny hat eine Affare mit einem beruhmten Schriftsteller. Sie erzahlt ihm die Keating-Cousins-Story, und plotzlich wird ihrer aller Kindheit die Grundlage fur einen unglaublich erfolgreichen Roman. Die unerwunschte Offentlichkeit zwingt die Geschwister, sich ganz neu mit ihren Verlusten, ihren Schuldgefuhlen und ihrer Loyalitat auseinanderzusetzen.
Der Champagner fliet, die wundervolle Stimme einer Weltklasse Sopranistin erfullt den Palazzo - die politische Elite feiert ausgelassen. Plotzlich fallen Schusse. Eine Bande von Terroristen sturmt den Raum und nimmt die ganze Gesellschaft in Geiselhaft. Es gibt keinen Ausweg. Und noch ahnt niemand, was die verzaubernde, einende Kraft der Musik in dieser lebensbedrohlichen Situation auszurichten vermag.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORANGE PRIZE FOR FICTION 2012 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.
Here, Ann Patchett shares entertaining and moving stories about her tumultuous childhood, her painful early divorce, the excitement of selling her first book, driving a Winnebago from Montana to Yellowstone Park, her joyous discovery of opera, scaling a six-foot wall in order to join the Los Angeles Police Department, the gradual loss of her beloved grandmother, starting her own bookshop in Nashville, her love for her very special dog and, of course, her eventual happy marriage. This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage is a memoir both wide ranging and deeply personal, overflowing with close observation and emotional wisdom, told with wit, honesty and irresistible warmth.
Als der Biologe Anders Eckman auf der Suche nach Dr. Swenson im brasilianischen Regenwald verschwindet, soll Swensons ehemalige Studentin Marina Singh dem Fall nachgehen und die eigenwillige Forscherin aufspuren, die sich seit Jahren weigert, Berichte an ihr Institut zu liefern. Marina folgt Eckmans Spuren und wagt sich auf eine gefahrliche Reise ins dunkle Herz desAmazonas, um zu klren, was es mit Swensons geheimnisvollen Studien ber die Fruchtbarkeit der Ureinwohner auf sich hat. Doch je nher sie ihrem Ziel auf dem Rio Negro entgegenreist, desto klarer wird ihr, dass sie sich nicht nur den Gefahren des Urwalds, sondern auch ihren eigenen ngsten stellen muss ... Fluss der Wunder ist ein intelligenter Abenteuerroman mit einer faszinierenden Heldin, ein packendes Stck Literatur ber Wissenschaft und Moral, den Schrecken der Natur und das Grauen im Herzen eines jeden, der Grenzen berschreitet, an denen kein Mensch jemals rhren sollte.
If this is your author page then you can share your Twitter updates with your readers right here on LoveReading
Find out moreIf this is your author page then you can share your Facebook updates with your readers right here on LoveReading
Find out more