Ann Patchett

Your partner is driving you crazy and you just need to go someplace private or you want to meet up with your best friend and go to an author event and talk about it.

The bookstore meets all those needs.

It came home to all of us at the store most profoundly when there was the Covenant School shooting, which was right down the street from the store.

I mean, a mile from the store in Nashville.

And...

Everybody, the school was closed.

People in other schools weren't sending their kids to school.

And to be able to go on social media and say, come here.

Just everybody come here.

And we'll be together.

We'll have the dogs.

We'll have coloring.

Kate DiCamillo, the brilliant children's author, called and said, every kid who comes in the store that day, I will buy them a book.

Whatever they want, send me the bill.

And to say things are as hard as they could possibly be, come here, come and we'll be together.

Before I opened Parnassus, I was for years on the library board in Nashville.

And so those people at the library are my friends.

We have hired several retired librarians who have come from the library to the store.

So we have a really good partnership.

And we do events together often.