Ann Patchett

Right.

Something that just blows my mind, at least once a week, somebody will write to me at the bookstore and say, my sister and I are having an argument, and she says that audiobooks don't count.

But I think audiobooks do count.

The notion...

That so many people think that audio books don't count, that somehow receiving information through your ears instead of through your eyes is a lesser experience, I think is hogwash.

Sure.

Meryl Streep read my last book, Tom Lake.

And I always say, if somebody said, I listened to that book, I'm so happy.

It is a better book if you listen to it.

And people think that's self-effacing, but think about it.

It's my talent with Meryl Streep's talent on top of it.

It hasn't had any impact on my work as a bookseller.

It's just somehow one more thing I have to stand up for.

I was saying to a friend of mine recently, I feel like life these days is sitting in a bar in which all of these fights are breaking out and you look up and think, oh, that's not my fight.

oh, no, that's not my fight.

And then something happens and you're like, oh, God, all right, that's my fight.

Book banning, okay, I got to get up and get in the fight.

So book banning is...

truly ridiculous in that when we think of book banning, we think about Lady Chatterley's Lover and raking all of the copies into a pile and setting them on fire and smuggling one in from France in your luggage.

That's not book banning.