Ann Patchett

And I think that that is the counterbalance.

If we're always looking at things that are far away and never noticing that here we are, two people we just met.

We're having a really warm conversation.

Everybody here has been so lovely.

That's not to discount the horrible things that are going on in the world that we need to work on helping, solving, and fixing.

that people read, that people are reading, that people do really care about books, that people really care about librarians and school teachers.

And there are people in Nashville who go down to the state capitol every day to protest the firing of a school librarian who refused to move certain titles off the shelf, who just keep showing up.

Bless them.

So getting recommendations from me is really lousy in a lot of ways because I am always recommending books that are so far out.

First, I will say 2026 is the best year for fiction that I have seen since we've opened the bookstore.

Oh, my goodness.

That's quite a claim.

There are a raft of fantastic novels.

Kin by Tiare Jones.

Mm-hmm.

Land by Maggie O'Farrell, the Emily St.

John Mandel.

The book that is, for me, the big winner of the year is Eun Lee's Music Against the Night, which is coming out in October.

And if you want to make sure that you get that in your mind and you keep it, go back and read her last book in Nature Things Merely Grow, which is a nonfiction book.

Very tough, very tough subject matter.