Ann Patchett

speaker

1,333 appearances 9 recordings 5 series first heard May 2026 last heard 6 Sep

Ann Patchett’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

Trend

recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 9 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 5.

newest first · ▶ plays the moment

But as I got older, I could see myself becoming that Hare Krishna.

wanting to testify about the greatest love in my life, which is reading.

So great is my need to share this love that it outweighs my significant need for privacy.

I gave up printmaking when I left Iowa, but books have been my steadfast companions.

my solace, my teachers, my joy.

I can't imagine what life would be without reading.

And so pretty much every day, in every situation I find myself in, I'm out there sharing the good news.

For a long time, my love for books was more cloistered, less zealot, but in 2011, all of that changed.

The two major bookstores in Nashville closed, and after waiting around for someone else to open a bookstore, I decided to do it myself.

This was not the fulfillment of a lifelong dream.

It was more like irritation.

People love to tell me that bookstores are dead, that books themselves are hobbling towards the dust heap of cultural irrelevance.

Heresy, I say.

Books are the rock on which I built my church.

Like the Hare Krishna, I didn't do this because of what I needed.

I had books.

I would always have books.

I fought for books because you need them.

The summer before we opened Parnassus Books, I went on tour.

I've been going on tour regularly since 1992.

Showing 761–780 of 1,333 · page 39 of 67