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These Precious Days: Essays (2021)

por Ann Patchett

MiembrosReseñasPopularidadValoración promediaMenciones
8726124,511 (4.39)170
Biography & Autobiography. Literary Criticism. Nonfiction. HTML:

The beloved New York Times bestselling author reflects on home, family, friendships and writing in this deeply personal collection of essays.

"The elegance of Patchett's prose is seductive and inviting: with Patchett as a guide, readers will really get to grips with the power of struggles, failures, and triumphs alike." ??Publisher's Weekly

"Any story that starts will also end." As a writer, Ann Patchett knows what the outcome of her fiction will be. Life, however, often takes turns we do not see coming. Patchett ponders this truth in these wise essays that afford a fresh and intimate look into her mind and heart.

At the center of These Precious Days is the title essay, a surprising and moving meditation on an unexpected friendship that explores "what it means to be seen, to find someone with whom you can be your best and most complete self." When Patchett chose an early galley of actor and producer Tom Hanks' short story collection to read one night before bed, she had no idea that this single choice would be life changing. It would introduce her to a remarkable woman??Tom's brilliant assistant Sooki??with whom she would form a profound bond that held monumental consequences for them both.

A literary alchemist, Patchett plumbs the depths of her experiences to create gold: engaging and moving pieces that are both self-portrait and landscape, each vibrant with emotion and rich in insight. Turning her writer's eye on her own experiences, she transforms the private into the universal, providing us all a way to look at our own worlds anew, and reminds how fleeting and enigmatic life can be.

From the enchantments of Kate DiCamillo's children's books (author of The Beatryce Prophecy) to youthful memories of Paris; the cherished life gifts given by her three fathers to the unexpected influence of Charles Schultz's Snoopy; the expansive vision of Eudora Welty to the importance of knitting, Patchett connects life and art as she illuminates what matters most. Infused with the author's grace, wit, and warmth, the pieces in These Precious Days resonate deep in the soul, leaving an indelible mark??and demonstrate why Ann Patchett is one of the most celebrated writers of ou… (más)

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Mostrando 1-5 de 60 (siguiente | mostrar todos)
I’m terrible at reviewing nonfiction. I really enjoyed Patchett's well-intended pushiness lol
  hannerwell | Feb 24, 2024 |
Listened to the author's reading of the audiobook. So, so, so good. Especially loved the long essay about Sookie. ( )
  fmclellan | Jan 23, 2024 |
Wonderful essays. They were a place of calm in these turbulent times. ( )
  ellink | Jan 22, 2024 |
Summary: Essays on family, friendships, the life of writing and bookselling, and mortality.

I’ve read most of Ann Patchett’s fiction, loving the writing if not always the ways her stories resolve (or not). I personally consider The Dutch House one of her best, along with Bel Canto. This is my first foray into her non-fiction, and I thought these essays revealed more than the character of Ann Patchett, particularly of her love of friendship and love of both writing and bookselling. It was a collection that reflects on marriage, on our families, on the literary world, and on mortality.

The title essay does all of this. “These Precious Days” is a lengthy account of her unlikely and mutually transforming friendship with Sooki Raphael. Sooki was the personal assistant to Tom Hanks, who Patchett met on an interview with Hanks. Further contacts with Hanks, including asking him to narrate one of her audiobooks led to continued contacts. During one of these, she learned Sooki had undergone surgery and treatments for pancreatic cancer. Staying in touch she learned of the cancer’s recurrence and Sooki’s plans to explore clinical trials. Patchett’s husband, a physician at Vanderbilt, learned of this from Ann, and was aware that Vanderbilt was running a number of clinical trials for pancreatic cancer. This led to Sooki coming to live for several months in Ann and Karl’s basement suite (at the height of Covid-19). The essay beautifully recounts the ways this unexpected friendship transformed both of their lives, as well as the beauty of Ann and Karl accompanying this woman in ways that never diminished her dignity while generously supporting her as she fought this beastly cancer.

In other essays, Patchett describes her three fathers and how each influenced her life. She discusses her decision to not have children, the people who insisted she should, and the intrusive questions she sometimes has faced when she would prefer to talk about her work. She writes about her mother, who often was mistaken as one of Ann’s sisters, due to her youthful beauty. She introduces us to Tavia Cathcart, the bombshell high school friend who moved from acting to becoming a premier nature interpreter, and how their friendship evolved as both she and Ann grew into their adult selves.

There is a healthy dose of gentle humor. She recounts her adventures with her friend Marti in Paris, and the tattoo she never got. She tells the story of a caller who insists on bringing her a letter documenting an award she had received from the Veterans of Foreign Wars, found in a nightstand that had once belonged to her. Then there is an incident where Karl comforts a woman worried about her baby’s development by offering the woman $20,000 to adopt the child! No way, and the woman stopped worrying. She describes her year when she gave up shopping. She recalls the Thanksgiving when she stayed at her college and decided to cook Thanksgiving dinner for her friends–from scratch! She writes about her husband’s love of flying–and of his insistence on finding deals on used planes. She reveals her on again, off again embrace of knitting.

She offers us glimpses of the literary world. Under her hand you find yourself drawn successively into Kate DiCamillo’s works for children and the work of Eudora Welty. In “A Talk to the Association of Graduate School Deans in the Humanities” she chronicles her experience in the MFA program at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop with her friend Lucy, her one interview for a faculty position and how failing to get that position gave her the chance to write. She speaks of the joys of owning a bookstore and the important lesson she didn’t learn in grad school–“if you want to save reading, teach children to read.”

Patchett recounts her own memento mori moment upon being elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, an honor reserved to 250 living members. She describes the portrait gallery in the Academy with photos arranged in order of members induction, going back to Samuel Clemens in 1898 up to her own picture in 2017. As she went back in time she realized she was moving increasingly from the company of living members to the deceased. At some point they all were. She realizes this will be true of her. She describes the simple card she receives with the death of another member, forty between her induction and the time of writing, including John Updike, who she had been so thrilled to be seated with at her own induction. She remembers his handing her the certificate of membership, a check, and giving her a fatherly kiss on the cheek.

Patchett brings to these essays the same insightfulness into the complexities and wonders of human beings, their relationships, and their lives as she does to the characters in her novels. One senses we are seeing all of this woven together in another story, that of the author, who writes with increasing appreciation of “these precious days” in her circles of family, friends, and acquaintances. And it nudges us to be mindful of similar “precious days” with the people and in the work we love. ( )
  BobonBooks | Jan 8, 2024 |
This is a really wonderful collection of essays that gave me a glimpse into the personality and world-view of an author who has become one of my favorites. Patchett lets the reader in to her relationships with her three fathers, and her quest to become less materialistic by not shopping for a year, which also leads to her purging her house. She also spends a lot of time on one of her relationships with a woman with terminal cancer. Through these essays, you really get a picture of Patchett's life and thoughts and what has given her life meaning. It never feels preachy and it isn't overly sentimental.

I listened to this on audio, read by Patchett herself, and I highly recommend this format. I only listen to audiobooks occasionally, but this might have convinced me to listen more regularly. I also bought paper copies of this book for both my mom and my mother in law for Christmas.

Highly recommended. ( )
  japaul22 | Dec 1, 2023 |
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The first time I remember seriously thinking about my own death, I was twenty-six years old and working on my first novel, The Patron Saint of Liars.
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As for death, I have remained lucky. Its indifference has nevere waned, though surely it will circle back for me later. Death always thinks of us eventually. The trick is to find the joy in the interim, and mak good use of the days we have. (p. 5)
Havig someone who believed in my failure more than my success kept me alert.It made me fierce. Without ever meaning to, my father taught me at a very early age to give up on the idea of approval. I wish I could bottle that freedom now and give it to every young writer I meet, with an extra bottle for the women. I would give them the ability both to love and not to care.(p. 16)
It was as if he sawus, separately, equally, and found the wonder in each of us. (p. 24)
From each of the fathers I took the things I needed, and then turned them into stories -- ma father gave me strength, Mike gave me adoration, Darrell gave me acceptance... (p. 27)
The things we buy and buy and buy are like a thick coat of Vaseline: we can see some shapes out there, light and dark, but in our constant craving of what we may still want, we miss to many of life's details. (p. 43)
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Biography & Autobiography. Literary Criticism. Nonfiction. HTML:

The beloved New York Times bestselling author reflects on home, family, friendships and writing in this deeply personal collection of essays.

"The elegance of Patchett's prose is seductive and inviting: with Patchett as a guide, readers will really get to grips with the power of struggles, failures, and triumphs alike." ??Publisher's Weekly

"Any story that starts will also end." As a writer, Ann Patchett knows what the outcome of her fiction will be. Life, however, often takes turns we do not see coming. Patchett ponders this truth in these wise essays that afford a fresh and intimate look into her mind and heart.

At the center of These Precious Days is the title essay, a surprising and moving meditation on an unexpected friendship that explores "what it means to be seen, to find someone with whom you can be your best and most complete self." When Patchett chose an early galley of actor and producer Tom Hanks' short story collection to read one night before bed, she had no idea that this single choice would be life changing. It would introduce her to a remarkable woman??Tom's brilliant assistant Sooki??with whom she would form a profound bond that held monumental consequences for them both.

A literary alchemist, Patchett plumbs the depths of her experiences to create gold: engaging and moving pieces that are both self-portrait and landscape, each vibrant with emotion and rich in insight. Turning her writer's eye on her own experiences, she transforms the private into the universal, providing us all a way to look at our own worlds anew, and reminds how fleeting and enigmatic life can be.

From the enchantments of Kate DiCamillo's children's books (author of The Beatryce Prophecy) to youthful memories of Paris; the cherished life gifts given by her three fathers to the unexpected influence of Charles Schultz's Snoopy; the expansive vision of Eudora Welty to the importance of knitting, Patchett connects life and art as she illuminates what matters most. Infused with the author's grace, wit, and warmth, the pieces in These Precious Days resonate deep in the soul, leaving an indelible mark??and demonstrate why Ann Patchett is one of the most celebrated writers of ou

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