Best books…chosen by Ann Patchett
The award-winning novelist and owner of Nashville’s Parnassus bookstore names six favorite recent books.
Ann Patchett’s new book, This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage, is a collection of personal essays about lasting commitments. Below, the award-winning novelist and owner of Nashville’s Parnassus bookstore names six favorite recent books.
A Day at the Beach by Geoffrey Wolff (Vintage, $16). This brilliant collection of essays somehow fell out of print after its original 1992 release, but that wrong has just been righted. We readers once again have access to Wolff’s wealth of experience, his dazzling writing, and the unflinching assessment he brings to everything, especially himself.
The Good Lord Bird by James McBride (Riverhead, $28). I’m not a fan of historical fiction or child narrators. But this novel about the abolitionist John Brown narrated by a child slave—a boy passing as a girl called Onion—is the most electric, provocative, and funny (I mean really funny) book I’ve read in years.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Claire of the Sea Light by Edwidge Danticat (Knopf, $26). Every year on Claire’s birthday, her father tries to give her away, hoping to place his daughter into a better life. Danticat manages to balance love and poverty, beauty and loss, and in doing so she gives us a more compassionate understanding of the world.
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler (Marian Wood/Putnam, $27). All I want to reveal to you about this book is that it’s a knockout and you should buy it and read it. The people I sell it to come back raving. When they say they want another book like it I tell them the truth: There is nothing else like it.
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (Little, Brown, $30). Donna Tartt is often reported to be a recluse. There hasn’t been a book from her in 11 years. Where has she been all this time? It turns out she’s been working on The Goldfinch, a novel so ingenious, beautiful, and complex you’ll marvel that she got it done so quickly.
Local Souls by Allan Gurganus (Liveright, $26). Many voices are interchangeable, but not Gurganus’s. In a world of Jeff Koons puppy sculptures, Gurganus’s prose is the entire Sistine Chapel with a couple of Renaissance tapestries thrown in. His vision of fictional Falls, N.C., as well as his vision of humankind, is generous, lush, irreplaceable.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
The secrets of lab-grown chocolate
Under The Radar Chocolate created 'in a Petri dish' could save crisis-hit industry
By Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UK
-
Trade war with China threatens U.S. economy
Feature Trump's tariff battle with China is hitting U.S. businesses hard and raising fears of a global recession
By The Week US
-
Corruption: The road to crony capitalism
Feature Trump's tariff pause sent the stock market soaring — was it insider trading?
By The Week US
-
Ione Skye's 6 favorite books about love and loss
Feature The actress recommends works by James Baldwin, Nora Ephron, and more
By The Week US
-
Colum McCann's 6 favorite books that take place at sea
Feature The National Book Award-winning author recommends works by Ernest Hemingway, Herman Melville, and more
By The Week US
-
Max Allan Collins’ 6 favorite books that feature private detectives
Feature The mystery writer recommends works by Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and more
By The Week US
-
John McWhorter’s 6 favorite books that are rooted in history
Feature The Columbia University professor recommends works by Lyla Sage, Sally Thorne, and more
By The Week US
-
Abdulrazak Gurnah's 6 favorite books about war and colonialism
Feature The Nobel Prize winner recommends works by Michael Ondaatje, Toni Morrison, and more
By The Week US
-
Elliot Ackerman’s 6 favorite books on war and duty
Feature The Marine veteran recommends works by Robert A. Heinlein, John le Carré, and more
By The Week US
-
Xochitl Gonzalez’s 6 favorite books that shaped her storytelling
Feature The best-selling author recommends works by Stephen King, Julian Barnes, and more
By The Week US
-
Jason Isaacs's 6 favorite books that changed his perception on life
Feature The British actor recommends works by George Orwell, C.S. Lewis, and more
By The Week US