I also love Ann Patchett
(But I don't think she'll be posting comments on my blog, offering to do embroidery for me.)
Anything new by Ann Patchett automatically goes to the top of my reading list. (Yeah, that was co-opted wholesale from my Goodreads review. Do you think I have to cite myself?) I don't think I've ever read anything by her that I didn't love. So of course I rushed straight to the library for her new book, even though it's a printed (and apparently slightly expanded) version of a commencement speech she gave at her alma mater. And of course I adored it and will probably read it again tomorrow on the train back downtown. When I read books about writing that talk about developing your own, distinctive voice, I think of her. Maybe it's partly because I listened to her read the audiobook version of Truth and Beauty, but when I read her work, I feel like I'm hearing her speak.
Some of my favorite lines:
Receiving an education is a little bit like a garden snake swallowing a chicken egg: it's in you but it takes a while to digest.
Just because things hadn't gone the way I'd planned didn't necessarily mean they had gone wrong.
There's a time in our life when we crave all the answers. It seems terrifying not to know what's coming next. But there is another time, a better time, when we see our lives as a series of choices, and What now represents our excitement and our future, the very vitality of life.
Okay, that last one winds up sounding a little cliched. But especially in the last few years, when I've felt so constantly pressured to make Big Life Decisions that I find myself wishing I'd wake up 60 years old, so that everything would be kind of settled, it's kind of comforting to think of these choices as opportunities rather than pass/fail tests.
Anything new by Ann Patchett automatically goes to the top of my reading list. (Yeah, that was co-opted wholesale from my Goodreads review. Do you think I have to cite myself?) I don't think I've ever read anything by her that I didn't love. So of course I rushed straight to the library for her new book, even though it's a printed (and apparently slightly expanded) version of a commencement speech she gave at her alma mater. And of course I adored it and will probably read it again tomorrow on the train back downtown. When I read books about writing that talk about developing your own, distinctive voice, I think of her. Maybe it's partly because I listened to her read the audiobook version of Truth and Beauty, but when I read her work, I feel like I'm hearing her speak.
Some of my favorite lines:
Receiving an education is a little bit like a garden snake swallowing a chicken egg: it's in you but it takes a while to digest.
Just because things hadn't gone the way I'd planned didn't necessarily mean they had gone wrong.
There's a time in our life when we crave all the answers. It seems terrifying not to know what's coming next. But there is another time, a better time, when we see our lives as a series of choices, and What now represents our excitement and our future, the very vitality of life.
Okay, that last one winds up sounding a little cliched. But especially in the last few years, when I've felt so constantly pressured to make Big Life Decisions that I find myself wishing I'd wake up 60 years old, so that everything would be kind of settled, it's kind of comforting to think of these choices as opportunities rather than pass/fail tests.
posted by Madame Defarge at 4:20 PM
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