Ann Patchett

In this collection of essays, Patchett turns her writer's eye on her own experiences and transforms the private into the universal, providing us all a way to look at our own worlds anew.

One Sunday afternoon in Southern California, Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating's christening party uninvited. Before evening falls, he has kissed Franny's mother, Beverly--thus setting in motion the dissolution of their marriages and the joining of two families. Spanning five decades, Commonwealth explores how this chance encounter reverberates through the lives of the four parents and six children involved. Spending summers together in Virginia,...

Somewhere in South America, at the home of the country's vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honor of Mr. Hosokawa, a powerful Japanese businessman. Roxanne Coss, opera's most revered soprano, has mesmerized the international guests with her singing. It is a perfect evening -- until a band of gun-wielding terrorists breaks in through the air-conditioning vents and takes the entire party hostage. But what begins as a panicked,...

-- The Dutch House, The New Yorker

""A loving testament to the work and reward of the best friendships, the kind where your arms can't distinguish burden from embrace." — People

New York Times Bestselling author Ann Patchett's first work of nonfiction chronicling her decades-long friendship with the critically acclaimed and recently deceased author, Lucy Grealy.

Ann Patchett and the late Lucy Grealy met in college in 1981, and,

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From the creators of Lambslide, comes a hilarious children's story about a scapegoat who escapes blame just in time. The Farmer family has a big problem! Every day their goat escapes, and every day, Mr. Farmer brings him back. So when things start to go awry on the farm, it must be the goat's fault. Who's to blame when Mrs. Farmer's petunias are trampled? Or when all the cupcakes for Archie's party disappear? And when the whole bucket of paint is...

When his lover takes away his son, he's left only with his Beale Street, Memphis bar. He hires a young waitress named Fay Taft who brings with her a desperate, dangerous brother, Carl, and the possibility of new intimacy. Nickel finds himself consumed with Fay and Carl's dead father-Taft-obsessing over and reconstructing the life of a man he never met. A stunning artistic achievement, Taft confirms Ann Pathcett's standing as one of the most gifted...

A flock of lambs mishears the word "landslide" as "lambslide" and begins a campaign to have one built for them on the farm.

To mark its 100-year anniversary, the American Civil Liberties Union partners with award-winning authors Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman to bring together many of our greatest living writers, each contributing an original piece inspired by a historic ACLU case. On January 19, 1920, a small group of idealists and visionaries, including Helen Keller, Jane Addams, Roger Baldwin, and Crystal Eastman, founded the American Civil Liberties Union. A century...