“With her best-selling novels and essays, and her bookstore, readers from around the world see themselves in the pages of Ann Patchett’s books, that take people to places of the heart and feed the imagination of our Nation.”

—National Humanities Medal citation

Ann Patchett is the author of ten novels, The Patron Saint of Liars, Taft, The Magician’s Assistant, Bel Canto, Run, State of Wonder, Commonwealth, The Dutch House, Tom Lake, and her latest, Whistler. She was a guest editor of Best American Short Stories and has written four books of nonfiction–Truth & Beauty, What Now?, This is the Story of a Happy Marriage, and These Precious Days. She has collaborated with illustrator Robin Preiss Glasser on three children’s books, Lambslide, Escape Goat, and The Verts. She also released an annotated version of one of her most beloved novels, Bel Canto.

“An evocative and moving tribute to the death-defying, heart-opening, infinitely redemptive power of storytelling” (Kirkus, starred review), Whistler was selected as a Katie Couric Book Club Pick, a Good Housekeeping Book Club Pick and a GoodReads Most Anticipated Book of Summer.

“Ann Patchett’s new novel is a rare phenomenon in contemporary fiction: a novel both majestic and intimate, original and masterful in its structure, crystalline in its prose, revelatory in its insights, utterly devastating yet ultimately uplifting in its emotional impact.”

—The Boston Globe

Patchett has been the recipient of numerous awards, including a National Humanities Medal and the PEN/Faulkner Award. Her novel The Dutch House was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She was named one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in the World and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She is a frequent contributor for The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, and The New York Times. Her books have been both New York Times Notable Books and New York Times bestsellers, and her work has been translated into more than thirty languages.

“Expect miracles when you read Ann Patchett’s fiction.”

—The New York Times Book Review

In November 2011, she opened Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee. She has since become a spokesperson for independent booksellers, championing books and bookstores on NPR, PBS Newshour, and TODAY. She was the inaugural ambassador for the Book Industry Charitable Foundation (BINC), and she founded the Parnassus Books Foundation, which gives books to children in Title I schools in Nashville.

Ann Patchett lives in Nashville with her husband, Karl VanDevender, and their dog, Nemo. She makes weekly appearances on Parnassus’s social media, where her videos have amassed millions of views. On Tuesdays, she joins the Laydown Diaries crew to talk about the week’s new releases, and she can often be found making “new to you” recommendations on Fridays. For more information on Patchett, follow along with Parnassus Books on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and the bookstore blog, Musing.