In July I logged in to a virtual author event - "Bookshop Author's Unite" - which featured three bookstore owners who were also authors: Jeff Kinney owner of An Unlikely Story in Plainville, Massachusetts (the only store of the three I've been to); Ann Patchett owner of Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee; and Peter H. Reynolds owner of Blue Bunny Books in Dedham, Massachusetts. Fifty-six year old Ms. Patchett spoke first and I especially liked what she said about the pandemic giving her an opportunity to slow down. Without a book tour to go on she was able to enjoy the time she was spending with her husband and dog and wondered if perhaps she should just rethink the whole book tour idea as being a waste of precious resources. She also mentioned that she had recently been having trouble finding something she really wanted to read. As a fifty-six year old myself who also has been taking this time to enjoy spending time with my husband and dog, and wondering how the pandemic might be changing our collective minds about sustainable practices, and who has likewise had a hard time finding a book that I wanted to read past page 50 I could relate, and I wondered if perhaps I had read any of her books. Turns out not only that I had, but that the last line of my blog post suggested that I would have to look for more of her books, but apparently I hadn't. Until now.
I picked this collection of essays mainly because it was on the shelf at the library where I work. The building is open with limited services and hours so although I am mainly working at home I walked over and checked it out. Not surprisingly, as an author Patchett has a lot to say about books, reading, and libraries.
In the essay "Fact vs. Fiction" Patchett explains about the two kinds of educational experiences one has in college: passive and active
In the first you are a little bird in the nest with your beak stretched open wide and the professor gathers up all the information you need and drops it down your gullet...your only role is to accept what you are given...In the second kind, you are taught to learn how to find the information, and how to think about it, for yourself. You learn to question and engage. You realize that one answer is not enough and that you have to look at as many sources as are available to you so that you can piece together a larger picture.
Helping people to find the sources and to think about them to determine if they are any good is exactly what I do as a reference and instruction librarian. One might argue that the role of the librarian is even more important than the role of the professor here.
In "The Love Between Two Women is Not Normal" and "The Right to Read" in which she describes what happened when Clemson University assigned her memoir Truth & Beauty to the freshman class of 2006, she discusses the problems and rewards of common reading programs, censorship, and, of course, the right to read.
As a person who loves going to author events and readings I could very much relate to Patchett's analogy of going to her first reading and meeting author Eudora Welty as "heart-stopping, life changing wonder" that she would put up "against anyone who ever saw the Beatles" an event she describes in "The Best American Short Stories 2006".
I highlighted just a few of the library passages here. There are many others throughout.
While I do wish the pandemic were over so we could all go back to some more normal activities one positive thing I can say about all of this is that since author events have gone virtual geography is no longer a barrier to attending them. In fact, since the event in July which prompted this post, I already attended another event featuring Ann Patchett in which she interviewed one of my other favorite authors, Margaret Atwood, on the occasion of the release of the paperback version of The Testaments. My own signed copy of the book, a bonus for purchasing a ticket to the event, arrived yesterday.
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