Play Book Tag discussion

Before becoming an award winning novelist, author Ann Patchett got her start writing pieces for magazines and journals. For years she collected these pieces with the thought that one day she might sort through them for publication as a collection of essays. Tired of hearing someday, a friend sorted them out for Patchett. After some more sorting, Patchett finally put together her essays as a memoir, starting with her childhood desire to be a writer to the controversy over her exploration of her friendship with fellow author Lucy Grealy in the book Truth and Beauty to both her marriages.

As a fan of essays this is a format that really worked for me. The loosely connected order of the essays provided insights into Patchett's life like a memoir, but also allowed her to expand upon themes that would have made a traditional essay come across as unfocused. My favorites dealt with the opening of her bookstore in Nashville and her relationship with her dog Rose. She is not afraid of showing herself in an unflattering light, and while not an expose, she recognized and admitted to her flaws. I rarely read celebrity memoirs, as I am more interested in the lives of ordinary people, however I highly recommend this one.

Do you think I would like this one, Sara? Your review definitely peaked my interest?

(Ok, on a side note - - is it peaked my interest or piqued my interest?)

It is piqued.

It is hard me to say. We tend to be further apart on non-fiction than fiction. It really is more a collection of articles she has written for various magazines than anything else. There were definitely some that I found less interesting than others. The opening article was very good, as was her pair of articles in which she discusses the controversy of her book Truth and Beauty being selected as required reading for the incoming freshman class at Clemson and the speech she gave there. I found the one about her RV trip surprisingly interesting. She also talks a lot about both her marriages and there were a couple about her dog. The article she wrote after her dog died made me more emotional than I thought. She doesn't try to paint herself as perfect, as she talks briefly about the affair she had while still married to her first husband. However, that's just it, it was brief. I wish she would have examined herself a bit more, but given that these were magazine articles, I didn't expect her to and it didn't impact my rating.

Does any of that help?