Patchett’s new collection of essays richly rewarding

“These Precious Days: Essays,” Ann Patchett (Harper)

If you are a fiction reader, you are probably familiar with Ann Patchett’s many noteworthy novels, among them “The Patron Saint of Liars,” “Bel Canto” and most recently “The Dutch House,” all published to great acclaim, along with five others. She has also written three works of nonfiction and a couple of children’s books. Perhaps you read her first book of essays, “This is the Story of a Happy Marriage.” Now comes along another collection, “These Precious Days.”

She says she writes essays while taking a break from work on novels. “Essays never filled my days,” she says. “But they reminded me that I was still a writer when I wasn’t writing a novel.”

She tells us how homesick she was in her freshman year at Sarah Lawrence, and that she flew home to Nashville for Halloween, thanks to her cousins treating her to this “fantastic extravagance,” then didn’t fly home for Thanksgiving. She wrote “The First Thanksgiving” at college, buying groceries for the meal with babysitting money and sneaking silverware from the cafeteria to use for her five invited guests. Using “The Joy of Cooking,” she pulled the dinner off. The college turned down the heat to the lowest possible temperature before the pipes would freeze. Patchett used an open stove and burners on high to warm the dorm room. She declared the dinner “Brilliant.”

Not surprising is her writing about her life as a writer and love for books. Patchett is the owner of Parnassus, a bookshop in Nashville and a boon to the city.

Some of the essays go back decades, but Patchett also takes us through the pandemic and lockdown. The title essay is particularly moving. Tom Hanks’ assistant, Sooki, stays with Patchett in her basement apartment at her insistence. Sooki has cancer and remains there because of an autoimmune condition while the pandemic takes its course.