Barbara 's Reviews > These Precious Days: Essays

I confess that I’m a devoted Ann Patchett fan. Her ability to create sympathetic characters who are undergoing relatable events/traumas makes her a go-to-author for me. Her literary prose is remarkable.

“These Precious Days” is a collection of essays she has written. As a budding author, she journaled daily. She took copious notes marking her days events. She has a plethora of material to write essays relating to different times in her life. The result: this fine anthology which provides the readers some interesting historical facts about Ann and her life, but also about her thoughts and feelings as she’s successfully written numerous literary works, started a thriving bookstore, and supported family. Through each essay, her love and devotion to family shines through.

Her first essay, “Three Fathers” proves her devotion to family. Although her mother divorced and had nothing to do with her father and eventually her first stepfather, Ann held both close to her heart. She provides a beautiful photo of her three fathers at her sister’s wedding. She saw their flaws and loved them, flawed and all. She writes, “both men were central in my life: my father wanting me to be more like him, and my stepfather wanting to be more like me.” She recognized and accepted her fathers’ differing sort of love.

One of my favorite essays is “How Knitting Saved My Life. Twice”. She learned how to knit from her grandmother, noting the patience her grandmother showed her while she learned. She and her college friend went to Europe one summer and was motivated to pick it up again. Women knit in parks, cares, on trains. She learned that if she encountered any problem with her knitting, she “simply walked up to any female person who was older than I was and handed her my knitting…If there was a woman in Ireland or the British Isles in the summer of 1983 who didn’t know her way around a dropped stitch, I never met her.” I love thinking about 20-something Ann handing over her knitting to unsuspecting domestic women.

Another whimsical story is “To the Doghouse” in which Ann delights in her childhood attraction to the Snoopy cartoon strip. While spending summers with her grandparents, she and her sister read the morning newspaper comics. “Peanuts” was always first; she learned the happy dance. She admired the happy dog and his imagination as a famous World War I flying ace fighting the infamous Red Baron. After a death-defying adventure, Snoopy returned to his doghouse, with his typewriter to tap out “It was a dark and stormy night”. Ann informs the reader that the first time she learned of Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” was when Snoopy performed a hand puppet version of the book. Ann’s memories became a walk down memory lane for me!

In “Cover Stories” I learned of the importance of a great jacket cover for a novel. I admit that my eye is drawn to some book covers more than others. In this essay, Ann details the thought that goes through in picking the correct cover to reflect what the novel is about. I now take jacket covers far more seriously!

The only essay I didn’t gush over, was the one entitled “These Precious Days” which recounts her friendship with Tom Hank’s personal assistant, Sooki. This essay felt self-inflating to me. The realistic and modest observations she made in her other essays rang true.

There are 23 essays in total. I’d rate all of them 5 stars, with the exception of the aforementioned. I give “These Precious Days” a 3.5 stars for her literary skill. I cannot identify exactly why I had issue with it, other than it seemed self-serving. Each of her essays are relatable. I feel like I got to know Ann as a human, not just a novelist. I highly recommend this enjoyable read.