Ann Patchett is one of my favourite novelists … A pitch-perfect collection … She writes about family, writing, life, love, death and the peculiar experience of lockdown with such unshowy brilliance. She can turn a sentence like no one else: her writing is clear, honest, witty, and just full of unsentimental humanity.

Patchett’s essays are both sharp and humane … like a hugely enjoyable conversation with a particularly brilliant friend

I am counting down to the release of These Precious Days. I adore everything she writes but especially her essays, which are always profound and clever, and funny and wise

All of life – friendship, love, loss, fertility, grief, gratitude, success and failure – is contained in These Precious Days

Patchett’s gift is to write from intensely personal territory but to make her insights – about the importance of being generous in our relationships, or the fine balance between optimism and grief – seem universally relevant. As you read these meditative but warm-hearted essays, you begin to understand what matters most – not just to Patchett, but to you

These Precious Days … is so full of heart that it practically throbs in your hands … The whole volume is a delight: a celebration of friendship and generosity and the flare of those unexpected coincidences which light a life

It’s radiant storytelling, both questing and vulnerable in its candour … It confronts, too, the extent to which literature and life diverge … Timely, timeless and as full-voiced as her smile is broad

Exquisite … Powerful but unassuming … in These Precious Days, her first nonfiction work in eight years, Patchett turns the lens back not just on herself but on the relationships she’s forged throughout her career as a writer too, in essays that vary in length but seamlessly balance Patchett’s piercing emotional and intellectual insights with a welcoming charm … It’s an unforgettable portrait of love, loss, and the wonders of friendship that will leave you both devastated and dazzled

To immerse oneself in her book is to see the world as she does, in all its wonder and beauty. Read it, cherish it, buy a copy for your best friend, then read it once more

Patchett’s latest stands out from the crowd. Reflecting on fiction, family life and her recent career as a bookseller in Nashville, it’s illuminating and often surprising … A book to savour

Fantastic … The tales she shares are personal, the truths they reflect are universal

Gave me such joy and comfort that I couldn’t shelve it when I had finished; I wanted to keep it there so I could re-read a page in empty moments

A book for our times … Following almost two years in which, for many of us, death has come too close for comfort, Patchett takes us by the hand and shows us what makes a life

Rich and vibrant

Life-affirming