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Welcome to the bookcase.

I am Kate Gibson.

And I'm Charlie Gibson, Kate's father, and we welcome you to

the bookcase. It is our little weekly effort to get your reading and to tell you about stuff we have

read and loved. And sometimes we, it's funny because I think I've done us an injustice because

when we open the show, I always go, I'm so excited for this conversation, but today

we really have a wonderful conversation with an amazing author who is an American treasure, and that's

Anne Patchett, who has a new book out Tom Lake. Tom Lake, indeed. It's a wonderful read, but all of her

books are wonderful. You know, it's interesting when you read more than one book

by an author, sometimes when you read just one, but mindly when you've read a number of pieces

by a single author, you get a sense that you know them or want to know them better. And Anne Patchett

has always been in that category to me. I've read, this is now the third novel of hers that I've read. I've since read that other people have written about this, but you just get a sense, this is a really decent, wonderful, warm, inviting person. Someone, as I've read her novels, I've thought, I wish I knew this person. I wish we could have dinner together. I just, she's just,

you just get a sense that she's really nice. And therefore, her novels are, well, there's not

...