The love of my life (and why I need to share it with you) | Ann Patchett
TED Talks Daily
TED
4.1 • 12.1K Ratings
🗓️ 2 June 2026
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
If you want to live in a world where people read, novelist Ann Patchett has news for you: it's your job to help create that reality. Tracing her path from a chance airport encounter through a career writing iconic novels and opening a beloved independent bookstore, she makes the case that reading isn't a private pleasure but a civic act that builds empathy, sustains a "long-format brain" and pulls people out of isolation. Ready to lose yourself in a book?
(Following her talk, Elise Hu, host of TED Talks Daily, interviews Patchett on the joys and challenges of owning a bookstore. They also discuss whether audiobooks count as reading, the inefficiency of book banning, and how to raise young people to be readers. Patchett also teases the books she’s excited about in 2026.)
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. |
| 0:08.8 | I'm your host, Elise Hugh. |
| 0:10.5 | In a world that keeps pulling us away from the page, author Anne Patchett believes reading might be the most quietly radical thing we can do. |
| 0:18.7 | The ability to really listen to another person is an essential |
| 0:23.2 | skill for a novelist. It's an essential skill for all human beings. Anne, who's the author of |
| 0:29.8 | 16 books, is also the founder of Parnass's books, a beloved independent bookstore in Nashville, Tennessee. |
| 0:36.9 | In her delightful talk, she shares a love letter |
| 0:39.5 | to reading and traces a path from a chance encounter with a Hari Krishna in a Chicago airport |
| 0:44.8 | to a lifelong conviction that books are the invisible thread that binds us and that protecting |
| 0:50.7 | that thread is worth fighting for. I was able to sit down with Anne after her talk to dig deeper. |
| 0:57.0 | We talked about what owning a bookstore has revealed about community and third spaces, |
| 1:01.4 | why book banning misses the point, and how to stay sane as a reader and a writer, |
| 1:07.3 | in what some are calling a perma crisis. |
| 1:10.1 | Reading shines the light that disrupts the dark isolation so many people find themselves in. |
| 1:19.1 | And a little plug before the conversation, Anne Patchett has a new novel out today called |
| 1:23.8 | Whistler. I'm so excited. And if you're interested in hearing more from Anne about this book, |
| 1:28.8 | her writing practice, what it takes to craft a good story, mark your calendars for June 30th. |
| 1:34.1 | I get to speak with Anne again, but in front of a live TED audience for our TED Talks Daily |
| 1:40.0 | Book Club interview. To learn more, and RSVP, visit go. ted.com slash membership. |
| 1:48.6 | Now on to Anne's Talk and our conversation after a break. |
| 2:04.2 | And now our TED Talk and Conversation of the Day. |
| 2:11.8 | I had just turned 22 when I finished my first semester of graduate school at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. |
... |
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