Questions About These Precious Days: Essays

Reader Q&A

To ask other readers questions about These Precious Days, please sign up.

Answered Questions (4)

Why is there a dog on the cover of this book?That's what drew me to the book : Ann Patchett has a dog she loves. And then my immediate thought was, " I must get up right now and take my little dog out for a walk and enjoy the precious time with him ....he won't always be here." But no mention of a dog in all the comments.

Deborah This is a painting of Ann’s dog Sparky done by Sooki Raphael, whose life-altering friendship is the subject of the title essay of this collection. Ann…moreThis is a painting of Ann’s dog Sparky done by Sooki Raphael, whose life-altering friendship is the subject of the title essay of this collection. Ann met Tom Hanks at a literary event when he wrote his book, and Sooki was Tom’s personal assistant. She and Ann became e-mail friends, and then something much, much more when Sooki was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and came to live at Ann’s place in Nashville during a clinical trial. Along came Covid, and Sooki’s stay stretched to months. It’s the most remarkable, moving story, and Ann’s brilliance as a writer gets you so invested in everything. Sooki is clearly a remarkable person and you really care by the end of the longish essay. It’s free to read online now on the Harper’s magazine site, and so worth your time. (Sorry, don’t know how to embed a link.)(less)

flag

Does anyone have a list of discussion questions appropriate for a book club?

Mark Evilsizor 1. Ann talks about stacking all her eggs in the writing basket. Do any of you know someone who makes their living in the arts? How did they find their…more1. Ann talks about stacking all her eggs in the writing basket. Do any of you know someone who makes their living in the arts? How did they find their way and make it possible?
a. But I was a writer and nothing else, and to miss seeing me as such was to miss me altogether. I wrote and read and read and wrote. I stacked every egg I was ever given into a single basket. I can see how that would be unnerving for a parent.

2. Which of Ann’s fathers did you find especially endearing?
a. Through his own strange example, he taught me about work. If this man with an all-consuming job, six children, endless hobbies and endless affairs could find the time to write so many books, even horrible books, I should be able to organize myself for productivity.
b. If he had any gaping holes in his life, I was never for an instant made to feel they were mine to fill.

3. Which of Anns adventures would you like to give a try?
a. We had no idea where we were going, and so no one in our families knew where we were. Half the time we didn’t know where we were. We had train passes, and sometimes boarded a train without checking to see where it was going.

4. I love the way that Ann creates intimacy and draws us into it so easily
a. I grew up in 24-S, in the same way that Tavia grew up in my family’s house. We knew the contents of each other’s pantries and the efficacy of each other’s shampoo.
b. Were there stories or words of intimacy that ensnared you as you read?
c. Erica is the best knitter I’ve ever known. She can make a cardigan with elegant buttonholes that lie flat. She’s made me fingerless gloves to write in and lacy shawls to throw over my shoulders. And when I was at the bottom of the well, she threw down a length of yarn and told me to knit myself back up. She didn’t care how long it took. She would be waiting at the top, holding on to her end.

5. Ann describes the value of reading a text again this way, This is why we have to go back, because even as the text stays completely true to the writer’s intention, we readers never cease to change.
a. What books do you read more than once?

6. There are many quips and humorous remarks in the book, which were memorable to you?
a. Dad, what the hell? Why all those murderers stuck in the binder? Why are they, of all people, not confined to a plastic sleeve?
b. Post-college lesson number one: manual labor is hard and should not be romanticized.
c. When I reminded them that I could turn it down, they reminded me that they could print two thousand copies of the book and fail to distribute them. I was learning things about publishing all the time.
d. The second waitress, the intellectual, came to our table and held up her pad and pen, her arms so long and thin and white there should have been a museum built to honor them.

7. There is much in this book about gratitude, and valuing what matters most, where did you see this in her essays?
a. For as many times as the horrible thing happens, a thousand times in every day the horrible thing passes us by. A meteor could be skating past Earth’s atmosphere this very minute. We’ll never know how close we came to annihilation, but today I saw it—everything I had and stood to lose and did not lose. Thanks to this fleeting clarity, the glow from the fluorescent tubes on the ceiling of this small cardiac recovery room lights up the entire world.
b. How thrilled they would have been to have even a few of the hours she wasted with us. These precious days I’ll spend with you, I sang in my head. Pay attention, I told myself. Pay attention every minute.

8. Have you had moments as described in the quote below?
a. I didn’t know how old she was, I couldn’t remember her face, but there have been few moments in my life when I have felt so certain: I was supposed to help. I was overcome by a sense of order in the world: if I hadn’t chosen that book, if I hadn’t gone to DC, if we hadn’t stayed in just enough contact for her to tell me a year after the fact that she had had cancer, and if I hadn’t mentioned it to Karl, she wouldn’t have found her way to the only clinical trial in the country that both matched her cancer and could take her in immediately.
b. What Sooki gave me was a sense of order, a sense of God, the God of Sister Nena, the God of my childhood, a belief that I had gone into my study one night and picked up the right book from the hundred books that were there because I was meant to.
(less)

flag

I read the Sooki essay in Harper’s. I assumed it was more or less printed unchanged in the book. One friend told me the book version was better. Can anyone else weigh in on how much the two pieces might have differed?

Judy Lindow I briefly scanned and compared the online Harper's to the book and they look the same, verbatim. Perhaps there are minor edits I missed. Maybe your fr…moreI briefly scanned and compared the online Harper's to the book and they look the same, verbatim. Perhaps there are minor edits I missed. Maybe your friend was referring to how she enjoyed the story specifically in the context of the book. The book does have a sort of arch where the author shares the impactful loves, inspirations, and challenges of her life ... friends and family are a thread throughout the book. For example the essay before These Precious Days, "Sisters", is about Ann's relationship with her mother. I think her story with Sookie was way to show how friendships can start at different times in our lives. It's inclusion adds to repeated themes of aging, dying, making friends unexpectedly, and loosing people we love. Using metaphoric language: it's as if the people coming into our life and leaving, weave the the fabric of our lives.(less)

flag

This question contains spoilers... (view spoiler)

Nanette It's the title essay, These Precious Days.…moreIt's the title essay, These Precious Days.(less)

flag

Unanswered Questions

About Goodreads Q&A

Ask and answer questions about books!

You can pose questions to the Goodreads community with Reader Q&A, or ask your favorite author a question with Ask the Author.

See Featured Authors Answering Questions

Learn more