"They don't need batteries, and they're always the right size," I used to tell my family.

Novelist Ann Patchett:

When Karen Hayes and I opened Parnassus Books in Nashville in November 2011, I hadn’t really considered what an enormous boon it would be to my lifelong goal of forcing books on people. There were so many logistics to deal with — finding a space to rent that had good parking, finding employees, finding shelves — that there wasn’t a minute to think about the fun part: recommending books. After all, I’ve been telling people what to read since I was able to recognize words on paper. I was the kid extolling the virtues of “Charlotte’s Web” in the school cafeteria. “Fern saves the runt from being killed,” I told my friends. “And so her father lets her keep him.”

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