Ann Patchett has a hit with 'Commonwealth'

Ann Patchett, the author/bookseller whose work is popular with book clubs, has her highest debut ever on Paste BN’s Best-Selling Books list with her latest novel, Commonwealth (Harper).

It lands at an impressive No. 4. (The full list will be published Thursday.)

Patchett’s previous best showing was No. 8 with Bel Canto in 2003 (the novel made its debut at No. 70 in 2002), and State of Wonder landed (and peaked) at No. 12 in 2011.

Commonwealth, the story of six siblings in a blended family told over 50 years, has received mostly rapturous reviews. Paste BN gave it **** out of four stars, calling the book “first-rate Patchett...both tenderhearted and tough, dryly funny and at times intensely moving.”

The daily  New York Times deemed it “exquisite,” and The Washington Post raved that “Patchett’s storytelling…has never seemed more effortlessly graceful.” It was a People “Book of the Week”: Patchett’s “writing is so engaging…by the end, you’ll long for more,” the magazine said.

In an interview with The Guardian, Patchett, who owns Parnassus Books in Nashville, says Commonwealth was inspired by her own childhood, a topic she was reluctant to take on because “nothing would scare me more.”

“I would happily ride down the Amazon in a canoe and deal with snakes (as she did to research State of Wonder) rather than face my family,” she said.

Looks like the risk was worth it.