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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 158.1
Format: Bargain Price
Label: Harper
Manufacturer: Harper
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 112
Publication Date: May 01, 2008
Publisher: Harper
Release Date: April 15, 2008
Studio: Harper
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Editorial Review:
Amazon.com Review:
Based on her lauded commencement address at Sarah Lawrence College, this stirring essay by bestselling author Ann Patchett offers hope and inspiration for anyone at a crossroads, whether graduating, changing careers, or transitioning from one life stage to another. With wit and candor, Patchett tells her own story of attending college, graduating, and struggling with the inevitable question, What now?
From student to line cook to teacher to waitress and eventually to award-winning author, Patchett's own life has taken many twists and turns that make her exploration genuine and resonant. As Patchett writes, "'What now?' represents our excitement and our future, the very vitality of life." She highlights the possibilities the unknown offers and reminds us that there is as much joy in the journey as there is in reaching the destination.
As Luck Would Have It: An Essay by Ann Patchett
Writing a book isn’t the kind of thing I do without knowing it. I’ve written five novels and a memoir. I’m working on another novel now. I’m closely acquainted with a process which consists of the search for a good idea followed by a lot of hard work. But the creation of What now? was more akin to finding a baby under a cabbage leaf than it was an act of labor and delivery. If someone hadn’t pointed it out to me, I feel certain I would have walked right by it.
What now? started out as the commencement address I gave at Sarah Lawrence College (my alma mater) in May of 2006. I make a lot of speeches and for the most part I talk off the cuff, a knack I picked up in high school as a forensics and debate champ. The only speeches I write in advance are the ones given for convocations and graduations because I’ve found that people like to keep a copy as part of the memorabilia of the day. I had originally composed a very dull and ponderous talk for the occasion because I wanted to sound smart (I was going back to college, after all) but as luck would have it, I ran into my friend and former writing teacher Allan Gurganus just before the big day. When I showed him the speech I planned to give, he sent me back to my desk to start over again.
Every sentence regarding this book could begin with the phrase, As luck would have it... If I hadn’t shown my speech to Allan, who hadn’t looked over my homework in more than twenty years, I would have been just another boring graduation speaker. But Allan set me on a new course, telling me to talk about myself, my work, and my own struggles, the exact topics I had wanted to avoid. I hope that I will never be too grown up or successful to disregard good advice when I hear it, and this was good advice. I went back to work. The new speech, delivered in a giant tent during a crashing thunderstorm, seemed to hit all the right notes. The graduates broke into cheering bedlam, my back was slapped many times, and I marked the day down as a good one. End of story.
Except, as luck would have it, copies of the speech started making the rounds, and it wound up in the hands of an editor who thought it would make a fine little book in the tradition of Anna Quindlen’s triumph, A Short Guide to a Happy Life. Once again, not my idea, but one worth listening to. The new format gave me the extra room that graduation speeches don’t allow (nobody likes a long-winded speaker) and Chip Kidd’s brilliant design gave additional resonance to my words. I looked at the end result with no small amount of wonder.
When the first copy came in the mail, I gave it to my 86 year old mother-in-law who was visiting from Mississippi. After she read it, she said she wanted copies for all of her friends. "We’re going through a real period of What now? ourselves," she told me. "At our age we’re all wondering what’s going to happen next. The question is always there. It’s just that sometimes you hear it a little louder."
"Wow," I said. "That’s really good. I wish we could have used that on the jacket."
It is my sincere hope that my mother-in-law is right, and this book will serve a purpose not just for graduation, but for life. Given its history, it seems that anything is possible.
Product Description:
Based on her lauded commencement address at Sarah Lawrence College, this stirring essay by bestselling author Ann Patchett offers hope and inspiration for anyone at a crossroads, whether graduating, changing careers, or transitioning from one life stage to another. With wit and candor, Patchett tells her own story of attending college, graduating, and struggling with the inevitable question, What now?
From student to line cook to teacher to waitress and eventually to award-winning author, Patchett's own life has taken many twists and turns that make her exploration genuine and resonant. As Patchett writes, "'What now?' represents our excitement and our future, the very vitality of life." She highlights the possibilities the unknown offers and reminds us that there is as much joy in the journey as there is in reaching the destination.
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
I read this book first at the library, and then ordered two copies -- one for my daughter and one for her friend, both recent college graduates. They both loved it.
Rating:  -
As luck would have it, I was heading out of the public library when I glanced at a table near the exit. There was a display of CD boxes of audio books, most of them of no interest to me, when I saw "What Now?". I avoid most unabridged audio books because they take hours to listen, but this single CD set requires only an hour. I've never heard of Ann Patchett but on an impulse, I added it to my borrowing.
While driving to my meditation session, I played the CD in my car. When I reached the carpark, I found to my horror that I was unable to get out of the vehicle until I've at least heard her finish narrating her encounter as a 20-year-old girl with a Hare Krishna devotee in an airport.
Her story is both hilarious and serious, and hits me with a long-forgotten truth: that it pays to listen to people, even first-time strangers.
Like Steve Jobs' 2005 Commencement Address at Stanford, Ann's essay offers many home truths that are given out in the guise of life's stories. I didn't know until today that waitressing is such a noble profession!
Post Script: Another important reason to get the audio book is the sheer beauty of Ann's soft voice. I just fell in love listening to her.
Rating: -
I read "What Now?" last summer and decided it would be a wonderful graduation gift for high school and college students. Ann Patchett has great advice and makes it accessible to young people. I ordered 10 and (since all my graduates really just want cash) their books will come with "green" bookmarks.
Rating: -
This is Ann Pachett's commnencement speech at her alma mater, Sarah Lawrence. It also includes an epilogue that ties her speech to other events sorrouding the speech. The speech is, for me, about being open to life and what it might bring, and about being attentive always because today's experiences may not be relevant until years from now. Her speech is from the perspective of a novelist, so it is rich with ideas about how a novel is developed and how this can also work in a non-novelist's life. It's a pause and think kind of commencement speech, not the typical rah rah commencement speech. I found particularly on target Patchett's views on leadership and how though most of us are taught to lead few of us ever really will, and our strengths therefore may fall in being better followers. The other major message was to be open to listen to other people, who may need to have something to say for themselves, but who may also have something to offer. It is a very quick read and well worth trouble.
Rating: -
Imagine attending a graduation and actually being inspired by the
commencement address.
That happened not too long ago at Sarah Lawrence College when
author Ann Patchett spoke to the graduates . . . her remarks
became the basis for WHAT NOW? (see also Section 2), an
inspiring essay that got me thinking about some of the
directions my life has taken--and will continue to take as I
approach retirement.
They key is for me to do the same thing that Patchett
recommended:
* To pay attention to the things I'll probably never need to know,
to listen carefully to the people who look as if they have nothing
to teach me, to see school as something that goes on everywhere,
all the time, not just in libraries but in parking lots, in airports, in trees.
I need to also be more receptive to learning, wherever it takes
place--much along the lines of this following passage:
* Receiving an education is a little bit like a garden snake swallowing
a chicken egg: it's in you but it takes awhile to digest. I had come
to college from twelve years of Catholic girls' school. At the time
I thought that mine was the most ridiculous, antiquated secondary
education in history. We marched in lines and met the meticulous
regulations of the uniform code with cheerful submission. We bowed
and kneeled and prayed. I held open doors and learned how to write
a sincere thank-you note and when I was asked to go and fetch a cup
of coffee from the kitchen for one of the nuns I fairly flushed at the
honor of being chosen. I learned modestly, humility and how
to make a decent white sauce.
Lastly, I liked gaining insight into the author's mindset while
writing:
* I came to understand that fiction writing is like duck hunting. You go
to the right place at the right time with the right dog. You get into
the water before dawn, wearing a little protective gear, then you
stand behind some reeds and wait for the story to present itself.
This is not to say you are passive. You choose the place and the day.
You pick the gun and the dog. You have the desire to blow
the duck apart for reasons that are entirely your own. But you have
to be willing to accept not what you wanted to have happen,
but what happens. You have to write the story you find in the
circumstances you've created, because more often than not the ducks
don't show up. The hunters in the next blind begin to argue,
and you realize they're in love. You see a snake swimming in
your direction. Your dog begins to shiver and whine, and you start
to think about this gun that belonged to your father. By the time you
get out of the marsh you will have written a novel so devoid
of ducks it will shock you.
WHAT NOW? is only 97 pages in length, including pictures . . . but
don't be put off by that fact . . . you'll enjoy it . . . also, the book
will make for an ideal holiday gift.
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