I’ve read, now, I believe all of Ann Patchett’s novels (absolutely adored Bel Canto), and have been enthralled by the way this woman tells a story. So when I saw her “Truth and Beauty: A Friendship” at the book store, I had to pick it up. It’s not fiction, but is instead a so far very sweet, very touching tribute to her friend Lucy Grealy, telling of their friendship of some twenty years. She writes so beautifully, and since they were both writers, she intersperses her own prose with excerpts from Lucy’s letters, and it’s just . . . moving . . . and I thought I’d mention it, because, well, that’s what you do when you find a really good book, isn’t it?

Here’s a quote for you, with the birth of the title right there in black and white:

“We were a pairing out of an Aesop’s fable, the grasshopper and the ant, the tortoise and the hare. And sure, maybe the ant was warmer in the winter and the tortoise won the race, but everyone knows that the grasshopper and the hare were infinitely more appealing animals in all their leggy beauty, their music and interesting side trips. What the story didn’t tell you is that the ant relented at the eleventh hour and took in the grasshopper when the weather was hard, fed him on his tendered store of grass all winter. The tortoise, being uninterested in such things, gave over his medal to the hare. Grasshoppers and hares find the ants and tortoises. They need us to survive, but we need them as well. They were the ones who brought truth and beauty to the party, which Lucy could tell you as she recited her Keats over breakfast, was better than food any day.”

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