Ann Patchett's Parnassus

“I think of this as my gift to the city,” Ann Patchett told NPR about the opening of her new bookstore in Nashville November 16. Named Parnassus, after the mountain in Greece where literature, music and poetry were born, the store is best-selling novelist Patchett’s response to the closing of Borders and Davis-Kidd Booksellers. Upset by the thought of not having a bookstore in town, Patchett, who lives in Nashville, decided to open one herself along with partner Karen Hayes.

Since April, they’ve been working to get the 2,500-square-foot store open in a retail center in Green Hills. Wednesday’s opening was just a soft one, and grand opening events are planned for Saturday. Patchett has said she hopes the community will support the store and that it will remind people of the hometown bookstore they grew up with.

“This is what I want to see in Nashville, and if I want to live in a city with a bookstore, then I’m willing to pay for it,” Patchett continued in her NPR interview. “We’ve all had the experience of going into a three-story Barnes & Noble and saying, ‘I didn’t really find anything I wanted to read.’ But you can go in to a small store with an intelligent staff …. [and] well-displayed, well-chosen books, and come out with five books that you’re dying to read. And that’s what we’re going to do.”

Parnassus is located at 3900 Hillsboro Pike, Suite 14, in Nashville, Tennessee. Read the full NPR story here and listen to Patchett’s interview on “All Things Considered.” Follow Parnassus on Twitter, and like them on Facebook.

Update: Photos from the store opening are now on Facebook!