ANN PATCHETT

Anthony Freud will retire as general director of the Lyric Opera of Chicago at the end of the season, ending a 13-year tenure.

President Joe Biden welcomed a high-wattage collection of singers, authors, artists and humanitarians to the White House on Tuesday to present them with medals — and then stole the show himself with a quip about seeking reelection.

NEW YORK – Neil Gaiman, Anita Hill and Ann Patchett will be among the contributors to Book the Vote, an online initiative to provide information on the electoral system, voting registration and civic topics. Book the Vote is a collaboration among Penguin Random House, PEN America, the non-profit organization When We All Vote and the literary retailer Out of Print, which is owned by Penguin Random House. One feature is called “How America Works” and covers four topics: the right to vote, voting for the president, the Supreme Court and the electoral college. “Truth, facts, press freedom, and the future of open discourse are all on the ballot this November,” PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel said in a statement. Noseel and Penguin Random House U.S. CEO Madeline McIntosh said they were pleased to be working together to provide credible and authoritative information about the U.S. election and voting rights.

(AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)NASHVILLE, Tenn. The Nashville bookstore that opened and thrived while others were closing their doors is once again defying the odds, thanks, in part, to its famous novelist co-owner. How could pandemic-stressed book purchasers resist a read she describes as a cross between a puppy and a warm bath? In addition to the book-related customer comments, a lot of posts also ask where Patchett gets her dresses. Parnassus opened in 2011, shortly after two large Nashville bookstores the once-independent Davis-Kidd and the chain store Borders shut down in quick succession. Despite the naysayers, Parnassus thrived.