Rules for Visiting A Novel

Stumpel

NATIONAL BESTSELLER!*An Oprah Summer Reading Pick for 2019**A best book of 2019 pick for Real Simple, Southern Living, and Vulture* *A May IndieNext Pick**Good Housekeeping Best Books of 2019**Chicago Tribune Biblioracle Award 2019*\"Fun, hilarious, and extremely touching.\"-NPRA beautifully observed and deeply funny novel of May Attaway, a university gardener who sets out on an odyssey to reconnect with four old friends over the course of a year.At forty, May Attaway is more at home with plants than people. Over the years, she\'s turned inward, finding pleasure in language, her work as a gardener, and keeping her neighbors at arm\'s length while keenly observing them. But when she is unexpectedly granted some leave from her job, May is inspired to reconnect with four once close friends. She knows they will never have a proper reunion, so she goes, one-by-one, to each of them. A student of the classics, May considers her journey a female Odyssey. What might the world have had if, instead of waiting, Penelope had set out on an adventure of her own?RULES FOR VISITING is a woman\'s exploration of friendship in the digital age. Deeply alert to the nobility and the ridiculousness of ordinary people, May savors the pleasures along the way-afternoon ice cream with a long-lost friend, surprise postcards from an unexpected crush, and a moving encounter with ancient beauty. Though she gets a taste of viral online fame, May chooses to bypass her friends\' perfectly cultivated online lives to instead meet them in their messy analog ones. Ultimately, May learns that a best friend is someone who knows your story-and she inspires us all to master the art of visiting.

Bol

An elegant and deeply moving meditation on friendship, family, and life on earth. Rules for Visiting is a wonderful novel. -Emily St. John Mandel, author of Sea of Tranquility, The Glass Hotel, and Station Eleven The national bestseller and an Indie Next List pick Name a Best Book of the Year by O Magazine * Good Housekeeping * Real Simple * Vulture * Chicago Tribune Named a Best Book of the Summer by The Today Show * Good Morning America * Wall Street Journal * San Francisco Chronicle * Southern Living Shortlisted for the 2020 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize Long-listed for the 2020 Tournament of Books Dry, witty, and unapologetic, May Attaway loves literature and her work as a botanist for the university in her hometown. More at home with plants than people, May begins to suspect she isn't very good at friendship and wonders if it's possible to improve with practice. Granted some leave from her job, she sets out on a journey to spend time with four long-neglected friends. Smart, funny, and full of compassion, Rules for Visiting is the story of a search for friendship in the digital age, a singular look at the way we stay in touch. While May travels, she studies her friends' lives and begins to confront the pain of her own. With simplicity and honesty, Jessica Francis Kane has crafted an exquisite story about a woman trying to find a new way to be in the world. This nourishing book, with its beautiful contemplation of travel, trees, family, and friendship, is the perfect antidote to our chaotic times.