Barbara Kingsolver

In The Lacuna, her first novel in nine years, Barbara Kingsolver, the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of The Poisonwood Bible and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, tells the story of Harrison William Shepherd, a man caught between two worlds--an unforgettable protagonist whose search for identity will take readers to the heart of the twentieth century's most tumultuous events.

"The Bean Trees is the work of a visionary. . . . It leaves you open-mouthed and smiling." -- Los Angeles TimesAn acclaimed bestseller that has come to be regarded as an American classic, The Bean Trees is the novel that launched Barbara Kingsolver's remarkable literary career. Kingsolver has gone on to win the Pulitzer Prize for her novel, Demon Copperhead, and is the recipient of the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguish Contribution to American LettersThe Bean Trees is the charming, engrossing tale of rural Kentucky native Taylor Greer, who only wants to get away from her roots and avoid getting pregnant. She succeeds, but inherits a three-year-old Native American girl named Turtle along the way, and together, from Oklahoma to Arizona, half-Cherokee Taylor and her charge search for a new life in the West. Hers is a story about love and friendship, abandonment and belonging, and the discovery of surprising resources in seemingly empty places. This Harper Perennial Deluxe Edition features beautiful cover art, French flaps, and deckle-edge pages, making it the perfect gift book.

New York Times Bestseller - Pulitzer Prize Finalist - An Oprah's Book Club Selection"Powerful . . . Kingsolver] has with infinitely steady hands worked the prickly threads of religion, politics, race, sin and redemption into a thing of terrible beauty." --Los Angeles Times Book ReviewThe Poisonwood Bible, now celebrating its 25th anniversary, established Barbara Kingsolver as one of the most thoughtful and daring of modern writers. Taking its place alongside the classic works of postcolonial literature, it is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in Africa. This special Harper Perennial Deluxe Edition features beautiful cover art on uncoated stock, French flaps, and deckle-edge pages, making it the perfect gift book. The story is told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it--from garden seeds to Scripture--is calamitously transformed on African soil. The novel is set against one of the most dramatic political chronicles of the twentieth century: the Congo's fight for independence from Belgium, the murder of its first elected prime minister, the CIA coup to install his replacement, and the insidious progress of a world economic order that robs the fledgling African nation of its autonomy. Against this backdrop, Orleanna Price reconstructs the story of her evangelist husband's part in the Western assault on Africa, a tale indelibly darkened by her own losses and unanswerable questions about her own culpability. Also narrating the story, by turns, are her four daughters--the teenaged Rachel; adolescent twins Leah and Adah; and Ruth May, a prescient five-year-old. These sharply observant girls, who arrive in the Congo with racial preconceptions forged in 1950s Georgia, will be marked in surprisingly different ways by their father's intractable mission, and by Africa itself. Ultimately each must strike her own separate path to salvation. Their passionately intertwined stories become a compelling exploration of moral risk and personal responsibility.

TWICE WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTIONFROM THE WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTIONTHE MULTI-MILLION COPY BESTSELLING AUTHOR'Beautifully written' Irish Times'This is a rich rewarding book.' The Times"We wanted to live in a place that could feed us: where rain falls, crops grow, and drinking water bubbles up right out of the ground." Barbara Kingsolver opens her home to us, as she and her family attempt a year of eating only local food, much of it from their own garden. Inspired by the flavours and culinary arts of a local food culture, they explore many a farmers market and diversified organic farms at home and across the country. With characteristic warmth, Kingsolver shows us how to put food back at the centre of the political and family agenda. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is part memoir, part journalistic investigation, and is full of original recipes that celebrate healthy eating, sustainability and the pleasures of good food.

"Clever. . . magical. . . beautifully crafted. Kingsolver spins you around the philosophic world a dozen times." -- Milwaukee Sentinel"Kingsolver's essays should be savored like quiet afternoons with a friend." --New York Times Book ReviewIn this brilliant essay collection, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Barbara Kingsolver turns to her favored literary terrain to explore themes of family, community, and the natural world. With the eyes of a scientist and the vision of a poet, Kingsolver writes about notions as diverse as modern motherhood, the history of private property, and the suspended citizenship of humans in the animal kingdom. Kingsolver's canny pursuit of meaning from an inscrutable world compels us to find instructions for life in surprising places: a museum of atomic bomb relics, a West African voodoo love charm, an iconographic family of paper dolls, the ethics of a wild pig who persistently invades a garden, a battle of wills with a two-year-old, or a troop of oysters who observe high tide in the middle of Illinois. In sharing her thoughts about the urgent business of being alive, Kingsolver the essayist employs the same keen eyes, persuasive tongue, and understanding heart that characterize her acclaimed fiction. In High Tide in Tucson, Kingsolver is defiant, funny, and courageously honest.

In her new essay collection, the beloved author of High Tide in Tucson brings to us, out of one of history's darker moments, an extended love song to the world we still have. Whether she is contemplating the Grand Canyon, her vegetable garden, motherhood, genetic engineering, or the future of a nation founded on the best of all human impulses, these essays are grounded in the author's belief that our largest problems have grown from the earth's remotest corners as well as our own backyards, and that answers may lie in both those places. Sometimes grave, occasionally hilarious, and ultimately persuasive, Small Wonder is a hopeful examination of the people we seem to be, and what we might yet make of ourselves. “Essays … [of] great skill and wisdom.” --Booklist “A delightful, challenging, and wonderfully informative book.” --San Francisco Chronicle

"Soulful and soul searching. . . a passionate invitation to readers to be part of the crowd that cares about the environment, peace, and family."--San Francisco Chronicle Book ReviewIn this moving essay collection, the acclaimed author of bestselling works such as Demon Copperhead and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, raises her voice in praise of nature, family, literature, and the joys of everyday life while examining the genesis of war, violence, and poverty in our world. Whether Barbara Kingsolver is contemplating the Grand Canyon, her vegetable garden, motherhood, genetic engineering, or the future of a nation founded on the best of all human impulses, her writings are grounded in the belief that our largest problems have grown from the earth's remotest corners as well as our own backyards, and that answers may lie in both those places. Sometimes grave, occasionally hilarious, and ultimately persuasive, Small Wonder is a hopeful examination of the people we seem to be, and what we might yet make of ourselves.

National Bestseller"A blend of breathtaking artistry, encyclopedic knowledge of the natural world. . . and ardent commitment to the supremacy of nature." -- San Francisco ChronicleIn this beautiful novel, Barbara Kingsolver, acclaimed author of The Poisonwood Bible and the Pulitzer-Prize winning Demon Copperhead, and recipient of the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguish Contribution to American Letters, weaves together three stories of human love within a larger tapestry of lives inhabiting the forested mountains and struggling small farms of southern Appalachia. Over the course of one humid summer, as the urge to procreate overtakes the lush countryside, this novel's intriguing protagonists--a reclusive wildlife biologist, a young farmer's wife marooned far from home, and a pair of elderly, feuding neighbors--face disparate predicaments but find connections to one another and to the flora and fauna with whom they necessarily share a place. Their discoveries are embedded inside countless intimate lessons of biology, the realities of small farming, and the final, urgent truth that humans are only one piece of life on earth. Prodigal Summer is a hymn to wildness that celebrates the prodigal spirit of human nature, and of nature itself.

A collection of pieces in which Barbara Kingsolver, author of the novel "Pigs in Heaven", explores her trademark themes of family, community and the natural world. The topics include Kentucky, housework, promiscuity, health clubs, the Canary Islands, rock and roll, space rockets, and Thoreau.

An enchanting and classic novel of a young woman's voyage of discovery across the Midwest.

National Bestseller"A blend of breathtaking artistry, encyclopedic knowledge of the natural world. . . and ardent commitment to the supremacy of nature." -- San Francisco ChronicleIn this beautiful novel, Barbara Kingsolver, acclaimed author of The Poisonwood Bible and the Pulitzer-Prize winning Demon Copperhead, and recipient of the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguish Contribution to American Letters, weaves together three stories of human love within a larger tapestry of lives inhabiting the forested mountains and struggling small farms of southern Appalachia. Over the course of one humid summer, as the urge to procreate overtakes the lush countryside, this novel's intriguing protagonists--a reclusive wildlife biologist, a young farmer's wife marooned far from home, and a pair of elderly, feuding neighbors--face disparate predicaments but find connections to one another and to the flora and fauna with whom they necessarily share a place. Their discoveries are embedded inside countless intimate lessons of biology, the realities of small farming, and the final, urgent truth that humans are only one piece of life on earth. Prodigal Summer is a hymn to wildness that celebrates the prodigal spirit of human nature, and of nature itself.

Myrkkypuun siemen on tarina lähetyssaarnaaja Nathan Pricen vaimosta ja neljästä tyttärestä, jotka saapuvat Belgian Kongoon vuonna 1959. Pian he joutuvat huomaamaan, että kaikki, mitä he ovat tuoneet mukanaan kotoaan aina raamatusta kukkien siemeniin muuttaa hallitsemattomasti muotoaan Afrikan maaperällä. Muuttoa Afrikkaan seuraa eeppinen tarina perheen traagisesta hajoamisesta ja ihmeellisestä eheytymisestä kolmen vuosikymmenen aikana kuohuvassa Afrikassa.

The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it--from garden seeds to Scripture--is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa. The novel is set against one of the most dramatic political chronicles of the twentieth century: the Congo's fight for independence from Belgium, the murder of its first elected prime minister, the CIA coup to install his replacement, and the insidious progress of a world economic order that robs the fledgling African nation of its autonomy. Against this backdrop, Orleanna Price reconstructs the story of her evangelist husband's part in the Western assault on Africa, a tale indelibly darkened by her own losses and unanswerable questions about her own culpability. Also narrating the story, by turns, are her four daughters--the self-centered, teenaged Rachel; shrewd adolescent twins Leah and Adah; and Ruth May, a prescient five-year-old. These sharply observant girls, who arrive in the Congo with racial preconceptions forged in 1950s Georgia, will be marked in surprisingly different ways by their father's intractable mission, and by Africa itself. Ultimately each must strike her own separate path to salvation. Their passionately intertwined stories become a compelling exploration of moral risk and personal responsibility. Dancing between the dark comedy of human failings and the breathtaking possibilities of human hope, The Poisonwood Bible possesses all that has distinguished Barbara Kingsolver's previous work, and extends this beloved writer's vision to an entirely new level. Taking its place alongside the classic works of postcolonial literature, this ambitious novel establishes Kingsolver as one of the most thoughtful and daring of modern writers.

Continuing the story begun in "The Bean Trees", this novel features the characters Taylor and Turtle as they witness an event whose repercussions will change their lives forever. By the author of "Animal Dreams" and "Homeland".

FROM THE WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTIONTWICE WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTIONTHE MULTI-MILLION COPY BESTSELLING AUTHORFrom the international bestselling and prize-winning author of Demon Copperhead, The Lacuna and Poisonwood Bible, the short stories in this collection are spread over landscapes ranging from northern California and the urban Southwest to the hills of eastern Kentucky and the Caribbean island of St Lucia. In every setting the characters are bound by a strong sense of place and the ties of love and family history: a child accepts the impossible responsibility of remembering her Cherokee great-grandmother's dying culture; a quietly dissolving couple must fight ghosts of past expectations to reach one another; a tough Mexican American woman finds herself in jail because of her commitment to a family legacy of 'doing the right thing'. Homeland and Other Stories follows in the tradition of some of the great short story writers of our time, including Alice Munro, Flannery O'Connor and Annie Proulx. With disarming honesty - at times comic but often heartrending - Barbara Kingsolver emerges as a true master of the form. What readers are saying:***** 'Wonderful short stories, warm and engaging, I couldn't put it down!'***** 'Thoroughly enjoyable. . . Barbara Kingsolver is one of the great storytellers of our time!'***** 'Great stories at times heartbreaking but combined with humour.'***** 'Phenomenal. I'm adding this to my list of reasons to love Barbara Kingsolver.'

Holding the Line, Barbara Kingsolver's first non-fiction book, is the story of women's lives transformed by an a signal event. Set in the small mining towns of Arizona, it is part oral history and part social criticism, exploring the process of empowerment which occurs when people work together as a community. Like Kingsolver's award-winning novels, Holding the Line is a beautifully written book grounded on the strength of its characters. Hundreds of families held the line in the 1983 strike against Phelps Dodge Copper in Arizona. After more than a year the strikers lost their union certification, but the battle permanently altered the social order in these small, predominantly Hispanic mining towns. At the time the strike began, many women said they couldn't leave the house without their husband's permission. Yet, when injunctions barred union men from picketing, their wives and daughters turned out for the daily picket lines. When the strike dragged on and men left to seek jobs elsewhere, women continued to picket, organize support, and defend their rights even when the towns were occupied by the National Guard. "Nothing can ever be the same as it was before," said Diane McCormick of the Morenci Miners Women's Auxiliary. "Look at us. At the beginning of this strike, we were just a bunch of ladies."

A wonderful novel about unravelling a young woman's secret past

LAKUNEN er historien om Harrison William Shepherd, en uforglemmelig person fanget mellom Mexicos varme hjerte og 50-tallets politisk korrekte og kalde USA. Harrison søker tilflukt i hjemmet til kunstnerparet Diego Rivera og Frida Kahlo, hvor han blir ansatt som kjøkkenhjelp og senere som kokk, og et livslangt vennskap mellom ham og Kahlo begynner å utvikle seg. Romanens handling spenner fra en liten øy i Mexico i 1929, til USA under andre verdenskrig og kommunistjakten på 50-tallet, tilbake til havet utenfor Mexico City. Politiske hendelser og personlige tragedier trer fram gjennom dagboknotater og avisutklipp. Dette er en gripende historie om jakten på identitet, om lojalitet til en spesiell mor og om hvordan falske anklager kan knuse uskyldige mennesker. Romanen er en bestselger i USA og England. Kingsolver's gripende beskrivelse av livet i Mexico City flommer over av detaljer som vil gi deg følelsen av å være der. Tykke søte brød, sprudlende malte vegger, de nydelige, hvite føttene til en uoppnåelig kvinne. The New Yorker