Barbara Kingsolver

[Tabac]

I read The Poisonwood Bible a few years ago and loved it. Now I'm in the middle of her first novel The Bean Trees , which is a good first, but not nearly as sophisticated as Poisonwood. She tells a good story!

This story is one of two young women from different backgrounds in Kentucky who end up, for entirely different reasons, in Tucson, where they share a house together. There is a constant study of contrast throughout the story, beginning with the ladies, their children, their pasts, their relationships with people they know in common. It's an interesting read.

And I've heard that her essays (she's a biologist by professional training) are excellent and pertinent to today's issues.

[clarity]

I haven't read either of the two that you mentioned, but I read Kingsolver's "Prodigal Summer" quite recently and I would recommend it.

[Kiwi Shelf]

I just bought The Poisonwood Bible and Prodigal Summer by her. Nice to see that people enjoy her. I look forward to starting them.

[genoveva]

I tried to read Animal Dreams but just couldn't. Is this her typical style? Poisonwood Bible has been recommended to me. What's it about?

[simon]

Poisonwood is much more sophisticated than Animan Dreams and the Bean Trees as Tabac said genoveva. But what is it that turned you off, then maybe I can tell you if you will like it. I have alos read her essays which I liked as well and Prodigal summer was not as good as the Poisonwood Bible I thought, the plot was alot harder to follow for me and it meandered too much, it just didn't seem as connected and "whole".

[genoveva]

what is it that turned you off, then maybe I can tell you if you will like it.

This may seem trivial, but in the opening, a woman is described (main character?) as walking down a street (I think) and the way she was described with point tipped shoes and a short (layered, feathered?) haircut- I believe she was a teacher? Anyway, just the way the character was described turned me off from the whole book. It felt a little too 1980's for me. Is that weird? Sometimes I don't give books enough time to grab my attention.