shopping cart
Call us:  800-878-7323 HELP
McAfee SECURE helps keep you safe from identity theft, credit card fraud, spyware, spam, viruses and online scams.
Interviews | June 19, 2009

All posts by Dave Jim Lynch Makes Landscape Art... Out of Text

If Carl Hiaasen set one of his novels on a residential stretch of boundary line between British Columbia and Washington, or if Richard Russo's characters had relatives in the Pacific Northwest, the result might be something like Jim Lynch's Border Songs. Continue »


  1. $18.16 Sale Hardcover add to wish list

    Border Songs

    Jim Lynch

Prodigal Summer

by Barbara Kingsolver

Prodigal Summer Cover

Synopses & Reviews

From Powells.com:

After earning international acclaim with The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver returns in Prodigal Summer to her childhood stomping grounds of southern Appalachia, making a stop on the New York Times Bestseller list along the way. This award winning fifth novel is somewhat lighter than her earlier works, though no less meaningful and certainly just as entertaining. Kingsolver deftly embraces new risks, largely in the interaction of setting and plot lines that carry her message. High above the Zebulon Valley, a reclusive Forest Service biologist is forced to consider her own connection with humanity when a young bounty hunter trailing the same coyotes she's observing becomes her unlikely companion. Down the mountain, a young widow faces a choice between protecting her heart (by moving back to the city) or pouring it into the land to which she has become deeply attached. Further down the road, two elderly neighbors squabbling over pesticides and God are drawn together by their ideological differences to share a lesson in interdependence. All three plots unfold as the nature within and around them follows the abundant summer's urging to procreate. Where lesser writers would turn these fertile scenes into a prodigal disaster, Kingsolver weaves instead a beautifully detailed, touching meditation on nature and the connection that all things share within it. Prodigal Summer's carefully crafted ecological treatise is a love story told with Kingsolver's signature keen observations and earthy, poetic wit. Powell's customers named Prodigal Summer among their favorites and it's sure to please others in search of a richly refreshing, heartwarming and thoughtful read. Lilus, Powells.com

Publisher Comments:

Prodigal Summer weaves together three stories of human love within a larger tapestry of lives inhabiting the forested mountains and struggling small farms of southern Appalachia. From her outpost in an isolated mountain cabin, Deanna Wolfe, a reclusive wildlife biologist, watches a den of coyotes that have recently migrated into the region. She is caught off-guard by a young hunter who invades her most private spaces and confounds her self-assured, solitary life. On a farm several miles down the mountain, Lusa Maluf Landowski, a bookish city girl turned farmer's wife, finds herself unexpectedly marooned in a strange place where she must declare or lose her attachment to the land that has become her own. And a few more miles down the road, a pair of elderly, feuding neighbors tend their respective farms and wrangle about God, pesticides, and the possibilities of a future neither of them expected.

Over the course of one humid summer, as the urge to procreate overtakes the countryside, these characters find their connections to one another and to the flora and fauna with whom they share a place. With the complexity that characterizes Barbara Kingsolver's finest work, Prodigal Summer embraces pure thematic originality and demonstrates a balance of narrative, drama, and ideas that render it an inspiring work of fiction.

Review:

"Kingsolver is a gifted magician of words." Time

Review:

"A triumphant return to the southern Appalachians of her own childhood." Orlando Sentinal

Review:

"[Kingslover's] sexy, lyrical fifth novel renders our solitary yearnings with a finely trained eye and ear." People

Review:

"Ms. Kingsolver's writing is generously well-grafted; choice moments... radiate from nearly every page." Wall Street Journal

Review:

"A warm, intricately constructed book shot through with an extraordinary amount of insight and information about the wonders of the invisible world. " Newsweek

Synopsis:

Barbara Kingsolver's fifth novel is a hymn to wildness that celebrates the prodigal spirit of human nature, and of nature itself. It weaves together three stories of human love within a larger tapestry of lives amid the mountains and farms of southern Appalachia. Over the course of one humid summer, this novel's intriguing protagonists face disparate predicaments but find connections to one another and to the flora and fauna with which they necessarily share a place.

Synopsis:

In a beautiful hymn to wildness, Kingsolver celebrates the prodigal spirit of human nature and of nature itself. Over the course of one humid summer, as the urge to procreate takes over the countryside, the novel's characters find their connections to one another in the forested mountains of southern Appalachia.

About the Author

Barbara Kingsolver's twelve books of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction include the novels The Bean Trees and The Poisonwood Bible. Translated into nineteen languages, her work has won a devoted worldwide readership and many awards, including the National Humanities Medal.

What Our Readers Are Saying

Add a comment for a chance to win!
Average customer rating based on 4 comments:
Janice Prindle, June 25, 2009 (view all comments by Janice Prindle)
This is far superior to 'lit lite' for summer reading, even though it's just as easy to sink into, and would be perfect for a hammock! Three characters, each deeply connected with the land they live on, yet estranged from their human community, are forced to rethink their relationships with nature, and in the process bring themselves into harmony with other people. By the end of the novel, we discover how the three are connected to one another as well: a wonderful way for the reader to experience the deep message that every one of us is part of the great web of life. Fun, sexy, lyrical and profound!
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No
Denise Barnett, October 13, 2008 (view all comments by Denise Barnett)
I want land..lots of land to grow my own food! You will too after you read this interesting, informative and true tale. At the very least, you will want to buy organic and for all the right reasons.
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No
(1 of 6 readers found this comment helpful)
Alaya, May 2, 2008 (view all comments by Alaya)
A beautiful book full of delicately woven connections between humans - both in relationship to one another, and to the natural world around them, which resonates this: these ties, should we choose to be aware, are vital to our survival. This sumptuous novel explores the most tender emotions surrounding the heart. Prodigal Summer illuminates snapshots of situations in which the connected cycles that all living beings move through, are plainly valid - thus championing the very concept of ecology itself.
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No
(3 of 4 readers found this comment helpful)
View all 4 comments

Product Details

ISBN:
9780060959036
Author:
Kingsolver, Barbara
Publisher:
Harper Perennial
Author:
by Barbara Kingsolver
Location:
New York
Subject:
General
Subject:
Literature
Subject:
Farm life
Subject:
Natural history
Subject:
Mountain life
Subject:
Domestic fiction
Subject:
Appalachian Region, Southern
Subject:
General Fiction
Copyright:
Edition Number:
1st pbk. ed.
Series Volume:
5
Publication Date:
October 16, 2001
Binding:
Paperback
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Pages:
464
Dimensions:
7.96x5.38x1.09 in. .77 lbs.

Other books you might like

  1. $5.95 Used Trade Paper add to wish list

    The Poisonwood Bible

    Barbara Kingsolver
  2. $10.00 Used Hardcover add to wish list
  3. $4.95 Used Trade Paper add to wish list

    Animal Dreams

    Barbara Kingsolver
  4. $6.50 Used Trade Paper add to wish list

    The Red Tent

    Anita Diamant
  5. $8.95 Used Trade Paper add to wish list

    Fight Club

    Chuck Palahniuk
  6. $6.50 Used Trade Paper add to wish list

    The Secret Life of Bees

    Sue Monk Kidd

Related Aisles

  • back to top

Powell's City of Books is an independent bookstore in Portland, Oregon, that fills a whole city block with more than a million new, used, and out of print books. Shop those shelves — plus literally millions more books, DVDs, and eBooks — here at Powells.com.