Customer Comments

This is a book I could not put down, could not wait to get back to. Kingsolver is completely entrancing, perfectly coordinating her interwoven plots so deftly and unpredictably that you almost don't mind each next switch. You're enlightened, learning more detail from her vast knowledge of natural facts. You're enchanted by her exquisite prose. You're moved by her devotion to the nuances of character. This, of hers, absorbed me more than any before or since. It's the kind of book you give to your favorite nature-loving people.

Reading Wordstruck is pure self-indulgence, if you respect Robert MacNeil as I do; if you love words themselves; if you know word usage can be as delicious as any slowly spooned pudding. MacNeil began absorbing his love for the sounds of words as a child, his mother reading to him. As a boy, his bedroom window availed him of the sound of fog horns off the shore of Nova Scotia, and when the Titanic sank, he witnessed the body bags being loaded ashore. He has a love of nature that abounds singing in this book. My copy is a treasure, and easily bears a second luxurious reading.