Prodigal Summer: A Novel
4 journalers for this copy...
The stories of three people (forest service employee, scientist-turned-farmer's wife, and retired school teacher) all living in the southern Appalachia during one summer.
Postal release to DSM in Michigan - enjoy!
I LOVED this book! The way Barbara Kingsolver pulled me into her story - the way she can create the vision through her words is amazing. I truly felt as if I was in the wilderness, apple orchard, and all the other places she wrote of during this book. I'm recommending to everyone I know to read.
Amazon.com
There is no one in contemporary literature quite like Barbara Kingsolver. Her dialogue sparkles with sassy wit and earthy poetry; her descriptions are rooted in daily life but are also on familiar terms with the eternal. With Prodigal Summer, she returns from the Congo to a "wrinkle on the map that lies between farms and wildness." And there, in an isolated pocket of southern Appalachia, she recounts not one but three intricate stories.
Exuberant, lush, riotous--the summer of the novel is "the season of extravagant procreation" in which bullfrogs carelessly lay their jellied masses of eggs in the grass, "apparently confident that their tadpoles would be able to swim through the lawn like little sperms," and in which a woman may learn to "tell time with her skin." It is also the summer in which a family of coyotes moves into the mountains above Zebulon Valley:
The ghost of a creature long extinct was coming in on silent footprints, returning to the place it had once held in the complex anatomy of this forest like a beating heart returned to its body. This is what she believed she would see, if she watched, at this magical juncture: a restoration.
The "she" is Deanna Wolfe, a wildlife biologist observing the coyotes from her isolated aerie--isolated, that is, until the arrival of a young hunter who makes her even more aware of the truth that humans are only an infinitesimal portion in the ecological balance. This truth forms the axis around which the other two narratives revolve: the story of a city girl, entomologist, and new widow and her efforts to find a place for herself; and the story of Garnett Walker and Nannie Rawley, who seem bent on thrashing out the countless intimate lessons of biology as only an irascible traditional farmer and a devotee of organic agriculture can. As Nannie lectures Garnett, "Everything alive is connected to every other by fine, invisible threads. Things you don't see can help you plenty, and things you try to control will often rear back and bite you, and that's the moral of the story."
Structurally, that gossamer web is the story: images, phrases, and events link the narratives, and these echoes are rarely obvious, always serendipitous. Kingsolver is one of those authors for whom the terrifying elegance of nature is both aesthetic wonder and source of a fierce and abiding moral vision. She may have inherited Thoreau's mantle, but she piles up riches of her own making, blending her extravagant narrative gift with benevolent concise humor. She treads the line between the sentimental and the glorious like nobody else in American literature
Sending this to fellow bookcrosser LHB
Amazon.com
There is no one in contemporary literature quite like Barbara Kingsolver. Her dialogue sparkles with sassy wit and earthy poetry; her descriptions are rooted in daily life but are also on familiar terms with the eternal. With Prodigal Summer, she returns from the Congo to a "wrinkle on the map that lies between farms and wildness." And there, in an isolated pocket of southern Appalachia, she recounts not one but three intricate stories.
Exuberant, lush, riotous--the summer of the novel is "the season of extravagant procreation" in which bullfrogs carelessly lay their jellied masses of eggs in the grass, "apparently confident that their tadpoles would be able to swim through the lawn like little sperms," and in which a woman may learn to "tell time with her skin." It is also the summer in which a family of coyotes moves into the mountains above Zebulon Valley:
The ghost of a creature long extinct was coming in on silent footprints, returning to the place it had once held in the complex anatomy of this forest like a beating heart returned to its body. This is what she believed she would see, if she watched, at this magical juncture: a restoration.
The "she" is Deanna Wolfe, a wildlife biologist observing the coyotes from her isolated aerie--isolated, that is, until the arrival of a young hunter who makes her even more aware of the truth that humans are only an infinitesimal portion in the ecological balance. This truth forms the axis around which the other two narratives revolve: the story of a city girl, entomologist, and new widow and her efforts to find a place for herself; and the story of Garnett Walker and Nannie Rawley, who seem bent on thrashing out the countless intimate lessons of biology as only an irascible traditional farmer and a devotee of organic agriculture can. As Nannie lectures Garnett, "Everything alive is connected to every other by fine, invisible threads. Things you don't see can help you plenty, and things you try to control will often rear back and bite you, and that's the moral of the story."
Structurally, that gossamer web is the story: images, phrases, and events link the narratives, and these echoes are rarely obvious, always serendipitous. Kingsolver is one of those authors for whom the terrifying elegance of nature is both aesthetic wonder and source of a fierce and abiding moral vision. She may have inherited Thoreau's mantle, but she piles up riches of her own making, blending her extravagant narrative gift with benevolent concise humor. She treads the line between the sentimental and the glorious like nobody else in American literature
Sending this to fellow bookcrosser LHB
Released on Monday, August 25, 2003 at Given to my Mama! in Bad Axe, Michigan USA.
Giving to fellow bookcrosser LHB!
Giving to fellow bookcrosser LHB!
Just received from DSM !
I loved this book! Those two oldies had me cracking up! Giving back to DSM so she can create a bookray from it.
A great book everyone should read!
A great book everyone should read!
I enjoyed this book so much that I made my mom (LHB) give it back to me so I can create a Book Ray out of it! :o)
Bookcrossing members so far:
hathyia ---> Malaysia ---> has her nose in it!
Babybee --->malaysia
Hawkette ---> Australia
Vi0let ---> Finland
Andthings ---> UK
narfinmagic ---> New Jersey, USA
Ilios ---> Forida, USA
Summermarie ---> Virgina, USA
bookhogger ---> Nova Scotia, Canada
jarrett622 ---> Virginia
tnelson99 ---> Missouri, USA
kdhnow ---> North Carolina, USA
I am currently still accepting new members, they will be added to the END of this list so none of you will 'loose your place' so to speak. If someone drops out, yall will move up - I will not move someone else up in their place.
As a member, you will receive the book from the person listed before you. When you receive the book, please make a journal entry at BookCrossing stating that you’ve received it and read it as soon as you can (don't rush, just be reasonable about the length of time). I suggest that you PM the next person on the list to request their address so you can send it as soon as you're finished and not have to wait for their address. If you don't hear from them within a weeks time, two PM's, AND you're finished reading the book, please move on to the next person on the list - PM me and let me know. After you've read the book, please journal again at BookCrossing with your comments . I'll make a final loop back for anyone who misses out due to holidays, etc, but I'd like to keep the book travelling reasonably quickly. Mailing the book by media mail is the least expensive way (or surface mail if it's sent overseas).
If any questions come up, please send a PM to me.
If there is no one on the list after you, please return the book to me. I will send the book out again if I get more participants.
Please remember that there's a list of readers patiently waiting to read the book after you. With that in mind, I would ask that you try to get it back on the road again within a couple of weeks of receiving it. If your turn is approaching and you find that you've overextended yourself with rings and/or rays, drop me a line and we'll work something out.
Many thanks for your co-operation, and I hope everyone enjoys this bookring!
Bookcrossing members so far:
hathyia ---> Malaysia ---> has her nose in it!
Babybee --->malaysia
Hawkette ---> Australia
Vi0let ---> Finland
Andthings ---> UK
narfinmagic ---> New Jersey, USA
Ilios ---> Forida, USA
Summermarie ---> Virgina, USA
bookhogger ---> Nova Scotia, Canada
jarrett622 ---> Virginia
tnelson99 ---> Missouri, USA
kdhnow ---> North Carolina, USA
I am currently still accepting new members, they will be added to the END of this list so none of you will 'loose your place' so to speak. If someone drops out, yall will move up - I will not move someone else up in their place.
As a member, you will receive the book from the person listed before you. When you receive the book, please make a journal entry at BookCrossing stating that you’ve received it and read it as soon as you can (don't rush, just be reasonable about the length of time). I suggest that you PM the next person on the list to request their address so you can send it as soon as you're finished and not have to wait for their address. If you don't hear from them within a weeks time, two PM's, AND you're finished reading the book, please move on to the next person on the list - PM me and let me know. After you've read the book, please journal again at BookCrossing with your comments . I'll make a final loop back for anyone who misses out due to holidays, etc, but I'd like to keep the book travelling reasonably quickly. Mailing the book by media mail is the least expensive way (or surface mail if it's sent overseas).
If any questions come up, please send a PM to me.
If there is no one on the list after you, please return the book to me. I will send the book out again if I get more participants.
Please remember that there's a list of readers patiently waiting to read the book after you. With that in mind, I would ask that you try to get it back on the road again within a couple of weeks of receiving it. If your turn is approaching and you find that you've overextended yourself with rings and/or rays, drop me a line and we'll work something out.
Many thanks for your co-operation, and I hope everyone enjoys this bookring!
Release planned for Friday, December 05, 2003 at Post Office in Bad Axe, Michigan USA.
Sending to hathyia - the first person in this bookring! This is one of my favorite books - I hope you enjoy it.
Sending to hathyia - the first person in this bookring! This is one of my favorite books - I hope you enjoy it.
Since this books seems like it will never leave here, another kind bookcrosser has offered up their copy to continue this bookray. The new BCID # 107-893312
The new list will look like this (since our kind donor can't send overseas)
Ilios ---> Forida, USA
tnelson99 ---> Missouri, USA
kdhnow ---> North Carolina, USA
jarrett622 ---> Virginia
Summermarie ---> Virgina, USA
narfinmagic ---> New Jersey, USA
bookhogger ---> Nova Scotia, Canada
Andthings ---> UK
Vi0let ---> Finland
Babybee --->malaysia
Hawkette ---> Australia
The new list will look like this (since our kind donor can't send overseas)
Ilios ---> Forida, USA
tnelson99 ---> Missouri, USA
kdhnow ---> North Carolina, USA
jarrett622 ---> Virginia
Summermarie ---> Virgina, USA
narfinmagic ---> New Jersey, USA
bookhogger ---> Nova Scotia, Canada
Andthings ---> UK
Vi0let ---> Finland
Babybee --->malaysia
Hawkette ---> Australia
