Showing results by author "Barbara Kingsolver" in All Categories

On the Appalachian Mountains above her home, a young mother discovers a beautiful and terrible marvel of nature. As the world around her is suddenly transformed by a seeming miracle, can the old certainties they have lived by for centuries remain unchallenged? Flight Behaviour is a captivating, topical and deeply human story touching on class, poverty and climate change. It explores the truths we live by, and the complexities that lie behind them.

2016 Vineland. Meet Willa Knox, a woman who stands braced against the vicissitudes of her shattered life and family - and the crumbling house that contains her. 1871 Vineland. Thatcher Greenwood, the new science teacher, is a fervent advocate of the work of Charles Darwin, and he is keen to communicate his ideas to his students. But those in power in Thatcher's small town have no desire for a new world order. Thatcher and his teachings are not welcome. Both Willa and Thatcher resist the prevailing logic. Both are asked to pay a high price for their courage.

This is the tale of Demon Copperhead: our hero. A boy with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-coloured hair, bucket-loads of charm and a talent or two the world is yet to discover. Born to a teenaged single mother in a single wide trailer, life is not set fair for Demon as he escorts us on this, his journey through the modern perils of foster care, athletic success and addiction, the dizzying highs of true love, and the crushing losses that can accompany it.

Born in the US and reared in Mexico, Harrison Shepherd is a liability to his social-climbing mother, Salome. When a violent incident sends him to North Carolina, he remakes himself in America's hopeful image. But political winds continue to throw him between north and south, in a plot that turns many times on the unspeakable breach - the lacuna - between truth and public presumption.

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.

Prodigal Summer weaves together three stories of human love within a larger tapestry of lives in southern Appalachia. At the heart of these intertwined narratives is a den of coyotes that have recently migrated into the region. Deanna Wolfe, a reclusive wildlife biologist, watches them from an isolated mountain cabin where she is caught off-guard by Eddie Bondo, a young hunter who comes to invade her most private spaces and her solitary life.

Una rivisitazione in chiave moderna di David Copperfield ambientata nella Virginia dei giorni nostri. Demon, figlio di una madre single e adolescente e nato in una roulotte, non possiede altro che un’arguzia feroce e un talento per la sopravvivenza. Tra i pericoli moderni dell’affidamento, il lavoro minorile, l’abbandono scolastico, il successo nello sport, i primi amori, la dipendenza e sconfitte di vario genere, Demon dovrà fare i conti con una società per la quale è invisibile, in cui persino i supereroi hanno abbandonato la provincia a favore delle grandi città.

Holding the Line, Barbara Kingsolver's first nonfiction 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 that 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.

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.

Barbara Kingsolver ontving de Pulitzer Prize en de Women's Prize for Fiction 2023 voor Demon Copperhead, een beeldend en episch verhaal over een jongen die opgroeit te midden van armoede en drugsverslaving. Damon Fields, het zoontje van een alleenstaande tienermoeder, woont in een trailer in de bergen van de zuidelijke Appalachen. Hij heeft hetzelfde koperkleurige haar als zijn overleden vader, aan wie hij ook de bijnaam 'Demon Copperhead' te danken heeft. Afgezien van goede looks, bijtende humor en overlevingsdrift zit hem weinig mee in het leven. Zijn moeder worstelt met haar verslaving aan pijnstillers.

Barbara Kingsolver's generous collection is divided into thematic sections that loop and interweave to form a carefully patterned whole: a series of 'How to' poems that smartly balance tongue-in-cheek pragmatism with revelatory wisdom, a complicated yet affirmative family pilgrimage to Italy, cherished childhood memories, the perils and pleasures of being a [female] writer, elegies to lost loved ones and elegies to the planet.

Ein Trailer in den Wäldern Virginias. Das Land der Tabakfarmer und Schwarzbrenner, der "Hillbilly-Cadillac"-Stoßstangenaufkleber an rostigen Pickups, aufgegeben von sämtlichen Superhelden und dem Rest der Nation. Hier kommt Demon Copperhead zur Welt – die Mutter ist noch ein Teenie und frisch auf Entzug, der Vater tot. Ein Junge mit kupferroten Haaren, großer Klappe und einem zähen Überlebenswillen, trotz allem, was das Leben für ihn bereithält: Armut, Pflegefamilien, Drogensucht, erste Liebe und unermesslicher Verlust. Es ist seine Geschichte, erzählt in seinen Worten, unbekümmert, vorwitzig, von übersprudelnder Lebenskraft.

Harrison William Shepherd, da ragazzino, si tuffa nell'imboccatura di una grotta sottomarina ed riemerge in uno cenote, nel mezzo della giungla messicana, bordato di coralli spezzati e dal fondo ricoperto di ossa umane. Ossessionato da quel passaggio, comincerà a riempire taccuini interi di storie e ricordi.

Alles scheint um Willa Knox zusammenzubrechen: Als freie Journalistin steht sie ohne Aufträge da. Ihr Mann Iano verliert seine Professur, Sohn Zeke ist gerade Vater geworden – aber alleinerziehend. Und ihr schwerkranker Schwiegervater schwärmt vom "Megafon", dem republikanischen Präsidentschaftskandidaten. Am selben Fleck, 150 Jahre zuvor, freundet sich ein Lehrer namens Thatcher mit seiner eigenbrötlerischen Nachbarin an. Die Naturforscherin Mary Treat steht in lebhaftem Austausch mit Charles Darwin, doch in der verschworenen Ortsgemeinschaft wird die Theorie von der Evolution als Sünde angeprangert.

DESPRE AUDIOBOOK. Autoare distinsă cu Premiul Pulitzer pentru Ficțiune în 2023. Bestseller New York Times. Într-un orășel din America zilelor noastre, Willa Knox și familia ei se luptă cu o precaritate dezarmantă: sărăcie, șomaj, doliu, boală și lipsa oricărei siguranțe materiale – crize personale care se profilează pe fundalul unei și mai amenințătoare crize globale. În același oraș, dar în 1874, sosește Thatcher Greenwood.

Historien udspiller sig i en afsidesliggende dal i Appalacherne i løbet af én lang og varm sommer og beskriver tre kvinder, som på en eller anden måde ikke er faldet til i samfundet. Oppe på bjergskråningen lever Deanne Wolf et eneboerliv som vildtbiolog. I dalen nedenunder bor Lusa Landowski, født og opvokset i en storby og af samme grund aldrig accepteret i det lille samfund. I dalen bor også Nannie Rawley, der er hæmningsløs i sin kampagne for et renere miljø.

Det er bestemt ikke med let hjerte, at Orleanna Price og hendes fire døtre, Rachel, tvillingeparret Leah og Adah, samt lille Ruth May i 1959 følger deres ægtemand og far til missionsstationen dybt inde i Belgisk Congos allertætteste jungle, langt fra al civilisation. Alene det at vælge de få ting, de kan tage med sig (et spejl, er et spejl en absolut nødvendighed?), udløser mange tårevædede scener. Og ankomsten til missionsstationen bekræfter den kvindelige del af familien i deres allerværste anelser – og en hel del mere.

" Déjà, je me suis mis au monde tout seul. Ils étaient trois ou quatre à assister à l’événement, et ils m’ont toujours accordé une chose : c’est moi qui ai dû me taper le plus dur, vu que ma mère était, disons, hors du coup. " Né à même le sol d’un mobil-home au fin fond des Appalaches d’une jeune toxicomane et d’un père trop tôt disparu, Demon Copperhead est le digne héritier d’un célèbre personnage de Charles Dickens.