Barbara Kingsolver's essays move at an unrushed pace, but they grab you. Take, for example, the tender choreography of opening lines of "Letter To My Mother": "I imagine you putting on your glasses to read this letter. Oh, Lord, what now? You tilt your head back and hold the page away from you, with your left hand flat on your chest protecting your heart." Or the one paragraph teaser for "Stealing Apples": "I have never yet been able to say out loud that I am a poet." Like the pieces in her High Tide in Tucson, these essays stretch out in front of us with a leisure of a quiet, overdue conversation.

Principally known as the author of such bestselling novels as The Bean Trees and The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver grew up shy and studious, got a degree in biology and currently divides her time between writing, raising two daughters and—with her husband, an ornithologist—working for conservation and humanitarian causes. She grows her own vegetables and for part of the year lives simply in a rural cabin with feeble electrical wiring, hummingbirds outside her kitchen window and a driveway half a mile long. We learn all this in Kingsolver's latest collection of essays, which reveals its author to possess many redeeming facets. Observant, imaginative, both lucid and impassioned, Kingsolver writes effectively about her family and the natural world.

The personal essays make us feel we understand Kingsolver so well that it is a shame the essay "Small Wonder" comes first. This confused and rambling work is a meditation on two things that the author attempts to link: the bombing campaign after September 11, in Afghanistan, and the discovery of a lost child in Iran who, according to news service stories, had been kept alive by a female bear. Marked by sentimentality, the essay never really confronts how America should deal with enemies who would gladly destroy it. Kingsolver's suggested metaphorical alternative, lulling the enemy to sleep with an "elixir of contentment," is so vague and wishful that it's impossible to take seriously.

A few of the entries in this collection make too-easy historical or political assumptions that amount to errors of fact. In "Small Wonder," for example, Kingsolver wrongly argues that the modern age is unique inhaving to envision problems of global dimensions. Even during the Black Death, Kingsolver asserts, "They couldn't imagine a wreckage so appalling as the end of humankind on a planet made squalid by man's own hand." There is plenty of historical evidence, however, that that is precisely what people did imagine, although the squalor was moral rather than ecological.

Perhaps more alarming than the mistakes and lapses in logic are the arrogant ways Kingsolver occasionally asserts her intellectual rigor. "I've tossed aside stories because of botched Spanish or French phrases.... stopped reading books in which birds sang on the wrong continents or full moons appeared two weeks apart," she admits in "What Good Is a Story?", which provides criteria for what she thinks constitutes good writing. One can't help but wonder if the author ever stopped to consider how this sort of finger-pointing might impact her own credibility.

In spite of the book's annoying flaws, there is still plenty here to admire and enjoy. The essays that focus on Kingsolver's family and the natural world, effortlessly linking daily matters to global issues, are altogether marvelous. In "Lily's Chickens," she describes the small flock of hens, bought to please her five-year-old daughter, Lily, and kept in line by Mr. Doodle, a rooster whose absurd machismo becomes endearing. Lily tends the hens, feeds them and proudly carries the first egg into the kitchen, shouting, "Attention everybody, I have an announcement: FREE BREAKFAST." Meanwhile, Kingsolver describes the benefits of raising food locally, pointing out that the average supermarket food item travels 1,300 miles—an avoidable waste of natural resources.

In every case, she is on the side of nature and the preservation of its diversity, whether explaining, in "A Fist in the Eye of God," exactly why genetic engineering poses a terrible long-term risk, or exploring, in "The One-Eyed Monster, and Why I Don't Let Him In," the disastrous limitations of television. "The world, a much wider place than seventeen inches, includes songbird migration, emphysema, pollinating insects, the Krebs cycle ... and a trillion other things outside the notice of CNN," Kingsolver reminds us. In some essays, the tone is more scientific than personal; in others, such as the wonderful "Letter to My Mother," the tone is intimate without being oppressively close.

While far from perfect, this book expresses the misgivings and despair experienced by many of us, and counters our shared sense of loss with the treasures of a quiet life. It is fascinating that in her essay on what makes a story valuable, Kingsolver never mentions the companionship of a narrative voice—fallible but intimate—when such a voice is her greatest strength.
—Penelope Mesic

This book of essays by Kingsolver (The Poisonwood Bible, etc.) is like a visit from a cherished old friend. Conversation ranges from what Kingsolver ate on a trip to Japan to wonder over a news story about a she-bear who suckled a lost child to how it feels to be an American idealist living in a post-September 11 world. She tackles some sticky issues, among them the question of who is entitled to wave the American flag and why, and some possible reasons why our nation has been targeted for terror by angry fundamentalists and what we can do to ease our anxiety over the new reality while respecting the rest of planet Earth's inhabitants. Kingsolver has strong opinions, but has a gift for explaining what she thinks and how she arrived at her conclusions in a way that gives readers plenty of room to disagree comfortably. But Kingsolver's essays also reward her readers in other ways. As she puts it herself in "What Good Is a Story": "We are nothing if we can't respect our readers." Respect for the intelligence of her audience is apparent everywhere in this outstanding collection. Illus. (Apr. 20) Forecast: Kingsolver's name means bestseller potential, possibly aided by the possibility of revisiting the controversy she has aroused with her response to September 11. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

This collection of 23 essays covers topics both global and personal, ranging from September 11 to Kingsolver's vegetable garden. A few have been previously published in natural history magazines and newspapers, but most debut here. A biology and ecology major and former scientific writer and journalist, Kingsolver is a one-woman soiree, presenting well-wrought scientific views about Darwinian theory and genetic engineering alongside personal narratives that deliver universal homilies-watching television, a date rape, and her daughter and her mother. There could be no better reader for these vignettes than the author herself; her Kentucky lilt adds intimacy to the discourse, as if she were a friend chatting over a cup of tea. This gentle, intelligent gadfly will provide intellectual stimulation, whether or not the listener agrees with her positions. Highly recommended for public and academic libraries.-Judith Robinson, Univ. at Buffalo, NY Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Wearing her essayist hat, novelist Kingsolver (The Poisonwood Bible, 1998, etc.) responds to the September 11th terror attacks with a collection addressing the wonders of life. In an effort to "burn and rave against the dying of all hope," Kingsolver offers a contemplation of how we are blessed in our lives and urges us to consider the planet we live on and those with whom we share it. Her first two essays disjointedly consider how the September 11th attacks may have come about and voice her distress over our wastefulness as a nation: "Americans and Europeans spend $17 billion a year on pet food." She then moves on to document her love affair with nature in an account of her two residences, one in Arizona and the other in Appalachia, where she works while looking at beautiful views. While she stresses repeatedly how blessed she is to have these twin retreats, it's somewhat jarring in conjunction with a preceding essay in which she writes, "For most of my life I've felt embarrassed by a facet of our national character that I would have to call prideful wastefulness." Kingsolver continues to rend our nation's collective garment as she moves on to discuss the scarlet macaw and habitat loss in general; freeing a hermit crab in the context of letting go of a "hunger to possess"; her daughter's chickens and "the energy crime of food transportation"; and why she doesn't have a television. All of Kingsolver's issues are worthy, certainly, but the work is made less palatable by what seems to be a naivete that surfaces when the author (mother of three) makes such statements as, "I can barely grasp the motives of a person who hits a child." Her best pieces-a discussion of adolescence addressed toher daughter; an essay on the difficulties of writing about sex-have a narrow focus. Good intentions and craft marred by sanctimony.

Observant, imaginative, and both lucid and impassioned.” — Book Magazine

“This book of essays by Barbara Kingsolver is like a visit from a cherished old friend.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Kingsolver possesses a rare depth of understanding of nature’s complex mechanisms.” — San Francisco Chronicle Book Review

“A delightful, challenging, and wonderfully informative book.” — San Francisco Chronicle

“Essays … [of] great skill and wisdom.” — Booklist

A delightful, challenging, and wonderfully informative book.

Kingsolver possesses a rare depth of understanding of nature’s complex mechanisms.

Observant, imaginative, and both lucid and impassioned.

Essays … [of] great skill and wisdom.

A delightful, challenging, and wonderfully informative book.

Essays … [of] great skill and wisdom.

Those familiar with Barbara Kingsolver’s work are aware of her distinctive literary voice. In the audiobook version of her most recent collection of essays, listeners are also treated to her actual voice, and the result is pleasing. With beautiful language and heartbreaking turns of phrase, Kingsolver reflects on the world community and one’s individual role in it. The author’s actual voice is as thoughtful and quietly strong as her written voice, lending a certain calm to her thought-provoking commentary. Hearing a brilliant author read her own work is rewarding in this case. No matter what one thinks about Kingsolver’s worldviews--she loves her country and sees its flaws as well--this audiobook is timely and interesting. L.B.F. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine