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Cherries in Winter
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Peter Ackroyd
A short essay by Peter Ackroyd about his 2009 novel The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein
Hilary Mantel
Hilary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall, discusses her Booker shortlisted novel at the the London bookstore, Daunt Books (3 part video)
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   Summary and Book Reviews

Prodigal Summer: Summary and book reviews of Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver, plus links to an excerpt from Prodigal Summer and a biography of Barbara Kingsolver.

Prodigal Summer Prodigal Summer
by Barbara Kingsolver
Hardcover: Oct 2000,
464 pages.
Paperback: Oct 2001,
434 pages.

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Barbara Kingsolver, a writer praised for her "extravagantly gifted narrative voice" (New York Times Book Review), has created with this novel a hymn to wildness that celebrates the prodigal spirit of human nature, and of nature itself.

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. 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 the forest from her outpost in 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 confound her self-assured, solitary life. On a farm several miles down the mountain, another web of lives unfolds as 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. 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 complexities of a world neither of them expected.

Over the course of one humid summer, as the urge to procreate overtakes a green and profligate countryside, these characters find connections to one another and to the flora and fauna with which they necessarily share a place. Their discoveries are embedded inside countless intimate lessons of biology, the realities of small farming, and the final, urgent truth that humans are only one part of life on earth.

With the richness that characterizes Barbara Kingsolver's finest work, Prodigal Summer embraces pure thematic originality and demonstrates a balance of narrative and ideas that only an accomplished novelist could render so beautifully.

Book Reviews


 US Magazine
Kingsolver deftly addresses the struggle between mankind and nature ... A lush ... novel of love and loss in Appalachia.

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

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

 Glamour Magazine
Compelling ... Lives that are less simple, and far more passionate, than they appear.

 Christian Science Monitor
Prodigal Summer is full of ... tenderness, humour and earthy spirituality ... Kingsolver's dialogue is absolutely natural, often funny, and sometimes heartbreaking.

 Creative Loafing
... a story of the many ways to define family -- human or not ... full of joy, warmth, and sweet surprise.

 San Francisco Chronicle
A blend of breathtaking artistry, encyclopedic knowledge of the natural world ... and ardent commitment to the supremacy of nature.

 New York Times Book Review
[An] extravagantly gifted narrative voice.

 Time
Kingsolver is a gifted magician of words.

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

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

 Buffalo News
As lush, rich and abundant as nature itself ... Prodigal Summer is quietly breathtaking, and its vista awe-inspiring.


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