Most readers will agree that Barbara Kingsolver is a wonderful writer. Our book club just finished Flight Behavior. Some thought it was a little too long but overall we highly recommend it.
Her sentences are so beautifully written that you want to share and remember them. Then you realize you'd be copying down the entire book. As Time Magazine says "Kingsolver is a gifted magician of words".
She is also funny and spot-on in her observations. Here are samplings from Flight Behavior:
"Honk of you love Jesus, text while driving if you want to meet up."
"Will you explain to me why people encourage delusional behavior in children and medicate it in adults."
"I never learn anything from listening to myself."
In Flight Behavior we get to know Dellarobia Turnbow from Appalachia who is running from her stifling life when she happens onto a shocking "valley of fire" filled with millions of monarch butterflies. The butterflies draw scientists, the media and local townspeople with everyone weighing in on explanations as to why the butterflies are where they aren't supposed to be.
Kingsolver's books are known for pushing her personal convictions and in this novel it is climate change. Amazon says "she never reduces her characters to mouthpieces" which we all agreed was true.
She is the author of several highly acclaimed novels including The Poisonwood Bible which follows a missionary family in the Congo. It is interesting to note that when Kingsolver was seven years old her physician father took the family to the former Republic of Congo for his work in a health care capacity. She also wrote about her family's attempts to eat locally in the non-fiction Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.
She has received numerous awards and prizes and has been nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award and The Pulizer Prize.
Flight Behavior and any other of her works are great book club selections as they bring up interesting and possibly controversial topics leading to living discussions. Check one out today.
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