Prodigal Summer

Blog Update:  I know what you're thinking -- no I have not blog-faded. Did I consider taking a break, yes, but am I going to do that? No. I like having you guys around too much, I'm so ego-driven.  But while I took a short pause, I reflected on the blog a little and decided it's time for a change. In future blog which may or may not be called the Reader's Well which if you haven't noticed by now, means absolutely nothing, we'll have a new design up, some new gadgets/features and just more content having to do with books and all manner of things related and not-so-related. Hopefully we'll create a more fun place to drop in and relax, and content that's more true to what I want to write/post as a blogger and depending on your feedback, what you'd like to see every day.

Anyway, that's all for a quieter time than right now, so I'll leave you with a quick review of my latest, Barbara Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer.  I read the first 100 pages or so of this years ago, and had to return it to the library (yep one of those) - but in that short time, I picked up on Kingsolver's style and her devotion to the natural world and how people's lives are, or become, caught up in their various environments, and loved every word she wrote about it.  In this, her 9th book, she tells 3 stories that take place simultaneously in the beautiful landscape of Appalachia:

• Moth Love, about a young newlywed woman who moved out of her city life to make way for farming with her husband in a close-knit rural area, where she becomes an outcast, a foreigner to both the family and the culture she's married into.
• Predators, about a middle-aged biologist woman who for the love of nature has chosen to live alone in the middle of the Zebulon forest, or alone until she is approached by a man who turns out to represent everything she loathes about the world of people she has left.
• Old Chestnuts, about an elderly man who has lived his whole life on a farm that has been partially usurped by his annoying organic neighbor who refuses to let him have his way with people and bugs and plants alike.

Sound fun? It's fun. The novel is packed with moments of clarity experienced by these characters that jump out at you and make you want to cry for them and fight for them.  And it is not necessarily the 3 main characters you will most understand at any given time. You're in for a treat with Kingsolver if you like a good story about our connections with the world around us, in all its plentiful forms, and some scrumptious descriptions of forests, farms and bug-life that might even sweep the city folk off their feet.  Recommended; although I am hoping for a little more story-and-suspense-wise with The Poisonwood Bible - also on my TBR shelf for this year.  Can't wait!