Prodigal Summer: Deluxe Modern Classic
Prodigal Summer: Deluxe Modern Classic book cover

Prodigal Summer: Deluxe Modern Classic

Paperback – Deckle Edge, April 23, 2013

Price
$11.87
Format
Paperback
Pages
480
Publisher
Harper Perennial Modern Classics
Publication Date
ISBN-13
978-0062274045
Dimensions
1.4 x 5.6 x 8.2 inches
Weight
14.4 ounces

Description

“A lush, bountiful, opinionated novel of social conscience” — Washington Post Book World “As illuminating as it is absorbing. . . . Resonates with the author’s overarching wisdom and passion.” — New York Times “Full of ... tenderness, humour and earthy spirituality.” — Christian Science Monitor “[Kingsolver’s] sexy, lyrical fifth novel renders our solitary yearnings with a finely trained eye and ear.” — People “A blend of breathtaking artistry, encyclopedic knowledge of the natural world. . . and ardent commitment to the supremacy of nature. . . . .Barbara Kingsolver remains a voice readers have come to respect and love, a writer we will keep reading for as long as she continues to grace us with her bounty.” — San Francisco Chronicle "A triumphant return to the southern Appalachians of her own childhood." — Orlando Sentinel “A warm, intricately constructed book shot through with an extraordinary amount of insight and information about the wonders of the invisible world.” — Newsweek "Ms. Kingsolver's writing is generously well-grafted; choice moments ... radiate from nearly every page." — Wall Street Journal "As lush, rich and abundant as nature itself ... Prodigal Summer is quietly breathtaking, and its vista awe-inspiring." — Buffalo News “Kingsolver deftly addresses the struggle between mankind and nature . . . . A lush. . . novel of love and loss in Appalachia.” — US Magazine “Compelling ... Lives that are less simple, and far more passionate, than they appear.” — Glamour Magazine Barbara Kingsolver's fifth novel is a hymn to wildness that celebrates the prodigal spirit of human nature, and of nature itself. It weaves together three stories of human love within a larger tapestry of lives amid the mountains and farms of southern Appalachia. Over the course of one humid summer, this novel's intriguing protagonists face disparate predicaments but find connections to one another and to the flora and fauna with which they necessarily share a place. Barbara Kingsolver is the author of ten bestselling works of fiction, including the novels Unsheltered , Flight Behavior , The Lacuna , The Poisonwood Bible , Animal Dreams , and The Bean Trees , as well as books of poetry, essays, and creative nonfiction. Her work of narrative nonfiction is the influential bestseller Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life . Kingsolver’s work has been translated into more than twenty languages and has earned literary awards and a devoted readership at home and abroad. She was awarded the National Humanities Medal, our country’s highest honor for service through the arts, as well as the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for the body of her work. She lives with her family on a farm in southern Appalachia. Read more

Features & Highlights

  • “A blend of breathtaking artistry, encyclopedic knowledge of the natural world. . . and ardent commitment to the supremacy of nature.” —
  • San Francisco Chronicle
  • In this beautiful novel, Barbara Kingsolver,
  • New York Times
  • bestselling author of
  • Demon Copperhead
  • and
  • The Poisonwood Bible
  • , weaves together three stories of human love within a larger tapestry of lives inhabiting the forested mountains and struggling small farms of southern Appalachia.
  • Over the course of one humid summer, as the urge to procreate overtakes the lush countryside, this novel's intriguing protagonists—a reclusive wildlife biologist, a young farmer's wife marooned far from home, and a pair of elderly, feuding neighbors—face disparate predicaments but find connections to one another and to the flora and fauna with whom 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 piece of life on earth.
  • This gorgeous Harper Perennial Deluxe Edition features beautiful cover artwork on uncoated stock, French flaps, and deckle-edge pages, making it the perfect gift book.

Customer Reviews

Rating Breakdown

★★★★★
30%
(1.5K)
★★★★
25%
(1.2K)
★★★
15%
(738)
★★
7%
(344)
23%
(1.1K)

Most Helpful Reviews

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Another great Kingsolver novel

The research that goes into Barbara Kingsolver's books is amazing. This book tells some very real tales of the people in the Shenandoah valley through the complex and interesting characters that she has developed.
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Middle of the road about this book

As many other reviewers , I was a Kingsolver fan. I bought this book in 2001 at Wal-Mart, having already read The Bean Tree and Poisonwood Bible. It sat--with many other books--in my shelf until my Florida son said lately he'd probably add this volume to his Top 10 (or perhaps he said Top 5) novels. So I read it.
It took two months to finish it, but I had several weeks out of town/state during that time with no chance (taken) to continue reading. Or else the story I'd read that far wasn't intriguing enough to compel me to continue.
Having recently read Charles Frazier's Nightwoods, I kept likening the setting of Kingsolver's book with Frazier's. And--like I've said about Mitch Albom and Charles Frazier--I think Kingsolver also could have been writing this volume just to keep up with the popularity of her previous books. Maybe that's unfair, but that's what I feel.
I did learn more than I ever thought I wanted to know about luna moths, coyotes and copperheads, etc. I read the older-woman/younger-man scenes knowing that sex sells--or at least makes the reader presume so.
I'll offer this book to my writer friends with the OK to pass it on after reading.
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Good, but beware the propaganda

I really like Barbara Kingsolver's books and have appreciated the way that she manages to teach me something new while spinning a tale. The story in this book is good too and comes to a satisfying conclusion, but it seemed to me that the author has used the whole story as a hobby horse to hang her ideas on. Anyone who reads her books will be aware of her love for the natural world and her conviction that in our duty to care for it and use it in a responsible way, but in this case she uses her characters to promote her own beliefs and philosophies, so that in the end I felt browbeaten. As an evolutionist she promotes that viewpoint as fact and in the process makes some leaps of logic which are scientifically unproven, which is a shame. This was also the first of her books that I have read that included sex scenes, which were not in my opinion necessary or believable. The book is not bad overall, but she has written better.