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4.0 AVERAGE
4.0 AVERAGE
Kingsolver's essays range from preachy to amazing, with not quite enough amazing. I agree with her politically but I struggled with the first large section of the book where she talked about food, homelessness and ecology, with no real mention that lifestyles like the ones she's advocating are dependent on class, location and physical ability.
And then the book segues into beautiful essays about her mother and her daughters.
Kingsolver states that as an editor she gives stories 25 pages to reach her before she sets them aside. This book wouldn't pass that test.
And then the book segues into beautiful essays about her mother and her daughters.
Kingsolver states that as an editor she gives stories 25 pages to reach her before she sets them aside. This book wouldn't pass that test.
I am reading this one essay at a time with fun fiction in between. I basically want to marry her and have all her babies but that doesn't mean I can spend a lot of time with her at once.
KINGSOLVER CRAFTS ESSAYS FROM DARKNESS TO SHOW LIGHT
Barbara Kingsolver wrote her 2003 "Small Wonder" essay collection in response to the 9/11 attacks and the political and social climate of the USA at the time. Although 15 years old, the essay topics are prolific and timely for today's reader.
Kingsolver's essays range from politics, plants, raising chickens, being a mother, having a mother, writing short stories, the death of a local bookstore, homelessness. In a favorite essay, "Stealing Apples," Kingsolver compares writing poetry to stealing an apple. She believes poems are there, fully formed, in everyday moments of life. They either fall and roll away or you grab them and jot them down. As she says, poems fall "from the richly pollinated boughs of an ordinary life, buzzing, as lives do, with clamor and glory."
Her essays about reading, writing are extremely spunky and relatable for this avid reader. As she ponders, "With Middlemarch and Pilgrim at Tinker Creek in the world, a person should squander her reading time on fashionably ironic books about nothing much?"
Kingsolver talks a lot about the earth's resources and how her readers can live more purposefully and mindfully. She encourages readers to live with less and, as a result, live with an awareness of more.
These essays are uniquely Kingsolver, and any fan of hers will find fistfuls of gems in this collection.
"The stories were, for me, both a distraction and an anchor. Good fictional tales will always be my pleasure, my companionship, my salvation."
Barbara Kingsolver wrote her 2003 "Small Wonder" essay collection in response to the 9/11 attacks and the political and social climate of the USA at the time. Although 15 years old, the essay topics are prolific and timely for today's reader.
Kingsolver's essays range from politics, plants, raising chickens, being a mother, having a mother, writing short stories, the death of a local bookstore, homelessness. In a favorite essay, "Stealing Apples," Kingsolver compares writing poetry to stealing an apple. She believes poems are there, fully formed, in everyday moments of life. They either fall and roll away or you grab them and jot them down. As she says, poems fall "from the richly pollinated boughs of an ordinary life, buzzing, as lives do, with clamor and glory."
Her essays about reading, writing are extremely spunky and relatable for this avid reader. As she ponders, "With Middlemarch and Pilgrim at Tinker Creek in the world, a person should squander her reading time on fashionably ironic books about nothing much?"
Kingsolver talks a lot about the earth's resources and how her readers can live more purposefully and mindfully. She encourages readers to live with less and, as a result, live with an awareness of more.
These essays are uniquely Kingsolver, and any fan of hers will find fistfuls of gems in this collection.
"The stories were, for me, both a distraction and an anchor. Good fictional tales will always be my pleasure, my companionship, my salvation."
This was my first collection of Kingsolver's essays and I enjoyed them just as much as her novels. This book was spurred by September 11th but did not soley focus on that event. I look at the book as focused on the theme of living as throughtfully and respectfully as possible - to all members of the planet (human (regardless of ideology), animal or plant). Many stories were inspiring and information as well as entertaining and I especially enjoyed the "letters" to her daughter and mother.