Kingsolver quote

"What keeps me awake at the wheel is the thrill of trying something completely new with each book. I’m not a risk-taker in life, generally speaking, but as a writer I definitely choose the fast car, the impossible rock face, the free fall.”

— Barbara Kingsolver

Novels by Kingsolver:

"The Bean Trees", was published in 1988, her first novel and told the story of a young woman who leaves Kentucky for Arizona, adopting an abandoned child along the way; she wrote it at night while pregnant with her first child and struggling with insomnia.

"Animal Dreams" published in 1990, was followed by "Pigs in Heaven", the sequel to "The Bean Trees", in 1993.

"The Poisonwood Bible", published in 1998, is one of her best known works; it chronicles the lives of the wife and daughters of an Evangelical minister on a Christian mission in Africa. I highly recommend this one. It's long but worth it.

Her next novel, published in 2000, was "Prodigal Summer", set in southern Appalachia, and her most recent work, entitled "The Lacuna", was published in 2009.

Kingsolver is a master of character development and her settings are memorable.