Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver

Some books you read. Others you sink into like a warm afternoon. This one is the latter.

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, the 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. A wildlife biologist living alone on a mountainside. A young widow learning the rhythms of a farm. An old man feuding gently with his neighbor over chestnut trees and coyotes.

Kingsolver, the bestselling author of The Poisonwood Bible, writes with the kind of attention that makes you notice everything. The hum of insects. The pull of the soil. The quiet ways our lives tangle together, whether we mean for them to or not.

It’s a book about how everything is connected. About desire, grief, growing things, and letting go. Lush, sensory, and deeply alive on the page.

Perfect for fans of literary fiction who love a story rooted in place and season. We can’t think of a better companion for a long porch afternoon, or a rainy day curled up while the sea air drifts in.

Linger a while in these pages. You won’t want the summer to end.

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