Small Wonder - Softcover

Barbara Kingsolver

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0571215777 ISBN 13: 9780571215775

Publisher: Faber & Faber, 2003

Synopsis

'On my desk sits a beautiful engraving, published in another century, that promises me: "Out of the chaos the future emerges in harmony and beauty." Promises and prayers contain their own kinds of answer, as consecrated aspiration. I need this one now...' In her new essay collection, written in the aftermath of September 11th, the author of High Tide In Tucson and The Poisonwood Bible brings to us out of one of history's darker moments an extended love song to the world we still have. From its opening parable gleaned from recent news about a lost child saved in an astonishing way, the book moves on to consider a world of surprising and hopeful prospects ranging from an inventive conservation scheme in a remote jungle to the backyard flock of chickens tended by the author's small daughter

About this title

Review

Readers familiar with Barbara Kingsolver will find that Small Wonder, a collection of 23 essays, shows the same sensitivity and thoughtfulness, the same rich knowledge of and love for the natural world, as her spellbinding novels. In "Knowing Our Place," she describes the two places in which she writes: a tin-roof cabin in Appalachia and her home in the Tucson desert. In "Setting Free the Crabs," she uses her daughter's decision not to take home a beautiful (and occupied) red conch shell from a Mexican beach to illustrate our own need to give up our sense of ownership of the earth, to resist "the hunger to possess all things bright and beautiful." Many of these pieces, like the lovely title essay, were written (or rewritten) in response to the events of September 11, which threw into relief the growing social and economic inequities that are so little remarked on in the American media. These are political essays, although Kingsolver is not a natural rhetorician; her prose is too supple and inclusive. She is more inclined to follow the turns of her mind, like water in a curving stream bed, than to hammer home a point or two. But she has a rare gift for apt allusion (from sources as wide-ranging as Robert Frost to Beanie Babies) and for the elegant use of facts and figures. And she is highly quotable. It is easy to imagine the speechwriters and activists of the next 10 years dipping into Small Wonder for inspiration and the perfect phrase. --Regina Marler

About the Author

Barbara Kingsolver's work has been translated into more than twenty languages and has earned a devoted readership. In 2010 she won the Orange Prize for The Lacuna and her 2012 novel Flight Behaviour was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction. Before she made her living as a writer, Kingsolver earned degrees in biology and worked as a scientist. She now lives with her family on a farm in southern Appalachia.

About this edition

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0571215777
• ISBN 13: 9780571215775
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288