Flight Behavior

By: Barbara Kingsolver

Narrated by: Barbara Kingsolver

Length: 16 hrs and 56 mins

Publisher's summary

New York Times best seller

Indie best seller

Barnes & Noble best seller

National best seller

Amazon Best Book of the Month

Indie Next Pick

Best book of the year: New York Times Notable, Washington Post Notable, Amazon Editor’s Choice, USA Today’s Top Ten (#1), St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Kansas City Star

Prize-winning author: Pulitzer Prize Finalist, Dayton Literary Peace Prize (Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award), Orange Prize for Fiction

Prize-winning author: National Humanities Medal, Pulitzer Prize Finalist, Orange Prize for Fiction, Dayton Literary Peace Prize (Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award)

"Kingsolver is a gifted magician of words." (Time)

The extraordinary New York Times best-selling author of The Lacuna (winner of the Orange Prize), The Poisonwood Bible (nominated for the Pulitzer Prize), and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Barbara Kingsolver returns with a truly stunning and unforgettable work.

Flight Behavior is a brilliant and suspenseful novel set in present day Appalachia; a breathtaking parable of catastrophe and denial that explores how the complexities we inevitably encounter in life lead us to believe in our particular chosen truths. Kingsolver's riveting story concerns a young wife and mother on a failing farm in rural Tennessee who experiences something she cannot explain, and how her discovery energizes various competing factions - religious leaders, climate scientists, environmentalists, politicians - trapping her in the center of the conflict and ultimately opening up her world.

Flight Behavior is arguably Kingsolver's most thrilling and accessible novel to date, and like so many other of her acclaimed works, represents contemporary American fiction at its finest.

©2012 Barbara Kingsolver (P)2012 HarperCollins Publishers

Thoroughly Enjoyable!

This was a great listening experience. It would also be a good read. She was so descriptive, I felt right there in Appalachia, watching the butterflies. I loved how the main character, as well as many of the others, evolved as the story progressed, as she became more involved in an issue beyond herself. Also, the reading was clear and expressive. I look forward to another of B. K. ‘S works.

Climate change

The whole story was very real and so so true for most.The narrator was great.

Why must the author also read?

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

I love Kingsolver's books, but I wish she would let an actor read them. She is a fantastic writer, but aside from her memoir, why not let the stories be even more enhanced by a professional reader? Someone who can do male/female, young/old; someone who can transport and allow the listener to get completely transported into the story. I found myself often distracted by this; especially the attempts to do the Caribbean accent. I mean, she is fine, but why not have a great actor read a great book?

What did you like best about this story?

Issues of class, culture, the environment.

What didn’t you like about Barbara Kingsolver’s performance?

She isn't a professional reader; I wish she would let others read her books. It is fine to hear at a reading in a bookstore, but her voice just really bugged me. I only finished because I became wrapped up in the story, she is a great writer.

Authors should write. Narrators should read.

Barbara Kingsolver is one of the great writers of her generation. Why does she insist on recording her own audiobooks?! Her voice is monotonous and causes the reader (or at least this one) to loose the thread of what is almost always an engaging storyline.

Each time I download a new Kingsolver book I hope I will have a more positive response to her narration. Instead I find these are great narrations for easing me into my Sunday afternoon nap.

We should all play to our strengths, and allow others play to theirs. Dear Ms. Kingsolver please spend your valuable time writing more books, and allow narrators and actors to record them.

Sincerely,
A fan of your writing.

A Little Heavy Handed

The narration is perfect for the story, but the environmental message behind the plot is a little heavy handed. If you already know a lot about ecology, the revelations of the main character aren't as awe inspiring as the author would like them to be. If you are looking for your first Kingsolver book, listen to The Poisonwood Bible. It is riveting!

Another Kingsolver Winner

I am a fan, I'll admit it. Barbara Kingsolver never fails to satisfy. She writes elegant and insightful prose. I always learn something from her books--this time it is global warming, climate change, and monarch butterflies. And, she creates characters who become real people that I care about deeply. Kingsolver is a decent narrator.

The plight of the Monarch Butterfly

This is a phenomenal book. Set in Tennessee,in Appalachia, it is the story of the disruption caused by a monarch butterfly community that is misplaced from Mexico to a Tennessee mountain. The story is narrated through Dellarobia Turnbow. She is a high school graduate whose education was interrupted by a premarital miscarried pregnancy, followed by marriage and 2 children. She is married into a family of sheep breeders who do not accept her, and to their son who is not her intellectual equal. She accidentally discovers the displaced monarch community occupying the fir forests above her house, while on a tryst. The book describes the social, environmental and scientific ramifications of the butterfly relocation. Along the way, Ovid Byron, a butterfly biologist arrives and rekindles in Dellarobia an academic interest in learning which had been dormant since high school. All this and much, much more, including family politics, insight into how a child sees the world and sympathy for every one. Also, there is the amazing biology and life cycle of the monarchs and interpretation of how global warming is affecting this planet.
There is description of the press distortions of events and the effect of Dellarobia suddenly being a celebrity.
This book is definitely a romantic book, in that everyone is seen through rosy and sympathetic filters. For instance, I have not run into any young mothers who have the innate intelligence, inquisitiveness, imagination and thirst for knowledge attributed to Dellarobia. On the other hand that is the charm which makes you enthralled with her.Also, as a doctor and scientist, I have yet to know anyone with the purity of motive and idealism of Ovid Byron, but I would like to think they exist. This is the best book I have listened to on books on tape and it is read lovingly by its creator,

Please get a good reader, Barbara!

What did you like best about Flight Behavior? What did you like least?

Beautifully written, as always...

If you’ve listened to books by Barbara Kingsolver before, how does this one compare?

I've read many of her books, loved most of them.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Barbara Kingsolver?

I don't know narrators names, but Kingsolver's sing song, immature voice is NOT right for this book.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

not sure

Great book despite dislike of the narrator

I love Kingsolver, but I really disliked her reading of this book. It took me a while to get past this, but I’m glad I did. She’s one of my favorite authors. Hopefully, she does not narrate any of her other books.

Another masterful job by Kingsolver

In this book flight behavior, Barbara Kingsolver, once again shows her storytelling ability, her insightfulness to get to the heart of the matter, and on the way a little armchair psychiatry. She actually does the audio on this book which includes a great job of a what I will call a Jamaican type accent. She doesn’t miss a beat on the accent by a character who is one of the main driving forces behind the book. you would’ve thought she was a native Jamaican. Kingsolver makes her ecological point without beating us over the head with it managing to present it from several points of view. From research scientist to first grader. Towards the books end she also manages one of the clearest dialogues between a couple that is clearly no on the same page relationship wise. She gets to the crux of the matter in a straightforward manner, sparing the reader intricate wordplay, while still leaving, no doubt as to the main characters feelings about her relationship with her husband. i’ve never heard it done in quite the manner that Kingsolver pulls off effortlessly. simply a great read

Joe Lilley