Prodigal Summer

By: Barbara Kingsolver

Narrated by: Barbara Kingsolver

Length: 15 hrs and 46 mins

Publisher's summary

Prodigal Summer weaves together three stories of human love within a larger tapestry of lives in southern Appalachia. At the heart of these intertwined narratives is a den of coyotes that have recently migrated into the region. Deanna Wolfe, a reclusive wildlife biologist, watches them from an isolated mountain cabin where she is caught off-guard by Eddie Bondo, a young hunter who comes to invade her most private spaces and her solitary life.

Down the mountain, another web of lives unfolds as Lusa Maluf Landowski, a bookish city girl turned farmer's wife, finds herself in a strange place where she must declare or lose her attachment to the land that has become her own. And a few more miles down the road, a pair of elderly, feuding neighbors tend their respective farms and wrangle about God, pesticides, and the possibilities the future holds.

Over the course of one long summer, these characters find connections to one another, and to the land, and the final, urgent truth that humans are only one piece of life on earth.

©2000 Barbara Kingsolver (P)2000 HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Readers will be seduced by [Kingsolver's] effortless prose." (Publishers Weekly)

Amazing!

What did you love best about Prodigal Summer?

This book was dreamy and lovely, the different stories keep things so interesting and Barbara Kingsolver's narration is enjoyable. My favourite Barbara Kingsolver novel by far!

Everyone needs to read this

I always love listening to stories read by the authors. Somehow it is just so much better. This was amazing, the story, the performance... Everything! I would recommend this book to anyone!

Succulent, fecund, life!

Although I've read this book through several times, listening to it was a novel (sorry) experience. Each word entered my mind more clearly, each word chosen with care, and built the sensory drama of life all around me.

I enjoyed the author's reading of her own work very much. I remembered having read her essay "taming the two-humped beast,' if I remember right, about writing this book. She generated for me a lavish sense of summer and of the inter-connectedness of all life; deeply refreshing from my arid plot in the now cold, grey Karoo winter.

Beautiful story gently told.

Loved it! I enjoyed how the women's stories wove together gradually as each one came to terms with the changes in her life. The humour and idiosyncrasies of the characters of small communities was one of the things I enjoyed most. An author reading their own work can be a risk, but I coukd listen to Barbara Kingsolver all day (And did!)

perfect for nature lovers

I love the well-told and and engaging story. It was so easy to follow and feel great compassion for the different people in the story.It took place in Appalachia where people are much closer to the land. I learned from the story also.

Barbara Kingsolver proves that she is magic!

I have loved this book for a long time and yet listening to the author read it made it a sure favourite. She infuses so much beauty and life into the story and characters. It makes me want to spend a summer in the hollers and mountains of Virginia. I can not recommend this one enough!

living in harmony with nature

The author uses a story to present ideas of how we can live in harmony with nature instead of against it and why it's in our best interest to do so.

So PERFECT in every way

Absolutely love Barbra Kingsolver and was so glad she was also the narrator. My only wish is that everyone would read it.

A sensuous delight

I listen to this book every few years, delighting in the importance of all living creatures, the idea that all the sounds in nature are screams for sex and the lovely sound of Ms Kingsolver’s voice. She is a superb storyteller.

Love Kingsolver

I almost didn’t listen to this book because of the feedback about the birdsong. But I’m glad I decided to anyway. Kingsolver knows what she’s doing. Her southern accents bring me home to my own southern upbringing. And the descriptions of everything, the background of all aspects of nature, the dialog between the characters, all are beautiful. True, I could have done without the loud, distracting bird song between chapters. But everything else reminded me of why I love Kingsolver’s books!