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

Kingsolver is my hero.

Such a tapestry of very different characters.. creating an intense bubble hoping a myriad of human behavior.

Hhhhmmm, not so sure what to say

This book is about global warming .
I’m not sure if this is the correct platform. She made the Christians in this book dim witted and simple as if we are enemies to planet earth.
I would not recommend this book but would recommend The Poisonwood Bible. I loved that book and that’s why I gave this one a try. Sorry Barbara, you missed the mark here.

Dellarobia Turnbow Rocks!

What did you like about this audiobook?

This is Barbara Kingsolver at her best, introducing a subject she is passionate about, in the context of a funny, sad, moving, fascinating story about a young American woman. The subject is global warming (aka climate change). This book is an engaging, engrossing fictional version of Al Gore's important policy book An Inconvenient Truth.

There's so much to enjoy -- let's start with the names. Petite Dellarobia Turnbow is our protagonist; all is from her POV. She lives in tiny, insignificant Feathertown in the Tennessee Appalachians, where the high school math teacher was mainly the basketball coach and used most class-times to shoot hoops with the boys. Dellarobia lives with her husband Burleigh, universally known as Cub, a huge, dense, sweet man whose childhood can't end, since his father's nickname is Bear. Cub's mother, who acts like a classic wicked stepmother, is named Hester. (You'll find out why late in the story.)

Under embarrassing circumstances, Dellarobia discovers that millions of Monarch butterflies are roosting in a grove near the top of a mountain on the Turnbow land. She convinces her husband to take a look, and next the congregation of their church is calling the phenomenon a miracle.

The Outsider who arrives in Feathertown (in a rented, orange VW bug) is the scientist Ovid Byron, a professor and world expert on the Monarch butterflies. With impulsive Southern hospitality, Dellarobia invites him to dinner, then spends the rest of the day in panic, cleaning the worn, dilapidated state of her household and its furnishings.

Kingsolver nails children's behavior perfectly, and this book is full of examples. Dellarobia's 5-year-old son Preston is serious, nerdy, clearly a future scientist. Her daughter Cordelia, age 1, is the rebel, flinging her uncomb-able blonde curls and her applesauce around the house with reckless enthusiasm. There are a couple of classic shopping scenes which every mom will recognize.

For me, the high point of the book is the interview of Ovid Byron by Tina, a perfectly-groomed CNN reporter.

Kingsolver's language is exciting and always appropriate. Dellarobia's sense of humor and metaphors are gleaned from her own life, and the same is true for each of the characters. Example: Dellarobia and Cub are in his truck at the Dairy Prince for a rare meal away from home. She likens this to a date, as they used to have before their marriage. Cub disagrees. Not the same. Now there's a different engine in his truck.

Listen to this book! It's read by the author, who does a great job, even with accents. She did a lot of research, too, so the details of this fictional story are correct.

Thought provoking

Enjoyed this book very much. Makes you step back & think about what we are doing to our environment & realizing once bad things start to happen, there is no 'going back' and having a re-do.

A moving meditation on ecological disasters

The novel skillfully intertwines the plight of the monarch butterfly and that of the main character. Despite all the odds against both insects and woman, the author shows us a hope in the unstoppable drive to survive and thrive.

All good here

Loved it! I got shown the Barbara Kingsolver series of books and wondered what rock I’d been under to just find out about her. Absolutely loved her newest Demon Copperhead. Narration can make or break a book. So far… they’re making them even better.

Interesting story but the narration is ruining it

Good story but the narration is all wrong for the main character. The narrator speaks in perfect English with none of the dialect that would be expected of the main character. She sounds like an extremely educated woman instead of a poor HS graduate woman barely making it. It really detracts from the story.

I loved this book!

Second of Barbara Kingsolver’s books I have read. I truly loved this book. I enjoyed the slow development of the characters and learning why their behaviors were on point- instead of just being unkind or uninterested- their history was explained. I thought the narration was spot on.

Lovely words for difficult times

Flight behavior is a story of changing times and new behavior. It’s a nice story with interesting fact about and nature and wildlife wrapped around a fictional story. An easy and enjoyable listen.

somewhat disappointed.

not as nuanced as I had hoped. characters a bit on the central casting side.