SOME BOOKS ARE PERFECT. You know the ones: After reading the last page, you sit for a moment in wonder, and then flip back to the first page to see how the author did it; how she kept you going for 300 pages of pure, unrelenting wonder, and suddenly you realize that you have started the book all over again. It just happened to me.
My friend Julie made the recommendation. After months of reading TSP, she said she thought there was a book I might like, one written in 1991 whose theme is two sisters who realize that yes, while they might have grown up under the same roof, they grew up in two different families.
Animal Dreams, by Barbara Kingsolver, may very well be a perfect book. And on the topic of this two-different families under one roof, the author performs nothing short of literary alchemy, blending the tough topic of what lengths we might go to protect the environment with that even tougher topic of what lengths we go to love our family, and producing pure gold.
In a phrase, I learned a lot.
You? What’s on you summer sisters-reading-about-sisters shelf?
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{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
Oh, I love Barbara Kingsolver. One summer I tore through both The Poisonwood Bible and Prodigal Summer.
Animal Dreams is a wonder…. I just re-read it during travel in Nicaragua in January. Oh, that sister thing. And dreams. Have just started Julie Glass’ I See You Everywhere. I can already tell that this is gonna be a good sister story.
Read Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle for family fun!
Just finished up Pigs In Heaven. I admire Kingsolver. I loved Prodigal Summer, the first of hers I read. Took me right back to when I lived in Kentucky. I immediately set out to find her others books. I think she is a wonderful author.
For the rest of the summer, I am reading whatever I picked up at the Friends of the Library booksale that still remains on my shelf. That’s where I found my Kingsolver books.
-Becky
Hi, Danielle. And welcome. A good book i he best thing to share, isn’t it? So glad you loved it too. I’ll try Prodigal Summer next. Thank you.
Hey, Maureen. So funny that you were reading it while I was reading it. How sisterly-synchronistic and all that. Hope you love Glass.
Hi there, Becky. A summer could not be better spent than on such a divine author as Kingsolver. I do that, sometimes: just tuck in and read a slew of one author. So fun, so enriching. Please come back soon.
I am struggling to finish Infinite Jest but only because I have the joyful interruption of an unexpected extended daughterly visit this summer. Her internship after her first year away at law school brought her back home. I am so not complaining.
In my stack to read next I have D. Adelaides’ “The Household Guide to Dying”, then Singer & Mason’s “The Ethics of What We Eat” (which converted my chef son practically into a vegetarian).
The last book I read that was just as transfixing as the shared Kingsolver favorites was “The Hummingbird’s Daughter” by Luis Alberto Urrea. It is a sweetie of a read – I started slowing down as I was finishing because I didn’t want the experience to end. If you are all caught up on Kingsolver and haven’t read Hummingbird’s Daughter yet don’t miss it.
I read a lot of Sci-Fi (been told I read “guys books”!), where there are sadly, not a lot of female writers. One of my favourite, however, is a series authored by Suzette Haden Elgin — a 3 part series that is not too techie heavy, about the power of language and how it might shape the universe. It’s also got a really interesting sub-plot about the power of women, even when they seem stripped of power. The series is called “Native Tongue”. I find myself reading them over about once every 12-18 months, and find something new each time. I highly recommend them, even if you don’t think you are into Sci-Fi.
Icelandic detective novels! If you like “Cold Case” on TV, you’ll love Arnaldur Indridason’s series of books about Inspector Erlendur: Jar City, Silence of the Grave, Voices, The Draining Lake and his newest, Arctic Chill.
If you want a series of Icelandic detective novels for your Kindle, check out Yrsa Sigurdardottir’s two novels: last Rituals and My Soul To Take, featuring lawyer and sometime-gumshoe Thora Gudmundsdottir. At least it’s something to read where you know it won’t be 90 degrees and humid!
-djs
Hi, Deb. Thanks so much. I have The Household Guide to Dying on my nightside table. But full disclosure requires that I say that as a lifelong hypochondriac I’ve had a hard time getting to it. So silly, I know. So very silly. I will get The Hummingbird’s Daughter. Thank you.
Hi, Janice: Anything about “the power of language and how it might shape the universe,” is going to pull me in . Thank you so much for the recommendation.
Well, DJ. That is unique and wonderful. Nope, I would not have considered Icelandic detective novels as a genre, but I am thrilled at the suggestion. I read detective stuff in summer, and now I can broaden my horizons – literally.
I consider The Poisonwood Bible one of the best books ever written — and talk about a sisterly perspective! I am in awe of Kingsolver’s talent.
Hi, Christine. Yes, perhaps we need to start designating sister-writers as empresses of the month or something. I’m thinking of going on an all-Kingsolver-summer jag. What else are you reading?
I just finished Kingsoliver’s “The Bean Trees,” having read “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” a few months ago. I’ll have to read “Poisonwood” and “Animal Dreams” this summer!
D
It was both wonderful and a little overwhelming to immediately follow the ‘Bean Trees’ with ‘Pigs in Heaven’ . After reading this post must get ‘Animal Dreams’ now!
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
Hey, Annie: Yes, that Kingsolver mojo is almost overpowering, isn’t it? Seems like we all feel it. What else are you reading these days?
Hi there, David. And welcome. You’ve got your summer booked out, it seems. So glad to have you here on the Kingsolver magic carpet with all of us. It seems she has a loyal following here on TSP. Read on, brother!
Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water, which I picked up because I was aching to listen to some “Dead Dog Café” shows, but couldn’t find any online. Love the humour and humanity; it recalls for me of the amazing week we spent visiting the Blood Reserve (Blackfoot) back in 2000. The memory of the flight from Calgary, in a silver prop plane (a DC-3) over the crazy-quilt of fields in the bright Alberta August sunshine still takes my breath away today.
It has been pushed aside by my bookclub’s pick for this month (I get to host the meeting), Bonfire of the Vanities.
I’ve also started Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing.
Hi, Monika. And welcome. Oh, I don’t know Thomas King, so I’m delighted for the introduction. Thank you. You make the flight from Calgary sound perfect, indeed. Have you been in a book club a long time? How does yours work? I’m always tempted, but have not yet taken the book club plunge. Please come back with more. We’d love to see you again.
Another vote for anything by Margaret Atwoood. Great books to have in your bookcases (Canadian author to boot!). Also, how about Fay Weldon? First one I read was The Cloning of Joanna May, and I think I have read most everything she has written now
Coming late on to this thread, but Kingsolver for her light and love, Atwood for her darkness and Alice Hoffman for her magic lenses are tops on my recommendations for readers at the library where I work. I just finished The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery (translated from the French by Alison Anderson), recommended by a colleague and her teenage daughter. Not a book to be read while doing anything other than sitting in the backyard with a tall glass of tea, this is an exquisite look at two women, one 54, one 12, and their complex inner lives. Eat it in small doses, like one of the exquisite pastries the characters share, and find yourself crying and laughing and never looking at a camellia in the same way again.
Hi, Mary Beth. And welcome. Both Paige and I also loved Hedgehog, and you put it beautifully here: little bites, while stretched out. This is not read for plot, per se, but for drama and arc. My local independent bookseller pressed it into my hand some months ago like the gift it is. Such a great kindness. So lovely of you to come into this conversation. We hope you’ll keep visiting.