10 Best Barbara Kingsolver Books

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Best-selling author Barbara Kingsolver has graced us with several worthy reads, including The Poisonwood Bible.

Her fictional prose weaves family, adventure, and history together in engaging books that have won several awards, including the James Beard Award, The Women’s Prize for Fiction, and a couple of Indies Choice Book Honors. 

10 Best Barbara Kingsolver Books to Stir You Into Action

They say that some of the most effective ways to stir people into action is to tell a story. Check out some of these books by Barbara Kingsolver that will change the way you look at important issues.

1. The Bean Trees 

Kingsolver’s first novel, now considered a modern classic, features Taylor Greer, a native of rural Kentucky who wants to sever her ties to her past and keep from becoming pregnant. What happens when she ends up the caregiver of a 3-year-old Native American little girl? 

2. The Poisonwood Bible

Set in Congo in the 1960s, this story follows the wife of a missionary evangelical Baptist family, whose beliefs are challenged on all fronts. With the most dramatic political events surrounding Congo’s fight for freedom from Belgium, the circumstances lead to the family’s undoing, and eventual reconstruction, over the next three decades. 

3. Animal Dreams

This complex novel revolves around Codi Noline, who arrives home in Arizona to meet her estranged father, who is now struggling with illness. Then she meets attractive Apache Loyd Peregrina, which fills the story with Native American legends alongside an engaging love story while Codi searches for her identity. 

4. Unsheltered

In this book, Kingsolver explores the issue of money and persecution of those who stand for the truth, told through the story of two families. The first is Willa Knox and her husband, both hardworking professionals and responsible parents, who are burdened by debt and live in a broken-down house, and whose workplaces fold. The other family is headed by Thatcher Greenwood, a science teacher struggling with scandal over his scientific beliefs. 

5. Pigs in Heaven 

A sequel to The Bean Trees, Pigs in Heaven opens three years later, following Taylor Greer and her adopted Native American daughter Turtle as they try to overcome the difficulty of their pasts. What happens when an attorney for the Cherokee Nation starts to look into the adoption? 

6. Flight Behavior 

This suspenseful story set in modern Appalachia is also a parable of denial and catastrophe: what happens when a young wife and mother experiences an unexplainable event? Her discovery opens a can of worms among politicians, climate scientists, and religious leaders alike, putting her right smack in the conflict. 

7. Prodigal Summer

This novel interweaves the stories of three lives and loves set in the mountains and farms of Appalachia, making it a fitting tribute to the prodigal spirit of the nature of man and of creation itself. The story takes place over one humid summer as the protagonists encounter troubles, connecting with one another and to the wonders of the nature around them.

8. The Lacuna 

In this novel, Kingsolver tells the story of Harrison William Shepherd, the son of a Mexican mother and her divorced American ex-husband, starting with a series of newspaper clippings and diary entries. She effectively weaves a tale of the 1930s, a dark period in American history. 

9. Homeland and Other Stories 

In this collection of 12 short stories, Kingsolver proves her prowess as a writer that can wield the power of emotions and humor all in one tale. The stories, with settings all the way from northern California to eastern Kentucky and even to St. Lucia, deal with themes including cultural and personal heritage, the effects of our past decisions on our present, and the unfailing power of love. 

10. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life

This memoir-slash-journalistic book follows the adventure that Barbara Kingsolver and her family went on as they moved from the suburbs of Arizona to rural Appalachia, committing to one year of surviving on a diet wholly produced from local sources. The goal was to help recover America’s lost appreciation for farming and natural processes of producing food. 

What Is Barbara Kingsolver Known For? 

If you’re not familiar with Barbara Kingsolver, she’s an American essayist, poet, and novelist, as well as political activist. Because of these strong views, many of her novels talk about people living in challenging circumstances, and how they endure in these harsh environments. 

She is best known for her historical fiction novels, focusing on subjects like social justice, environmentalism, and feminism. 

Reading Barbara Kingsolver Books 

If you want your next read to open up your mind and heart to issues of injustice and inequality, Barbara Kingsolver may be a good choice to add to your reading list. If you haven’t tried reading her books before, we recommend starting with The Bean Tree or The Poisonwood Bible. 

Her nonfiction work Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is also a good option, especially if you would like to learn more about the need for farming as a source of locally-produced food.

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