Saturday, August 4, 2007

Arizona

Jill said, "I just finished a collection of essays by Barbara Kingsolver called High Tide in Tucson, and this is my selection for the beautiful state of Arizona. Kingsolver chooses many settings from her essays, but her descriptions of Arizona are ecological, historical and practical. I think it gives the reader a wonderful snapshot about this state. You can read my review here."

In High Tide in Tucson Barbara Kingsolver explores the themes of family, community, and the natural world. With the eyes of a scientist and the vision of a poet, Kingsolver writes about notions as diverse as modern motherhood, the history of private property, and the suspended citizenship of humans in the animal kingdom. Her canny pursuit of meaning from an inscrutable world compels us to find instructions for life in surprising places: a museum of atomic bomb relics, a West African voodoo love charm, an iconographic family of paper dolls, the ethics of a wild pig who persistently invades a garden, a battle of wills with a two-year-old, or a troop of oysters who observe high tide in the middle of Illinois. In sharing her thoughts about the urgent business of being alive, Kingsolver the essayist employs the same keen eyes, persuasive tongue, and understanding heart that characterize her acclaimed fiction.

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