High Tide in Tucson: Essays from Now or Never [B1373-PB]

1996 PB with cover wear. Barbara Kingsolver has entertained and touched the lives of legions of readers with her critically acclaimed and bestselling novels The Bean Trees, Animal Dreams, and Pigs in Heaven. In these twenty-five newly conceived essays, she returns once again to her favored literary terrain to explore 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, a 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. Defiant, funny, courageously honest, High Tide in Tucson proves once again that "there is no one quite like Barbara Kingsolver in contemporary literature."--Washington Post Book World

From the many recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "Written in 1995, this essay collection still resonates in 2025. I love the way Kingsolver structures her essays with wit, insight, and heart...and a fun full circle moment at the end of nearly each one. She writes about a range of topics from the environment to politics to childhood, motherhood, and marriage-sometimes weaving several of these themes together in beautifully crafted essays that I will for sure be returning back to."; "Delightful collection of essays from the '90s that appear fresh today. From living in the southwest, to being a parent, to voodoo in Benin, Kingsolver is entertaining and informative."; "yes, still good the second time."; "I think I love Barbara Kingsolver's writing so much that I would probably be happy reading her grocery or to-do lists!"