Name: The Poisonwood Bible
ISBN: 9780784814000

The Poisonwood Bible

The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it -- from garden seeds to Scripture -- is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

What Hacker News says

F3LMar 2017

Atlas Shruggd by Ayn Rand - turned me into a little shit. Ragged Trousered Philanthropist - restored my empathy and created a depth of understanding that has not left me in the 25 years since I read it. (I recommend the second and not the first).

The Poisonwood Bible - turned me into a (troubled) atheist and (untroubled) feminist.

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epihelixSep 2026

I'd argue that the novels the TFA author reads are boring to the TFA author -- until they're not. If you are reading a novel that works for you, it's often not boring from the opening line.

Example: Anna Karenina. Gripping from the opening line (if you like the type of novel that it is; and it's fine if you don't, of course).

Or alternatively, Pride and Prejudice. Again, that opener just sucks you in (if this is a book for you, that is; and again, if it's not -- totally fine).

Example of a modern page-turner: The Hunger Games. If you are bored with this novel after three pages, you shouldn't read any further, because it's absolutely, certainly, not for you.

Or, Jeebus, Harry-Freaking-Potter. There is a reason that an entire generation grew up reading those books.

Or: "The Time Traveller's Wife", "The Poisonwood Bible", "The Road", "Interview with the Vampire", "A Room with a View", "Replay", "Of Mice and Men", "Brave New World". The list of books that are gripping from the start, should they appeal to you, can be almost endless.

Basically, if you and your book align (ugh, sorry), then there generally shouldn't be any form of "volta" (really, ugh).

There are many novels that are boring to me. I've never finished those; I discard and move on to the next one, where the author knew how to write something that isn't boring to me. Someone else might love them, and many people clearly do, but they're not for me.

Why do so many people assume that everyone will love the exact same books, and that if you're bored by a book you just have to work at it some more? Life is too short for that nonsense.

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mmphosisDec 2018

The Poisonwood Bible a novel by Barbara Kingsolver

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trentmbJun 2018

> One thing that struck me is how much he reads. He had a list of suggested books to read in the back page, and there were probably hundreds

Here's the list, from the ebook I have at least:

  - Abrahams, Peter: A Perfect Crime
  - Abrahams, Peter: Lights Out
  - Abrahams, Peter: Pressure Drop
  - Abrahams, Peter: Revolution #9
  - Agee, James: A Death in the Family
  - Bakis, Kirsten: Lives of the Monster Dogs
  - Barker, Pat: Regeneration
  - Barker, Pat: The Eye in the Door
  - Barker, Pat: The Ghost Road
  - Bausch, Richard: In the Night Season
  - Blauner, Peter: The Intruder
  - Bowles, Paul: The Sheltering Sky
  - Boyle, T. Coraghessan: The Tortilla Curtain
  - Bryson, Bill: A Walk in the Woods
  - Buckley, Christopher: Thank You for Smoking
  - Carver, Raymond: Where I’m Calling From
  - Chabon, Michael: Werewolves in Their Youth
  - Chorlton, Windsor: Latitude Zero
  - Connelly, Michael: The Poet
  - Conrad, Joseph: Heart of Darkness
  - Constantine, K. C.: Family Values
  - DeLillo, Don: Underworld
  - DeMille, Nelson: Cathedral
  - DeMille, Nelson: The Gold Coast
  - Dickens, Charles: Oliver Twist
  - Dobyns, Stephen: Common Carnage
  - Dobyns, Stephen: The Church of Dead Girls
  - Doyle, Roddy: The Woman Who Walked into Doors
  - Elkin, Stanley: The Dick Gibson Show
  - Faulkner, William: As I Lay Dying
  - Garland, Alex: The Beach
  - George, Elizabeth: Deception on His Mind
  - Gerritsen, Tess: Gravity
  - Golding, William: Lord of the Flies
  - Gray, Muriel: Furnace
  - Greene, Graham: A Gun for Sale (aka This Gun for Hire)
  - Greene, Graham: Our Man in Havana
  - Halberstam, David: The Fifties
  - Hamill, Pete: Why Sinatra Matters
  - Harris, Thomas: Hannibal
  - Haruf, Kent: Plainsong
  - Hoeg, Peter: Smilla’s Sense of Snow
  - Hunter, Stephen: Dirty White Boys
  - Ignatius, David: A Firing Offense
  - Irving, John: A Widow for One Year
  - Joyce, Graham: The Tooth Fairy
  - Judd, Alan: The Devil’s Own Work
  - Kahn, Roger: Good Enough to Dream
  - Karr, Mary: The Liars’ Club
  - Ketchum, Jack: Right to Life
  - King, Tabitha: Survivor
  - King, Tabitha: The Sky in the Water (unpublished)
  - Kingsolver, Barbara: The Poisonwood Bible
  - Krakauer, Jon: Into Thin Air
  - Lee, Harper: To Kill a Mockingbird
  - Lefkowitz, Bernard: Our Guys
  - Little, Bentley: The Ignored
  - Maclean, Norman: A River Runs Through It and Other Stories
  - Maugham, W. Somerset: The Moon and Sixpence
  - McCarthy, Cormac: Cities of the Plain
  - McCarthy, Cormac: The Crossing
  - McCourt, Frank: Angela’s Ashes
  - McDermott, Alice: Charming Billy
  - McDevitt, Jack: Ancient Shores
  - McEwan, Ian: Enduring Love
  - McEwan, Ian: The Cement Garden
  - McMurtry, Larry: Dead Man’s Walk
  - McMurtry, Larry, and Diana Ossana: Zeke and Ned
  - Miller, Walter M.: A Canticle for Leibowitz
  - Oates, Joyce Carol: Zombie
  - O’Brien, Tim: In the Lake of the Woods
  - O’Nan, Stewart: The Speed Queen
  - Ondaatje, Michael: The English Patient
  - Patterson, Richard North: No Safe Place
  - Price, Richard: Freedomland
  - Proulx, Annie: Close Range: Wyoming Stories
  - Proulx, Annie: The Shipping News
  - Quindlen, Anna: One True Thing
  - Rendell, Ruth: A Sight for Sore Eyes
  - Robinson, Frank M.: Waiting
  - Rowling, J. K.: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
  - Rowling, J. K.: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azakaban
  - Rowling, J. K.: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
  - Russo, Richard: Mohawk
  - Schwartz, John Burnham: Reservation Road
  - Seth, Vikram: A Suitable Boy
  - Shaw, Irwin: The Young Lions
  - Slotkin, Richard: The Crater
  - Smith, Dinitia: The Illusionist
  - Spencer, Scott: Men in Black
  - Stegner, Wallace: Joe Hill
  - Tartt, Donna: The Secret History
  - Tyler, Anne: A Patchwork Planet
  - Vonnegut, Kurt: Hocus Pocus
  - Waugh, Evelyn: Brideshead Revisited
  - Westlake, Donald E.: The Ax

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