Hailed as “a gifted magician of words” by Time, Barbara Kingsolver is one of contemporary America’s greatest literary lights. She’s the first author to ever win the Women’s Prize for Fiction twice, and the recipient of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for Demon Copperhead. She’s also the recipient of the National Humanities Medal alongside powerhouses like Joan Didion, Toni Morrison, and Colson Whitehead.
Her works often explore environmental themes, or depict vivid portrayals of rural life, and they all feature profound social commentary. “I’m extremely interested in cultural difference, in social and political history and the sparks that fly when people with different ways of looking at the world come together and need to reconcile or move through or celebrate those differences. All that precisely describes everything I’ve ever written,” says Kingsolver in an interview with BookPage.
Whether you’re a nature lover, a social activist, or you simply love getting lost in a good story, the best books by Barbara Kingsolver will speak to you.
My personal favorite is her memoir: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (it’s the first Kingsolver book I ever read and it’s stuck with me). If you prefer fiction, The Poisonwood Bible is a top choice among fans. But there’s no wrong choice in this Barbara Kingsolver book list, so why not make your way through them all?
Let’s get started with Kingsolver’s most recent, and perhaps renown, work to date: Demon Copperhead, the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2023.
Inspired by Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield, this tale follows a young boy’s difficult coming-of-age in modern day Appalachia (the setting for much of Kingsolver’s fiction). Born to a teen mom, the protagonist faces poverty, the foster system, and eventual substance abuse as he navigates life and tests his independence. It’s a rich epic that explores the people and places forgotten by society.
When discussing Demon Copperhead on The Ezra Klein Show, Kingsolver, who was raised in Kentucky and now lives in Virginia, stated, “I wanted to write the great Appalachian novel.”
Kingsolver’s tour de force about a family uprooting their lives from Georgia to the Belgian Congo in the late 1950s tackles an incredible amount of issues — both political and personal, spiritual and secular — with grace and ease. The story is narrated by the wife and daughters of a Baptist missionary, and is set in the wake of political upheaval in the African nation as it seeks independence amidst assassinations, coups, and international interference.
While The Poisonwood Bible is not an autobiographical novel, it was inspired by real experiences: Kingsolver’s family spent two years in the Congo when the author was a child.
This novel won the National Book Prize of South Africa, and it was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award.
Kingsolver’s debut follows Taylor Greer, a young woman with big dreams who’s determined to avoid the pitfalls of poverty that have trapped so many around her in rural Kentucky. She heads west in search of a new life, but her journey takes an unexpected turn when she becomes the guardian of an abandoned Native American toddler named Turtle.
A beautiful ode to found family and community, The Bean Trees tackles immigration, social justice, and dehumanization. The story reveals both the best and the worst of our society, but even the darkest revelations don’t detract from Taylor’s humor and unbreakable spirit.
4. The Lacuna
In this epistolary novel (told in a combination of letters, diary entries, and newspaper clippings), Kingsolver masterfully intertwines fiction and history. Born to a Mexican mother and an American father, protagonist Harrison Shepherd finds his life shaped by the turbulent political landscapes of both nations.
Featuring real-world characters and events from Frida Kahlo to the Red Scare, the story draws attention to identity, art, politics, and how they affect one another.
Kingsolver won the Women’s Prize for Fiction and the Orange Prize for Fiction for The Lacuna.
In rural Tennessee, an unhappy farm wife discovers a valley filled with monarch butterflies. But is the sight a miracle, a sign of environmental shifts, or something else entirely? To this question, the story features wildly different answers from the church, journalists, and ordinary townspeople, all of whom wrestle with their beliefs and the land around them.
In this thought-provoking climate change novel, Kingsolver skewers all the symptoms — such as poor educational opportunities in the South and elitism among environmentalists — for America’s insufficient response to scientific facts about our urgent global crisis.
My favorite, and one of Kingsolver’s most popular nonfiction works (it won the 2008 James Beard Foundation Award), chronicles her family’s move from Arizona to Virginia, where they commit to a year of self-sufficient and local eating. Like any complete lifestyle change, the journey is filled with funny and challenging moments, which Kingsolver portrays vividly. (Her descriptions of home-grown fruit and veggies are mouth-watering.)
Whether you want to reconnect with the natural world or you’re interested in maintaining a zero-waste lifestyle, this memoir offers plenty of (local) food for thought.
In this sequel to The Bean Trees, Taylor and Turtle have settled into their new life in Tucson. But when a custody battle arises over her adopted Cherokee daughter, Taylor finds herself fighting against both legal and cultural forces, and questioning whether her love for Turtle outweighs the opportunity for the young girl to reconnect with her heritage.
Pigs in Heaven — named after a Cherokee legend — explores motherhood, identity, and the clash between personal desires and cultural obligations.
Prodigal Summer unfolds over one tension-fueled summer in Appalachia, where neighbors, lovers, and family members clash over various ecological issues, from organic farming to ethical hunting. All of their livelihoods depend on nature in some way or other, highlighting the complex struggle faced by those whose choices negatively impact the environment that sustains them.
Kingsolver ingeniously examines the delicate balance of ecosystems and human relationships, highlighting the beauty and resilience in both.
A study in personal character and community alike, Animal Dreams is about a woman trying to make sense of the past while struggling to find direction in the present.
It’s been over a decade since Codi Noline left her hometown (which never really felt like home), but she returns to care for her father, who has Alzheimer’s disease. Though she still feels like an outsider in Grace, Arizona, Codi slowly becomes involved with an old flame — and an impending environmental disaster — while uncovering long-held family secrets.
10. Unsheltered
In Unsheltered, Kingsolver weaves together the lives of two people living in the same New Jersey town centuries apart. The modern-day story follows Willa Knox, who lives in a house that’s literally crumbling around her, while facing financial ruin after both she and her husband lose their jobs. In the past, the narrative centers on Thatcher Greenwood, a 19th-century science teacher battling against ignorance and opposition to Charles Darwin’s theories.
Both characters become disillusioned as they face the unsettling realization that the foundations they’ve built their lives upon are not guaranteed, and Kingsolver skillfully mines the human capacity to adapt to uncertainty.
11. Small Wonder
Observant, incisive, and abounding with the author’s love for wild places, the nonfiction essays in Small Wonder simultaneously critique some of America’s worst qualities (like wastefulness and nationalism) and laud the “small wonders” that exist all around us (if we’d only stop and pay attention). Through it all, Kingsolver remains hopeful, encouraging us to reconsider our roles as stewards of the Earth and to contemplate the interconnectedness of all living things.
How to Fly proves Kingsolver’s talents as a poet as much as a prose writer.
Divided into sections that address everyday life (in a lyrical play on “how-to” books), making peace with the past, and reverence for the natural world, these poems explore family, friendships, grief, and artistry. If you ever needed inspiration to be still, observe the beauty around you, and find meaning in the everyday, this collection is your guide.
13. Homeland
The deceptively simple premises of the short stories in Homeland give way to something more profound and thought-provoking, featuring ordinary people facing ordinary struggles. Mirroring real life, no challenge here is neatly packaged or resolved, and Kingsolver captures the often quiet pain of searching for meaning in one’s life. This collection crosses cultural, geographical, and political borders with empathy.
Kingsolver shares the keen observations that fuel her novels in this nonfiction collection, which moves from Tucson to Hawaii to West Africa and beyond. Whether she’s globe-trotting or exploring her own backyard, Kingsolver’s ruminations are grounded in natural wonder, the bonds of family, and how writing and politics unavoidably go hand-in-hand.
15. Holding the Line
Holding the Line, Kingsolver’s first full-length work of nonfiction, chronicles the Great Arizona Mine Strike, which the author covered when she was working as a journalist. From 1983 to 1985, miners in several remote Arizona towns went on strike against the Phelps Dodge Copper Corporation. When the men were ultimately blocked by legal injunctions, it was their wives and children who held the line instead.
Kingsolver centers the story on these women, whose grassroots efforts were a stark contrast from their previously expected roles within the home. In the end, the miners’ union was disbanded, but nevertheless, the years-long strike forever altered the communities behind it.
This is a fascinating look into how Kingsolver got her start as a writer from her journalism days and the political flashpoints that informed her future writing.
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