Welcome to the KPL Book Club Blogspot

Welcome to the internet home of the Kilbourn Public Library (KPL) Book Club. The KPL Book Club meets at the library once a month. A book is chosen for each month and then members of the book club meet the last Monday and Wednesday of every month for lively discussion and treats. While we can’t offer you treats via the internet, this KPL Reads blog was designed for those of you who would like to participate in the book club but don’t have time to join us at meetings. Each month KPL staff will post discussion topics and questions to get you “talking”. Join in the discussion by adding a post to the blog. Click on the word comments below the post you want to "talk" about and write your comment. Be sure to check back often to see feedback and comments.

Monday, August 2, 2010

This month's library book club selection is Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver. This novel weaves together three stories of love within a larger tapestry of lives in the forested mountains and struggling small farms of southern Appalachia.

Deanna Wolfe, a reclusive wildlife biologist, watches a den of coyotes that have recently migrated into the region until she is caught off-guard by a young hunter who invades her most private spaces and confounds her self-assured, solitary life. On a nearby farm, bookish city girl turned farmer's wife finds herself unexpectedly marooned in a strange place where she must declare or lose her attachment to the land that has become her own. And a few miles down the road, a pair of feuding, elderly neighbors tend their respective farms and wrangle about God, pesticides and a future neither of them expected.

Over the course of one humid summer, these characters find their connections to one another and to the flora and fauna with whom they share a space.

Why do you think this book is entitled Prodigal Summer? In what ways do all of the characters display "prodigal" characteristics? Who, or what, welcomes them home from their journeys?

Deanna is the self-appointed protector of coyotes and all predators. Is she disturbing nature's own ways of dealing with upsets? What about Garnett and his quest for a blight-free chestnut tree--is this "good" for nature?

Let us know what you think!