Has anyone read this yet? I went to a brilliant 'in conversation' event with Barbara Kingsolver at the Festival Hall earlier this week. Now to be honest, it got to 6pm and I'd been thinking about it all day but I still hadn't booked ... you know, that dark, chilly, 'can I be bothered?' feeling you get in November. I'm so glad I grabbed my coat and made the effort because it turned out to be quite the best literary event I have ever attended. (Sorry, I should have written this earlier because her brief UK  speaking tour now seems to be over.)
She is the most intelligent, thought-provoking, articulate, warm-hearted speaker you can imagine and barely drew breath for an hour and a half. No surprise that 95% of the audience was female, yet men asked most of the (long-winded) questions. Full-marks to Samira Ahmed in the chair for refusing to allow them to pontificate and man-spread over the end of the evening and bulldozing them to come to the point. If they had a point.
I loved The Poisonwood Bible, struggled with The Lacuna - but I went straight home and ordered Unsheltered which sounds fascinating.