Right now, for a limited time only, The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel by Barbara Kingsolver, is available cheap in Kindle format. You probably know the book.

The novel is set against one of the most dramatic political chronicles of the twentieth century: the Congo’s fight for independence from Belgium, the murder of its first elected prime minister, the CIA coup to install his replacement, and the insidious progress of a world economic order that robs the fledgling African nation of its autonomy. Against this backdrop, Orleanna Price reconstructs the story of her evangelist husband’s part in the Western assault on Africa, a tale indelibly darkened by her own losses and unanswerable questions about her own culpability. Also narrating the story, by turns, are her four daughters—the self-centered, teenaged Rachel; shrewd adolescent twins Leah and Adah; and Ruth May, a prescient five-year-old. These sharply observant girls, who arrive in the Congo with racial preconceptions forged in 1950s Georgia, will be marked in surprisingly different ways by their father’s intractable mission, and by Africa itself. Ultimately each must strike her own separate path to salvation. Their passionately intertwined stories become a compelling exploration of moral risk and personal responsibility.

The other amazing book is this extended novella, or shortish novel, mixing compelling and hilarious fiction with thinly veiled actual observations and experiences on the OTHER side of the Congo, in and alongside the Western Rift Valley, as an enigmatic primatologist and a partly clued-in explorer-guy search for an elusive creature that might or might not exist. If you are a member of the Skeptics movement and want to know more about your own origins, In Search of Sungudogo by Greg Laden is a must read.

I’m sure that either one of these authors would appreciate a nice review once you’ve read the book!

“You know how to review a book, don’t you? Just put your lips together and click on something.:” — Archer Mallows, explorer-guy