After reading Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible, I was impressed enough to read some of her earlier works. High Tide in Tucson: Essays from Now or Never, is actually a collection of essays, articles, opinions and speeches that first appeared in a number of places including magazines like Smithsonian, Parenting, and The New York Times Magazine. Although most of them are excellent, on the whole, they are a little uneven.

Kingsolver was first a biologist, and many of the articles are written through a scientist's eye. Her love of nature shines through when she writes about the flora and fauna of her native Kentucky and her adopted home of Tucson. She tells us about the joys of parenting and the heartache of a failed marriage. She regales us with tales of traveling and living abroad for a spell. And she also preaches from her soapbox on a number of political and domestic issues (including nuclear weapons, The Gulf War, the mistreatment of children in the US, limited efforts at conservation, working out, her lack of fashion sense, and the trials and tribulations of writing-to name a few). One of her funniest chapters is about a two-week tour she took as part of a rock band, The Rock Bottom Remainders. This band consisted of fellow writers, and we can only imagine Kingsolver, Amy Tan, Stephen King, Dave Barry and others sounding more like "Hound Dogs in Heat."

But what makes High Tide in Tucson different from many other collections is Kingsolver's beautiful prose. About the Santa Cruz River, she writes "In these lean days, she's a great blank channel of sand, but we call her a river anyway, and say it with a straight face too, because in her moods this saint has taken out bridges and houses and people who loved their lives." Or in describing a sunset, Kingsolver shares with us "No one else to see the sun go huge and round, then drown itself, burning a red path of memory on the face of the sea." Much of High Tide reads like poetry.

So while I liked some essays much better than others, overall, I think High Tide is a very worthy book. Kingsolver has become one of our best writers today.

This collection of Kingsolver's essays makes thought-provoking and occasionally hilarious reading. Be warned: if you don't share her values, you probably won't enjoy it because unlike her fiction it doesn't cloak those values in story. Yet even then you may find it interesting, because you'll learn a lot about how Kingsolver writes. From conceiving her characters and building their worlds (something literary novelists must do just as surely as must sci-fi writers), to marketing the books after publication, she takes the reader of these essays on a lively journey through her own version of the writing life. Recommended, although not as highly as her novels.

This is my first look at Barbara Kingsolver. I am not much of a fiction reader, but when I saw that she had written two volumes of essays and she is a member of the Rock-Bottom Remainders, I had to take a chance. After reading the first of the two volumes, I am a fan.

High Tide in Tucson is a better than some collections because Kingsolver has rewritten many of the pieces. Some of the essays were originally magazine articles, so she was able to rewrite them without the length and editorial restrictions imposed by the original publication. And she arranged them so that they flow, if not exactly like a story, at least so that the sequence makes sense, rather than just a random selection. She warns us ahead of time that these need to be read in order -- no dipping into them here and there.

Kingsolver writes here about the desert, her year in the Canary Islands, a visit to Benin, being a parent, love and divorce and new love, and writing. She also covers war, wildlife, and how she came to be the keyboardist for a bad rock group. Even though these essays are more than nine years old, they don't seem dated at all. Even the piece on protesting the first Persian Gulf War is pertinent.

I especially enjoyed Kingsolver's writing on writing. She loves being a writer and everything about it. Except for book tours. Her piece on a long and dreadful book tour is one of my favorites, and the funniest. Her decision to pack light and take only a minimal wardrobe gets her into trouble several times.

Although I still don't plan on reading her fiction, I am looking forward to the second volume of Barbara Kingsolver essays, Small Wonder.

The essays in this book speak to the troubles of today's world because they are timeless. I feel like standing on the roof top and offering Barbara Kingsolver's wisdom and love of life and all it encompasses to all who pass by. The essays are a wake up call without being strident while at the same time a salve to my soul and a voice of reason. Let alone the fact that Kingsolver is a fabulous writer.

Somehow for me, it is the time to immerse myself in Kingsolver's words and ideas. I also re-read "Small Wonder" and I'm now savoring "Animal Dreams". I can only suggest that other readers might enjoy her books for the first time or second or third.

If my fellow writers, who struggle with the modern essay format, want to read an example of good writing, this would be a great place to start. Barbara Kingsolver, already famous for Beantrees, Pigs in Heaven, etc., lets loose with this collection of 25 essays on issues as diverse as hermit crabs, political activism, and vegetarianism. Her exquisite and thoughtful language persists throughout as, trained as a naturalist, she links minutae in the natural world with the more close-to-home issues of parenting, family, honesty, and her political views. Some of her best writing can be found in this collection.
Top rating.