Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible: A Reader's Guide (Continuum Contemporaries) (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"...not a critique of the work but a pleasant guided tour through territory that you have already visited alone." -- NewBooks.mag

"…invaluable for gathering out-of-the-way or ephemeral comment from TV and radio interviews…the web…[and] literary reviews." -- The Times Higher Education Supplement, May 31, 2002

Product Description

This is part of a new series of guides to contemporary novels. The aim of the series is to give readers accessible and informative introductions to some of the most popular, most acclaimed and most influential novels of recent years – from ‘The Remains of the Day’ to ‘White Teeth’. A team of contemporary fiction scholars from both sides of the Atlantic has been assembled to provide a thorough and readable analysis of each of the novels in question.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Continuum International Publishing Group (September 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0826452345
• ISBN-13: 978-0826452344
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 6.5 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #328,824 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very informative and thought-provoking, October 23, 2001

By A Customer

This is a neat book! It starts out with a chapter about Barbara Kingsolver, quite chatty and very interesting. And then there is a much longer chapter about the Poisonwood Bible, which is one of my favourites. This chapter is quite deep and occasionally too 'academic', but most of it is clear and it has made me think about the book. I'm now reading the novel again, and I'm enjoying it even more. The book finishes with three short chapters about how people liked the novel when it came out, and about how it did so well. All of which is interesting in its own way, too. I'm going to read more of Kingsolver's novels now.

If you enjoy thinking about books, and seeing things that you didn't really know were there, and if you loved the Poisonwood Bible, I can recommend this book. The author did a good job!

22 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Did she read the book?, February 16, 2004

By	David R. Lowe (Sunnyvale, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Wagner-Martin's guide to The Poisonwood Bible was a disappointment. I had read the novel and I bought Wagner-Martin's book hoping to catch points that I had missed and get a better understanding of the book. Wagner-Martin did bring out some parts of the novel that I had missed and for that I am grateful. But she also got some parts of the book absolutely wrong. Most importantly, she mis-identified the village witch doctor and the person who put a snake in the chicken house which killed the youngest daughter. The fact Wagner-Martin gets confused over the plot seriously undermines her ability to guide any reader through an absolutely wonderful novel.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars So-so, April 24, 2008

By	KarynH "Karyn" (Virginia) - See all my reviews

This contains a few errors here and there although nothing big. It's worth maybe $6 or $8, not the $10 I paid for it. This is reasonably useful if you're writing a paper on the book and are the type to get lost in the story and miss some of the larger picture. Otherwise, not really.