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☆ Book Club: Let’s Talk About Barbara Kingsolver’s ‘Demon Copperhead’
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-16 | by ( ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Barbara Kingsolver’s novel “Demon Copperhead,” a riff on “David Copperfield” that moves Charles Dickens’s story to contemporary Appalachia and grapples engagingly with topics from poverty to ambition to opioid addiction, was one of the Book Review’s 10 Best Books of 2022. And — unlike an actual copperhead — “Demon Copperhead” has legs: Many readers have told us it was their favorite book in 2023 as well. In this week’s spoiler-filled episode, the Book Review’s MJ Franklin talks with his colleagues Elisabeth Egan (also an editor at the Book Review) and Anna Dubenko, The Times’s newsroom audience director, about Kingsolver’s novel and its enduring appeal. We’d love to hear what you loved (or didn’t) about “Demon Copperhead.” Share those thoughts in the comments and we’ll try to weigh in. I read a pre-publication galley, so when I read it, I didn’t have anyone to discuss it with and that almost killed me.

Persons: Barbara Kingsolver’s, “ David Copperfield, Charles Dickens’s, MJ Franklin, Elisabeth Egan, Anna Dubenko, we’ll, … Elisabeth Egan, “ Locations: Appalachia

LONDON (AP) — Go into many bookstores, and the nonfiction shelves will be dominated by men. The Women’s Prize for Nonfiction hopes to change that. An offshoot of the 28-year-old Women’s Prize for Fiction, whose past winners include Zadie Smith, Tayari Jones and Barbara Kingsolver, the new prize is open to female English-language writers from any country in any nonfiction genre. Lipscomb noted that in 2022, only 26.5% of nonfiction books reviewed in Britain’s newspapers were by women, and male writers dominated established nonfiction writing prizes. Authors from the United States, Australia, Canada, India, Jamaica, the Philippines and the U.K. are on the prize longlist, chosen from 120 books submitted by publishers.

Persons: ”, Suzannah Lipscomb, Zadie Smith, Tayari Jones, Barbara Kingsolver, Lipscomb, Mary Ann Sieghart, Naomi Klein ’, “, Patricia Evangelista’s “, Bohannon’s, Alice Albinia’s “, Leah Redmond, Anna Funder’s “ Organizations: Nielsen, Research, Queens, ” Locations: United States, Australia, Canada, India, Jamaica, Philippines, London

☆ Giving Thanks When the World is on Fire
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-22 | by ( Amanda Taub | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

I am thankful that my children have never felt the pain of burying a beloved sibling. Thankful that if we needed a hospital, it would have electricity and sterile equipment and supplies like anesthesia available. Thankful that my children are alive. But also sad and angry that we live in a world where these things are blessings to be counted, and where so many cannot do so. I want to hear about things you have read (or watched or listened to) that have had the biggest impact on you this year.

Persons: Jenny Sidhu, Barbara Kingsolver, Beth Macy, Dopesick Organizations: Purdue Pharma Locations: Gaza, Israel, Lebanon, Rocklin, Calif

☆ Read Your Way Through Appalachia
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-09 | by ( Barbara Kingsolver | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Appalachia is a region and a mind-set. Appalachia has few large cities, our economies are land-based and, unless you live here, we’re probably not what you think. It’s “Appal-achia.” As in, “If you keep that up, I’ll throw this apple atcha.” But in fact, we won’t. We tend toward heart-blessing kindness in the way of small-town folks who rely on each other in good times and bad, and live together regardless. Weighing in at nearly three pounds, “Writing Appalachia: An Anthology,” edited by Katherine Ledford and Theresa Lloyd, is too big to pack but too wonderful to miss.

Persons: we’re, “, King James Bible, ”, Katherine Ledford, Theresa Lloyd, — James Still, Jesse Stuart, Harriette Simpson, Steven Stoll’s, Stoll, otherness Locations: Appalachia, Georgia , Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, State

☆ Black Lung Disease Is Making A Comeback With Coal Miners - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-02 | by ( Drew A. Harris | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

By the age of 44, Mr. Hoskins was diagnosed with his own case of the most severe form of black lung. Last year we cared for over 500 former coal miners with the most severe form of black lung, a record for the clinic’s 32-year history. By the end of the last century, thanks, in part, to federal safety standards, severe black lung had nearly been eliminated. But with changes in technology and conditions in coal mines in central Appalachia, cases of severe black lung disease are back to the highest level in decades after the last major study, in 2018. As of that year, more than one-fifth of experienced Appalachian miners have black lung.

Persons: Denver Hoskins, Hoskins, Barbara Kingsolver’s Organizations: Cincinnati Reds, Division, Stone Mountain Health Services, Centers for Disease Control Locations: Kentucky, St, Charles, Va, Lee County, Appalachia —, Virginia , Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee, Appalachia

☆ Opinion | Barbara Kingsolver Thinks Urban Liberals Have It All Wrong on Appalachia
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-21 | by ( The Ezra Klein Show | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +58 min

It’s like there’s no point in asking who started this because it’s a really, really old antagonism. I think that’s probably what’s most critical right now is that all of our entertainment, our news media, it’s all made in cities. And he’s really pretty horrible, and he doesn’t feed them enough, and that’s really sad. You’re going to have a flat tire, and the guy that pulls up to help you is going to tell your dad within minutes. It’s not like most books you’re going to see.

Persons: Ezra Klein, ezra klein, —, Hernan Diaz, Barbara Kingsolver, “ David Copperfield ”, Dickens, It’s, barbara kingsolver, you’ve, ezra klein We’re, Nobody, I’d, I’ve, Bobby Ann Mason’s, “, — Wendell Berry, Robert Penn Warren, James Still, Harriette, Taylor Greer, you’re, George Washington, ” he’s, — he’s, he’s, I’ll, They’re, George W, Bush, they’re, barbara kingsolver You’re, we’ve, That’s, that’s, I’m, ” barbara kingsolver, barbara kingsolver Oh, barbara kingsolver ezra klein barbara kingsolver, ezra klein Yes, we’re, Charles Dickens, “ David Copperfield, ”, Tommy, ” It’s, ezra klein There’s, barbara kingsolver There’s, Tommy Traddles, Tommy Waddles, who’s, He’s, We’re, Tommy’s, she’s, it’s, Beth Macy, overdosed, ” ezra klein, There’s, grandkids, they’ve, Dori, doesn’t, Peggot, Frances Goldin, Arwen Donahue, She’s, Beth Macy’s, Lazarus, Laline Paull, ezra klein Barbara Kingsolver Organizations: New York, Fiction, Trump, Nicholas County High School, DePauw University, Walmart, The New York Times, . Times, New York Times, Farmers, “, Knoxville —, Purdue Pharma, Purdue, aha, Scots Locations: Appalachia, It’s, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, U.S, exploitations, Congo, Caribbean, Indiana, Nicholas, Arizona, Europe, Tucson , Arizona, Tucson, Paris, Athens, France, “ Shiloh, MAGA, America, Brazil, Eastern Europe, There’s, California, New York, “, Tommy, Pennington, Knoxville, there’s, nove, Lee County, that’s Lee County, that’s, United States of America, who’s, New York City

☆ Barbara Kingsolver Can’t Stand How the Media Talks About Her Home
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-21 | by ( The Ezra Klein Show | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

When Barbara Kingsolver set out to write her latest novel, “Demon Copperhead,” she was already considered one of the most accomplished writers of our time. Kingsolver grew up in rural Kentucky and lives in southwestern Virginia. She wanted to write a novel about Appalachia from the inside, as someone who is a part of it and who grew up in it. “The story I wanted to tell was not about the big guys, but about the little people,” she told me. “Demon Copperhead” won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and has been widely acclaimed for the nuanced portrait it paints of life in rural America.

Persons: Barbara Kingsolver, “, Ezra Klein, Kingsolver, ” Organizations: Humanities, Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Locations: Kentucky, Virginia, Appalachia, America

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