4:00
Valerie, our Radio Readers BookByte contributor questions the Reverend Price’s use of the Bible as “dreaded verse.” Punishment.
Credit Leon Brooks, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Hi, I’m Valerie a radio reader from Topeka and I just finished Genesis which is part I of the Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. The book is part of HPPR’s radio readers book club this go round with the theme cultures in common.
First, a confession: I love Kingsolver. The Prodigal Summer is one of my favorite books. BUT this is my second try reading the Poisonwood Bible and I am NOT a fan. The book is about a missionary family of Baptists that go to the Congo for a year. It’s set in the 1950s and told from the point of view of the 4 daughters and the mother.
Hi, I’m Marcy McKay from Amarillo, author of Amazon’s #1 Hot New Release,
When Life Feels Like a House Fire: Transforming Your Stress. I’m excited to be a Radio Reader for High Plains Public Radio’s Book Club.
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver tells about Nathan Price, a 1950’s preacher who drags his wife and four daughters from Georgia to save the wicked souls in the Congolese jungle of Africa. It’s a powerful novel about politics, religion, sin, redemption and everything that makes for a great story.
The tribesman that Pastor Price is hell-bent on leading to Jesus are with their multiple gods, and their multiple wives. They’re also fine being dirt poor because it’s the only life they’ve ever known. Ignorance is bliss because they’ve fared alright. Nobody had much of anything, yet when someone was in a crisis, everyone gave a little extra from the little that they had.
4:00
Caption: This 1906 print is titled “Woman in girlhood, wifehood, motherhood; her responsibilities and her duties at all periods of life; a guide in the maintenance of her health and that of her children.” The mother in Poisonwood learns of the limits of her protective capacity in a poignant way.
Credit Solis-Cohen, Myer, No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons
The first time I read
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, 20 years ago when it was first out, it was a new bestseller, and I was a new mother. Of all the characters, I most related to, and was most perplexed by Orleanna Price, the mother. Though my circumstances were not nearly so extreme, I too felt lost in this new land of motherhood, this small baby wholly dependent on me. Those first few months of parenting are such a shock. Fortunately, my journey into motherhood was not nearly as dramatic, or isolating, as the Congo was for Orleanna. But I did feel scared and confused I wanted to do the right thing,
4:00
Hey, you all! It’s 2021 finally!! And HPPR’s Radio Readers is back with a spring read for all of us! What with all the lessons offered by 2020 (may it rest in peace), we’ve opted for a series of books to help us explore
Cultures in a Common Land, as a way to talk about how to live alongside others whose beliefs and ways of being seem not to align with our own. Know what I mean?
To frame our conversations, we’ve chosen a trio of titles – classic titles from the 1990’s culled from archived book lists from Radio Readers throughout our region and…our choices are could I have a drum roll, please? Barbara Kingsolver’s 1999 controversial novel
Order Reprints Print Article Text size
Many travelers have been reflecting on how they interact with the world over the past year due to the forced hiatus caused by the global coronavirus pandemic. For Samantha Bray, managing director of The Center for Responsible Travel (CREST), the idea of adjusting one’s own behaviors and decisions in relation to the impact of travel has always been at the forefront of her mind.
“Because travel is of course meant to be a fun activity, it is often misunderstood as being simple. It’s not,” Bray says. “It’s extremely complex and requires tremendous coordination between public, private, and civil sectors, involving environmental, social, cultural, and economic components. It traverses various other industries, including transportation, infrastructure, energy, waste management, education, and cultural heritage.”