What do you read when you are not feeling well?
   I am dealing with a case of shingles and haven't been able to find anything to read that interests me.  It has been difficult to concentrate and so I tried listening to my favourite book ("Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver) on tape.  Unfortunately, the reader was very brisk and clipped, with no expression in her voice.  I gave up on that.

Barbara Kingsolver

  Then I realized that I had Barbara Kingsolver's newest novel on my bookshelf.  I have read four of Kingsolver's books and enjoyed every one.  Her writing is exquisite!
  I wrote a blog about "Flight Behaviour "in 2013, my first year of blogging.  That book was very detailed about the environment- butterflies in particular.  It had a great deal of science in the book.

   Well, her new book, "Unsheltered" has even more science.  It was not the best book for me in my situation.  However, I finally finished it and can say that it has great merit!
  There are two storylines with alternating chapters.  That was too complicated for my state of health, so I read one storyline at a time.
   The stories were 100 years apart but in the same area of Vineland, New Jersey and focussed on science (mostly botany)- especially Darwinism.  And it does get into a court case.  There were references to many things in the past, but also the present.  

   One chapter started with: "He said he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and people would still vote for him.  Am I dreaming this, Willa asked."
  Well, I was shocked that Barbara Kingsolver dropped this statement into the novel so casually, with no mention of the real person who used these words.  I was also surprised at some of the crude dialogue.  But perhaps she thought that it made the character more true to the times.
  However, her sentences were, once again, beautifully crafted.  She is the master of metaphor.