Barbara Kingsolver’s 5 Most Popular Books, According to Goodreads Readers
From ‘Demon Copperhead’ to ‘The Poisonwood Bible,’ these novels are must-reads
Key Takeaways
- Goodreads readers have given these five Barbara Kingsolver books thousands of ratings.
- ‘Demon Copperhead’ leads the list with a 4.46 average rating and nearly 1 million ratings.
- From family sagas to environmental dramas, Kingsolver’s books tackle powerful themes.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Barbara Kingsolver’s newest novel, Partita, released yesterday, and it’s already getting rave reviews from readers and book clubs—Jenna Bush Hager named it the Read with Jenna pick for October. But that’s no surprise to fans of the author: Many of her novels have received high praise. Below, we’ve rounded up five of Kingsolver’s novels Goodreads users can’t stop raving about. Keep scrolling for the list!
‘Demon Copperhead’ – 4.46 average rating
This 2022 novel—a modern retelling of David Copperfield by Charles Dickens—won Kingsolver the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and has almost 1 million ratings on Goodreads. Set in the Appalachian Mountains, the plot follows Damon Fields—also known as Demon Copperhead, a young boy who bounces between foster homes, all while dealing with issues like addiction, loss and disastrous love. Along the way, Damon learns things about himself and grows in ways he never thought possible.
What Goodreads users are saying: “I did not think I’d survive this book. It’s the type of slow burn trauma that makes you feel every loss, every setback, every heartbreak like it was your own. This is the first time I’ve ever finished a book and wanted to immediately start it over just to stay with the character. One of the best books I’ve ever read.”
‘The Poisonwood Bible’ – 4.12 average rating
The Poisonwood Bible was published in 1998 and has since garnered more than 800,000 ratings on Goodreads. It also a was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1999. Set in 1959, the story follows Nathan Price, an evangelical Baptist preacher who takes his family with him on his mission in the Belgian Congo. He and his wife Orleanna and four daughters—Rachel, Leah, Adah and Ruth May—take everything with them, only to learn that life in Africa is much more difficult and dangerous than they expected. A beautiful multiple-POV story that is set against Congo’s fight for independence from Belgium.
What Goodreads users are saying: “This is, quite simply, one of the best, most powerful, most resonant, most surprising, most beautiful, most alive novels I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading. Barbara Kingsolver seems to have written this toweringly stunning book after peering into the deepest corners of her soul. She was clearly animated and awakened by the profound outrage and horror she felt as she came to understand what colonialism and American capitalist interventionist policies had done to the Congo, where she had briefly lived as the child of foreign aid workers.”
‘Animal Dreams’ – 4.08 average rating
Published in 1990, this groundbreaking novel has more than 80,000 ratings on Goodreads. When Codi Noline returns to her hometown of Grace, Arizona, when her father’s dementia progresses, she slowly learns that the town has become a dangerous environmental catastrophe. Codi begins to investigate what is really going on. Along the way, she discovers something that could change her identity and meets a man who will change her life.
What Goodreads users are saying: “This is a wonderful book. It does what many stories try to do: it simply tells a person’s life, a snippet of time in the grand scheme of things, and in the process touches on some larger truth. Something that helps a reader with a new perspective, a new thing to think about. Codi holds most of the pages, but some of the most devastating passages are from the few chapters told from her father’s point of view. He is how she could be. How we all can be, if we feel but don’t let it out, if we hide behind histories long past but still capable of wounding.”
‘Prodigal Summer’ – 4.06 average rating
This Kingsolver novel was published in 2000 and has more than 130,000 ratings on Goodreads. One humid summer, wildlife biologist Deanna Wolfe tracks tracks coyotes in a mountain forest, young widow Lusa Maluf Landowski struggles to maintain the farm she inherited from her late husband and Garnett Walker III and Nannie Rawley, a pair of elderly feuding neighbors, fight over how best to take care of the land. As their lives collide, they all learn from one another. A beautiful tale that highlights just how important our planet is.
What Goodreads users are saying: “I’ve read and enjoyed all of Barbara Kingsolver’s novels but Prodigal Summer stands out for me. Anyone who finds solace in nature will find this novel irresistible. Kingsolver pays tribute to the natural world while quietly testifying that we can either live in communion with it or contribute to its demise.”
‘Pigs in Heaven’ – 4.03 average rating
This 1993 novel, the second in her Greer Family series, follows 6-year-old Turtle Greer, who witnesses a freak accident at the Hoover Dam that turns her into an overnight celebrity. But as the incident gains publicity, so do Turtle and her mother Taylor—and soon everyone involved in the tragedy has their secrets revealed, forever changing their lives.
What Goodreads users are saying: “I love the way Barbara Kingsolver immerses you in a different time, place, or moment in history with each of her books. The story is welcome to wander at its own pace, because it’s filled with such alluring characters that you’re happy to follow wherever it leads.”
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