READERS' PICK: Though in its second year in print, Kingsolver's Pulitzer-nominated Poisonwood Bible did make its way into paperback in October of 1999. Perhaps the price cut accounts for a new readership, or perhaps it's simply that she hasn't published anything since. (Though her Prodigal Summer is set for distribution in October, 2000.) But once again, this African tale leaps to mind as our readers' favorite fiction. The versatile author's departure from desert to jungle chronicles the lives of four American women as their family, headed by a somewhat unhinged Baptist missionary, begins life anew in the Belgian Congo, 1959. Combining elements of history and her story, this intricate fabric of politics, religion, heroism and humor vaults Kingsolver into another strata as storyteller, proving the farther she reaches, the more powerful she becomes.
