The Poisonwood Bible (1998) is a bestselling novel about a missionary family, the Prices, who in 1959 move from Georgia to … the Belgian Congo …

… to save African souls.

Like most readers, I love how the narrative alternates between the four daughters.

Adah is my favourite.

Adah Price (14 at start of the novel) – Hemiplegic from birth, Adah is silent, brilliant in math and languages, witty, skeptical, sarcastic, envious of her twin sister, and prone to self-pity.

She reminded me a little of the brilliant Norma Cenva, a congenital dwarf, mathematical genius. One of the most important characters in the entire Dune franchise.

And Owen Meany, the malformed dwarf, “God’s instrument”, one of the great characters of fiction.

In some ways the book is cliché, though. I immediately thought of Mosquito Coast (1986) and the brilliant film, The Gods Must be Crazy.

Yet it kept me going strong right up to about page 500. When the women flee after one of the daughters is killed.

The author lived in Congo as a child. The details feel real.

Barbara Kingsolver is an American novelist about my age who often writes about social justice.

In 2000, she established the Bellwether Prize to support “literature of social change.”

In the late 1990s she was a founder member of the Rock Bottom Remainders, a rock and roll band made up of published writers. Other band members include Amy Tan, Matt Groening, Dave Barry, and Stephen King. (That must have been fun.)

official website: kingsolver.com

Leave a comment if you liked the book. It’s really got me thinking.

Shout out for the most sophisticated and skilled author I read.

John Le Carré is “one of the finest writers of espionage fiction in 20th century literature”.

The former MI5 & MI6 operative published his first novel in 1961. He’s still going strong.

A pseudonym was required, way back when, because Foreign Office officers were forbidden to publish in their own names.

In 2008 he named his best books:

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
The Tailor of Panama
The Constant Gardener

For some reason The Little Drummer Girl is his novel I best remember. Perhaps because I liked the movie with Diane Keaton, too.

I recently listened to Absolute Friends (2003). Every 2-3yrs I feel obliged to read one of his books, to up the intelligence quotient of my average. (The Dune Franchise books are like kindergarten readers, by comparison.)

Next for me is The Mission Song (2006) as I want to learn more about the Second Congo War. (25 armed groups, 5.4 million dead).

I hear the narration of that book by David Oyelowo is superb.

In real life Cornwell’s a harsh critic of the Iraq War.