Books in Order
Barbara Kingsolver Books in Order
About Barbara Kingsolver
Barbara Kingsolver (born 1955, Annapolis, Maryland) is one of America's most celebrated literary novelists. Trained as a biologist, she consistently brings ecological and political consciousness to her fiction. Her breakout novel The Poisonwood Bible (1998) became a Pulitzer finalist and one of the most taught novels in American high schools and universities. Her 2022 novel Demon Copperhead — a retelling of David Copperfield set in Appalachia during the opioid crisis — won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, cementing her status as one of the essential American novelists of her generation. She is known for her moral seriousness, richly imagined settings, and powerfully rendered sense of place.
New to Kingsolver? Start with The Poisonwood Bible for her best-loved novel, or Demon Copperhead for her Pulitzer Prize winner.
Novels (Chronological)
The Bean Trees
1988
DebutHer debut. A young woman from Kentucky drives west and ends up with a Cherokee child.
Get this book →Animal Dreams
1990
A woman returns to her Arizona hometown and rediscovers its community.
Get this book →Pigs in Heaven
1993
Sequel to The Bean Trees — the legal battle over Taylor's adopted daughter.
Get this book →The Poisonwood Bible
1998
Most beloved / Pulitzer finalistA Baptist preacher takes his family to the Congo in 1959. Told through the voices of his wife and daughters. Her masterwork.
Get this book →Prodigal Summer
2000
Three interwoven stories of predators and prey in the Appalachian mountains.
Get this book →The Lacuna
2009
Orange Prize WinnerA novel spanning Mexico and 1930s America, touching Diego Rivera and Leon Trotsky.
Get this book →Flight Behavior
2012
Climate change strikes a Tennessee farm as monarch butterflies appear where they've never been.
Get this book →Demon Copperhead
2022
Pulitzer Prize Winner 2023David Copperfield retold in Appalachia during the opioid epidemic. Ferocious and heartbreaking.
Get this book →Frequently Asked Questions
What is Barbara Kingsolver's best book?
Most readers point to either The Poisonwood Bible (her most beloved, most widely taught novel) or Demon Copperhead (her Pulitzer Prize winner). They are very different books: Poisonwood Bible is expansive, multi-voiced, colonial-era Africa; Demon Copperhead is intimate, Appalachian, and concerned with opioid addiction.
Do you need to read The Bean Trees before Pigs in Heaven?
Pigs in Heaven is a sequel to The Bean Trees and works much better if you've read the first book. The Bean Trees is also Kingsolver's most accessible novel — it is the natural starting point if you're new to her.
Is Demon Copperhead a retelling of David Copperfield?
Yes — it directly adapts Dickens's David Copperfield (1850) to contemporary rural Appalachia. Knowledge of the Dickens novel is not required: the adaptation is complete and self-contained. Readers familiar with Dickens will find additional layers of meaning.