Homeland and Other Stories by Barbara Kingsolver

This is what happened to them. They struck out so boldly as a couple, but the minute they lost their bearings they’d homed in on terra firma. It’s frightening, she thinks, how when the going gets rough you fall back on whatever awful thing you grew up with.

I like to call Barbara Kingsolver – a writer’s writer because of the masterful wizardry that she has with words. It is possible to lose yourself in her tales but it is the magical spin that she puts on the words that she strings together that enchants the reader. Homeland and Other Stories is another such gift: 12 memorable stories told with incisive wit.