Charlotte Philby: The Poisonwood Bible
November’s Book of the Month was chosen by Charlotte Philby, a critically acclaimed author, screenwriter and former journalist. Her novels have twice been a Times Thriller of the Year (The End of Summer, 2024, and A Double Life, 2020), and her debut was a Waterstones Thriller of the Month. As a reporter at The Independent, she was shortlisted for the Cudlipp Prize for investigative journalism. With the support of the BFI, she is adapting her novel Edith and Kim, which reimagines the lives of her grandfather, the double-agent Kim Philby, and Edith Tudor-Hart, who recruited him to the Soviet cause. Charlotte has three children and lives in Bristol. Her eighth novel Hot Young Things publishes in June 2027.
Charlotte Philby’s Book of the Month is The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
‘To choose just one book is an impossible task. But with The Poisonwood Bible, you get serious bang for your buck. Barbara Kingsolver’s story of a missionary family in Belgian Congo is a masterclass in storytelling. Told from the perspectives of a Baptist preacher’s wife, and their four daughters, it is the story of post-Colonial Congo told through a gripping literary drama.
I remember the feeling of astonishment when I first read it, a few years after it was first published in 1998. I was 19 and eye-ball deep in some extremely boring classic texts as part of my English Literature degree. Reading this was a breath of fresh air. I was bowled over by the energy of the story, of the precision of the writing; of the power of each of the five female voices who tell the story, in turn. How could one book be so elegantly written, so rich, so heartbreaking, so fiercely entertaining? How could the writer place you in one person’s head so entirely, one moment, and the next plonk you somewhere else?
It is one of those novels that made me think, even before I knew I wanted to be a writer, that writing is a superpower; a tool to build worlds and pull other people into them. You can do anything with words – like the father in this story, you just need to know how to use them.’
Thank you to Charlotte Philby for recommending this book!
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Photo credit: Barbara Evripidou