October 3, 2026

Shout out to my editor Meghan who pointed out to me that at the back of Barbara Kingsolver’s new book, Partita, she thanks her hand surgeon. Remember folks, always read the acknowledgements! Anyway, I visited her at her home in southwestern Virginia to talk about the new book and I asked her about it. See, the new book is about a classical pianist, full of potential, whose career gets derailed by an accident. You don’t need to work that hard to see the links to her own personal life.

You can listen to the full interview here, but we got to talking about Dupuytren's contracture, the regular surgeries she has to have on her hand, and career-ending injuries versus career altering ones. And then we got to talking about age and aging, and how, as a writer, you’re simply a different person when you’re writing book 19 than you were when writing book 2. But there’s a freedom to acknowledging that those different people are still you. “When I look at the careers and the works of writers I love, I see growth,” she says. “I see expansion.”

I also had the chance to interview Lois Lowry this week (look out for that in your podcast feeds in the near future) and she talked about her long career and how her latest book is, in one crucial way, a response to her 1993 book The Giver. And so I’ve been thinking a lot about writers with long careers and many books under their belts. It’s a beautiful thing — all writers should be so lucky. To be honest, more often than not, I do find myself saying “ehh, I like their earlier stuff more.” But there are a few writers for whom I’m along for the ride, no matter what. I enjoy each new person they become in between new releases. I enjoy the expansion.

But what about you — who are the writers with long career arcs that you appreciate? Or maybe the possibly rare: “I didn’t like their earlier stuff but I liked the later stuff, more!” Let us know at bookoftheday@npr.org