HIGH TIDE IN TUCSON: Essays From Now...

HIGH TIDE IN TUCSON: Essays From Now or Never by Barbara Kingsolver, illustrated by Paul Mirocha (HarperPerennial: $12.50, 273 pp.). Kingsolver rewrote 25 previously published essays for this anthology. In the title piece, she compares the adjustment she had to make when she left the deciduous woods of Kentucky for the Arizona desert to the jolt a hermit crab experienced when she inadvertently brought it home from the Bahamas.

She writes about the natural world with warmth and insight, and damns the New Age practice of turning Native American culture into a spiritual boutique. Her engaging style falters only when she carps about strangers who decline to rearrange their lives to accommodate her child.