I just finished a terrific book called The Kite Runner. It's on a lot of best seller & book club lists. I don't know how I missed it when it first came out in hardback in 2003; maybe it was because this debut novel was published the very month I closed my store-front bookstore--not a great time in my life.
Oh well, no need to dwell on that--life goes on. And this great book is proof of that! Published in English & five other languages, the film rights have gone to DreamWorks. The author, Khaled Hosseini is an Afghan-American who emigrated to the US nearly 25 years ago. He left Afghanistan as an 11-year-old 7th grader.
The Kite Runner begins in Kabul. I'm embarrassed to admit that I'm not terribly geographically literate and had only a vague idea where Kabul was before I started reading this book. The writing is so good that I felt I was right in his city once I began reading. The story begins just before the Russians seized control of Afghanistan in 1980. It is about two boys who grow up together & their fathers, but each family follows a very different path half way through the book. More importantly, it is a story of transformation & redemption, dramatic events & larger-than-life characters.
I want to pass on to you the only reservation I had with this book: at times I had to put it down, take a break because certain passages were quite violent, however never gratutious.
If you want to read more about this book and author, take a look at his website. He is autographing & speaking at a number of places around the country and list these on his site.
Thanks to all of you who have visited my blog. I'm very new to this & don't know exactly what I'm doing. I'll try to respond to each of you personaly in the next day or two. If any of you have also read this book, I'd love to hear what you thought of it.