The Kite Runner- Khaled Hosseini

This is without doubt the best novel I have read so far this year, the book is beautifully written and slowly builds up in pressure and tension until at points I had to actually put it down in disbelieve take a deep breath then re-read the last paragraph, just to be sure of what I had read. The book is set in the back drop of a steadily unraveling Afghanistan and charts the friendship and later betrayal, guilt, loyalty and love shared between the two main characters. I won’t go into to many details of the plot in case I let slip some spoilers, but I will say if you are looking to buy a book this week buy this one. Hosseini is a master of manipulation and storytelling; I will be interested to read his second offering, A thousand splendid suns.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

People in Palestine are burying dead children again!

Image
So like many people I opened my paper yesterday to be confronted by pictures of the three dead children of the Samouni family in Gaza, like most people it sickened me to my stomach so I was both surprised and disgruntled that the first person I heard mention it when I went into town was sticking to the same old line of “its justifiable, Israel are just defending themselves”. I have tried to understand this ideology but it just doesn’t really hold any water, in a purely statistical sense it is recorded that only 13 Israelis have been killed by rocket attacks from Gaza since the attacks started in 2001, so how can that justify the continuous years of massacres and brutality perpetrated on a people forcefully evicted from their homes in what is now part of the state of Israel and pushed into the Gaza strip by a foreign aggressor? The Gaza strip is only 25 miles long and at its widest about seven miles wide, so not dissimilar to the Isle of Wight except it has a population of approximate
Read more

Death To Cynicism

Image
I find myself wondering what is the point to make new year resolutions, after all they only ever last until the second of January then you find yourself stuffing yourself full of McDonalds,’ getting shitfaced and chain smoking in one all out binge! But that I realise is the problem, the onset of age has slowly ground all the idealism I suffered from in my twenties into so much emotional dust and been replace with a form of cynicism so aggressive that it borders on out and out nihilism. Therein lies the problem with cynicism it actually has me at a point where I just can’t be bothered. I used to like the George Bernard Shaw quote “The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.” But now I think I prefer Peggy Noonans’ “Cynicism is not realistic and tough. It's unrealistic and kind of cowardly because it means you don't have to try.” That’s my new year’s resolution to resurrect that little bit of my youth known as idealism, if there ha
Read more