The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad

(288 pages)



This volume offers an intimate portrait of Afghani people.

This is a book telling the true story of the extended Khan family following the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan. The bookseller of the title, is the patriarch of the family, Sultan. He is married with children and lives in a small apartment in Kabul with his extended family including his ageing mother and a nephew.
The focus of the story is upon the treatment of the Afghan women, including the situation of there now being no need to wear the prescribed Bhurkas (veils covering the entire body and face), and the growing want, and need, for independence. It also discusses the role and importance of faith and religion in the ‘new’ Afghanistan.
The story is told from a third person perspective, focussing upon the individual dramas faced by the family during the stay of the author in the Khan household. There are stories of crime and punishment, the stresses of courtship and the pilgrimage of a guilt-riddled son in an attempt to wash away his sins. The most fascinating, and moving story for me though was that of Leila, the 19 year old sister of Sultan, whose job it was to keep house for the entire family, and her desire to become more than a ‘slave’.
It is written in a very easy to read manner, and the story itself is highly compelling. The people are full of life, energy, emotion, individuality and determination, an amazing feat considering all that they have been through. The dramas are fascinating, addictive at times humorous and sometimes sickening, but they are the real-life stories of the Afghan people.
Having read this book (in just over 1 day – it is that gripping), I can now appreciate the difficulties there have been in trying to restore order and government into this war ravaged country, which to western eyes is still very old-fashioned. The west claims to have ‘liberated Afghanistan, but how can it have done so if it does not understand it?
I loved this book, and would recommend it to anyone and everyone!!

The Corset Diaries by Katie MacAllister

(344 pages)



No woman in her right mind would consent to wearing a corset for a month. Especially a "skinny-challenged" woman like Tessa. But dreams of being debt-free dance in her head at the offer of appearing in a reality TV show. "A Month in the Life of a Victorian Duke" is about real people pretending to live on an English estate, circa 1879. And Tessa's leading man-a real-life Duke-is so handsome she can barely breathe, with or without the corset...

this was a lovely fun light hearted read with plenty of laughs, just what I needed! :D

Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver

(320 pages)



From an isolated mountain cabin, Deanna Wolfe, a reclusive wildlife biologist is caught off guard by a young hunter. On a farm futher down the mountain, Lusa finds herself marooned in a strange place where she must declare or lose her attachment to the land that has become her own. A few more miles down the road a pair of elderly feuding neighbours tend their respective farms and wrangle about God.
Over the course of one humid summer, these characters find not only their connections to each other but a sense of the place they share.

this was a lovely book with losts of likeable charactes, extremely well written and highly addictive once you get into it :)

Night Swimming by Robin Schwarz

(352 pages)



An overweight New Hampshire bank employee is misdiagnosed with cancer and given a year to live in this first novel, a giddy, overblown romantic comedy. Wish-fulfillment is on the agenda for the unfortunately named Charlotte Clapp. After her doctor gives her the bad news, she decides to rob the bank where she works and run away to L.A. Miraculously, her daring life change is rewarded by unintentional weight loss—fortunate, because Skip, the pool boy at her luxury apartment complex, is a blonde Adonis (and a former lawyer), and Charlotte (now calling herself Blossom McBeal) plans to sit in a kimono by the pool, hoping desperately that he'll fall for her. Friendship is provided by Charlotte's dog-loving elderly neighbor, Dolly—and Charlotte needs it, because the police are still after her, slowly but surely tracking her to California. Schwarz's novel is as padded as Charlotte's waistline with purple prose ("The perfect silvery notes... hovered like breakable angels over the audience") and hyperbole ("One Krispy Kreme after another, until she resembled a cardboard clown with a ring of white powder around its mouth"). But those willing to read between the book's often-unwieldy lines will be rewarded with soap-operatic satisfactions.

i found this a really enjoyable read, nice and slushy with focus on the importance of friends and love. the sickly sweet ending was a little irritating, but the thing that spoilt it for me the most was the fact that Charlotte found love after becoming thin and beautiful.... what about the fat girls?