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BOOK OF THE WEEK
Week 9/22-9/29
Book 1
After 103 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and with four million copies of The Kite Runner shipped, Khaled Hosseini returns with a beautiful, riveting, and haunting novel that confirms his place as one of the most important literary writers today.
Propelled by the same superb instinct for storytelling that made The Kite Runner a beloved classic, A Thousand Splendid Suns is at once an incredible chronicle of thirty years of Afghan history and a deeply moving story of family, friendship, faith, and the salvation to be found in love.
Born a generation apart and with very different ideas about love and family, Mariam and Laila are two women brought jarringly together by war, by loss and by fate. As they endure the ever escalating dangers around them --- in their home as well as in the streets of Kabul --- they come to form a bond that makes them both sisters and mother-daughter to each other, and that will ultimately alter the course not just of their own lives but of the next generation. With heart-wrenching power and suspense, Hosseini shows how a woman's love for her family can move her to shocking and heroic acts of self-sacrifice, and that in the end it is love, or even the memory of love, that is often the key to survival.
A stunning accomplishment, A Thousand Splendid Suns is a haunting, heartbreaking, compelling story of an unforgiving time, an unlikely friendship, and an indestructible love.
--Readers Group Guides to Lit
Rating: 10/10
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Canary word: Present
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125,008 Literary Works • 672,828 Reviews
I've been meaning to read "A Thousand Splendid Suns," it sounds really interesting. Depressing, though.
You know, if anyone has books they think are worthy, feel free to share!
BOOK OF THE WEEK
Week 10/27-11/4
Book 3
Though he may not speak of them, the memories still dwell inside Jacob Jankowski's ninety-something-year-old mind. Memories of himself as a young man, tossed by fate onto a rickety train that was home to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. Memories of a world filled with freaks and clowns, with wonder and pain and anger and passion; a world with its own narrow, irrational rules, its own way of life, and its ownway of death. The world of the circus: to Jacob it was both salvation and a living hell.
Jacob was there because his luck had run out --- orphaned and penniless, he had no direction until he landed on this locomotive "ship of fools." It was the early part of the Great Depression, and everyone in this third-rate circus was lucky to have any job at all. Marlena, the star of the equestrian act, was there because she fell in love with the wrong man, a handsome circus boss with a wide mean streak. And Rosie the elephant was there because she was the great gray hope, the new act that was going to be the salvation of the circus; the only problem was, Rosie didn't have an act --- in fact, she couldn't even follow instructions. The bond that grew among this unlikely trio was one of love and trust, and ultimately, it was their only hope for survival.
Surprising, poignant, and funny, Water for Elephants is that rare novel with a story so engrossing, one is reluctant to put it down; with characters so engaging, they continue to live long after the last page has been turned; with a world built of wonder, a world so real, one starts to breathe its air.
--Reading Group Guides
Rate: 10/10
I really thought it was better than Kite Runner--which read rather too much like a biography.
I'm in the chapter after the story about the hostage :]
(About the Thousand Splendid Suns)
I know many people who liked it, but I personally thought that a subject so deep and sad should not have been discussed in such a... a "relaxed", if I can say that, tone. It was good at parts, but it was very inconsistent and it lacked the feeling and the epic signifcance the Kite Runner had.
This book was good, it just could not be compared with the Kite Runner.
Woo for Italo Calvino!
If on a Winters night a traveler is an amazing book. I've recommended it to several people, though, and I think only a few of them actually enjoyed it. Strange...
One thing Borders' review neglected to note was that, the real reason this book is a beauty, is because it pulls off second person, which most people can't do. Instead of being incredebly annoying, it just draws you in even more...
Eva, did you read it?
Really? Strange.
I fell in love with the book immeadiately. There was something about the simple yet overpowering style of the writing that took me by surprise. At times I felt revolted, excited, surprised, and many of the times--very sad. I almost cried many times.
I was really disappointed by this book.
It did not have any of the intrigue, beauty, and emotion of his previous one. A Thousand Splendid Suns was bland, borning, and completely empty of style, color, spice... I really did not feel for any of the women there. It was so terrible, it took me fifteen days to finish it.