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A Thousand Splendid Suns | 
 enlarge | Author: Khaled Hosseini
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Category: Book
List Price: £11.99
Buy New: £4.40
You Save: £7.59 (63%)
New (41) Used (14) Collectible (1) from £4.39
Avg. Customer Rating:  174 reviews
Sales Rank: 26
Media: Paperback
Edition: Export Ed
Pages: 384
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6 x 1.3
ISBN: 0747582971
EAN: 9780747582977
ASIN: 0747582971
Publication Date: May 22, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews: Read 169 more reviews...
 Fantastic book! Great easy readable story with characters you really care to learn more about. August 26, 2008
The book sets a story built around the lives of two women; Laila and Mariam and their lives amidst the war torn Afghanistan. At first I thought the war side of the story may act as a deterrent for a long drawn out novel but it provides an interesting an easily readable backdrop to what eventually turns into a novel of love between Laila and Tariq (her one legged childhood friend, Mariam the other wife to their shared husband Rasheed and Afghanistan.
The text starts with the life of Mariam who we find is an illegitimate child with a sad start to life and slowly weaves into the life of Laila a younger more beautiful Afghan woman who goes through different hardships. From the point their two lives interweave and you learn more about the characters, love or hate them you'll find it hard to put down.
You have to read the book to find out how the story ends but it is honestly one of my best reads!! Not too long and draws you in from the first couple of pages.
 A disappointment after hearing so much praise for this book August 21, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
I really found this book a struggle to read. The actual story was ok in theory but the style in which it was written does not really appeal to me. My son reccomended it to me, as he had read "the kite runner" and enjoyed it. It was his copy I read, I'm so glad I didnt buy it myself. I may enjoy "the kite runner" more, I hope so. I got the feeling he was writing a film script rather than a novel, it will probably make a better film than a book. I know I am in a minority but this is my honest review.
A Wonderful Reading Experience! August 19, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Having just finished A Thousand Splendid Suns I can now put aside any questions I had about Hosseini being able to write a book that can come close to matching the heartwarming and often heartwrenching reading experience he provided in The Kite Runner. A Thousand Splendid Sun is every bit as good as The Kite Runner -- and in many ways is even better! It is an astonishing, powerful book that had me riveted from the first to the last page, and is broader in scope than The Kite Runner. It is a story of two generations of characters brought together by the tragic sweep of war, where personal lives -- the struggle to survive, raise a family, find happiness -- are inextricable from the history playing out around them. A Thousand Splendid Suns is not just a great, although overwhelmingly sad, story, it is history lesson of Afghanistan's last thirty years -- from the Soviet invasion to the reign of the Taliban to post-Taliban rebuilding -- that puts the violence, fear, hope and faith of this country in extremely intimate, human terms. Hosseini is a masterful writer whose prose and narrative style ooze emotion. If you have any hesitancy about reading this book, put your doubts aside and rush out to get yourself a copy of A Thousand Splendid Suns. You'll be very glad you did. It is not only a book that will keep you from doing anything else but turning the pages, it is a book that will stay in your head and heart for years to come. It is that good, although that tragic!
Heartbreaking and enlightening August 19, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Khaled Hosseini is a faultless storyteller and (unlike many modern writers) he has a compelling and heartbreaking story to tell. I found this novel intelligent, insightful, empathetic and enlightening. It is moving without being sentimental.
It also made me ashamed of my own ignorance about (recent) history and so very grateful for the the freedom and equality I enjoy (and take forgranted) as a woman in the the UK.
I have yet to read the Kite Runner but it is certainly on my list.
Unrequited Love for Afganisthan August 18, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
A Thousand Splendid Suns, for this slow reader, was finished in three days. Hosseini captured a similar full circle evocative tale as with The Kite Flyer, eyes again opened to an insider's view and memory. How the writer put himself in the role of these two suffering women, competing and then soul-mates, is a feat in itself, presenting their feminine persons and emotions against the tragedy of their present and historical surroundings. The author must respect women very much. With every word I felt the richness of the characters invoking tears the women were not allowed, only the reader, unexpectedly and in a real way.
This writer writes with dignity and an unrequited love of his country. When he brings us up to date with the current tragedies of Afghanistan, the underbelly is made clearer. Perhaps Hosseini is the Pamuk of Turkey enlarging our view through references to culture and poetry. In particular, note his descriptions of the living and then destroyed monumental sculptural Buddhas.
This soulful storyteller brings lives around to themselves through honesty and informs us of political and painful circumstances we could not know without living them ourselves.
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