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The Bookseller of Kabul
by: Asne Seierstad

Price: $43.75

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Used Price: $5.75
Collectible Price: $68.20
Third Party New Price: $43.75

Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 364
EAN: 9780316726054
ISBN: 0316726052
Label: Little, Brown
Manufacturer: Little, Brown
Number Of Pages: 256
Publication Date: August 07, 2003
Publisher: Little, Brown
Studio: Little, Brown
Sales Rank: 2325813

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Editorial Review:

Product Description:
Two weeks after September 11th, award-winning journalist Asne Seierstad went to Afghanistan to report on the conflict there. In the following spring she returned to live with an Afghan family for several months. For more than 20 years Sultan Khan defied the authorities - be they Communist or Taliban - in order to supply books to the people of Kabul. He was arrested, interrogated and imprisoned by the Communists, and watched illiterate Taliban soldiers burn piles of his books in the street. He even resorted to hiding most of his stock in attics all over Kabul. But while Khan is passionate in his love of books and hatred of censorship, he is also a committed Muslim with strict views on family life. As an outsider, Seierstad is able to move between the private world of the women - including Khan's two wives - and the more public lives of the men. And so we learn of proposals and marriages, suppression and abuse of power, crime and punishment. The result is a moving portrait of a family and a clear-eyed assessment of a country struggling to free itself from history.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Great Book!
This is an interesting read. I found it not only enjoyable but informative about issues in middle east culture. I don't think that saying it shows the problems with Islam is accurate. Rather, the culture in that region of the world is sexist and stunts the ability of these nations to prosper intellecutally and economically.

Rating:

- Insightful look into Afghan culture
The Bookseller of Kabul truly gives a representation of an Afghan family, shortly after 9/11. The book provides information that may never have been glimpsed had the author not lived with the family. Truly an intriguing, sad, shocking, emotional book. I highly recommend it.

Rating:

- Insightful and Compelling
I read this book early into my year as an American military advisor in Afghanistan. I found that the picutre of Afghan family life that it painted was very helpful in understanding the lives of the Afghans I dealt with every day. Because of the insight, I felt better able to communicate and build rapport with my Afghan friends. The book discusses frankly the disadvantages of women in a cultural context. If the Global War on Terror is a campaign to win hearts and minds, then this book is a must read in order to understand the hearts and minds of the people on the front lines.

Rating:

- Honest and candid account
Asne Seirstadt writes an honest and candid account of her four months of life with an Afghan family, following the fall of the Taliban and the end of the reign of terror they subjected the Afghan people to.

She spent these months with the family of Sultan Khan who- for twenty years-defied the tyranny of the Communists and then the Taliban by selling books on the black market because the tyrants did not allow books except those which subscribed to their narrow minded and sick ideas.

Afghanistan was a great, progressive and vibrant country during the reign of King Zahir Shah who was overthrown by Mohammed Daoud Khan in 1973 after which followed 5 years of instability and then the sheer hell of Communist repression followed shortly thereafter by the Taliban's reign of ... Read More

Rating:

- An interesting portrayal of life in Kabul at the beginning of the 21st century
Seierstad begins the book with a foreword in praise of Sultan Khan, the bookseller she meets in Kabul. I (or the reader) is maybe expecting a warm account of family life amongst the unsettled times in Kabul during 2002, and after the terrorist attacks in America. Alongside that, a little history of Afghanistan and the political environment that saw soldiers burning his books in the street.

However...what we get is a disturbing account of everyday life for that particular family and others who are mentioned. The author tells us that this is not necessarily a picture of all Afghani families but a picture she gleaned from her stay with the Khans. It is clear however that there are many families that the women gossiped about who have a similar way of life.

It's sociologically ... Read More

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