I am so pumped right now, the book I had to read in English about refugees has been made in to a movie and is being released in November for America and December for Australia. It is called 'The Kite Runner' and is by Khaled Hosseini. If you can't come across the book (although, I highly recommend it. It is such a brilliant story) I really urge you all to see this if you get the chance, I promise you it would be worth it! Here is the trailer if anyone is interested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1Ivdc76nAY

I second you on this, Kaitlyn. The Kite Runner is a very good book and I hope the movie they made from it will do it justice.

Yes, I did and loved it. I'd love to exchange our views on it. Obviously, comments by anyone else who did or will read the book are welcome.

I saw a preview of THe Kite Runner at the art theater in Port Townsend. It looked quite good and I've heard great things about the book previously. Thanks for the recommendation Kaitlyn and Frances. I'll try to get over and see it. It kind of reminds me of a movie called A Time For Drunken Horses about a kurdish family on the border of Iraq and Iran who must get help for an ill child after the father dies. It's quite sad, but pertinent to the situation in that part of the world. GG

Hello all, I did not like the Kite Runner. I am wondering what all of you got out of the story that I didn't. Best to all, GinaP :cool:

Maybe we could start with why you didn't like it? Then it'll be easier to discuss what we did and didn't get out of it.

It was inauthentic, poorly written, and contrived. Several in my book group thought similarly to me, and then there are Amazon reviews that say similar things. I feel that it was a mediocre book that skyrocketed to success because of the political climate of the time. No one care about Afghanistan or Afghanis prior to 9-11. I think the author is simply pandering to that sentiment. If someone wrote another story, for example Afghani's struggling to maintain their religious faith in the face of the oppressive Taliban, or Afghanis that were bitter about the US invasion, it wouldn't have received a publishing contract, even if the author was the next Hemingway. I went into the story with high hopes and was disappointed about a quarter of the way through the book. I really didn't like it sorry, and I was trying to spare all of you my critique. After all you said you liked it. I don't want to get into a debate with all of you who liked it. I simply want to know why you liked it. As I said, just curious. The best books I have read in the past few years: Plainsong, The Things They Carried, Five Quarters of the Orange, Interpreter of Maladies, and the la-*test*-('") short story collection by Alice Munro. If all of you have not read these books, or have never heard of them, then we may simply have different tastes in literature. So do let me know, what is it about The Kite Runner that you liked? GinaP :cool:

Gina, I agree with on the success of The Kite Runner owing a lot to the political climate of the time. What I liked about it? I liked how the author developed the idea of the father-son relationship and friendships and deals with fears, prejudice, guilt, betrayal, loyalty, and forgiveness. BTW, I heard of all the books you listed, Gina, and read Five Quarters of the Orange and Interpreters of Maladies (and liked them). Even The Namesake by the same author if Interpreters of Maladies (Jhumpa Lahiri) is a good book, IMHO. Honestly, it is Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Isabel Allende and Paulo Coelho (and Laura Esquivel, to a lesser extent) from whose books I am wondering what people get out of. I read or tried to read books by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Isabel Allende and Paulo Coelho and I admit my defeat: I can't bring myself to like their highly imaginative and kind of a bit moralizing writing.

Thanks Frances and zoo.station for letting me know what you liked. Obviously it is a successful book so people must have liked something about it. I just wondered what it was. To zoo-station: I think the author is a mediocre writer who relies on contrived plot twists to move the story forward. Like I said, about a quarter of the way into the book, I was suddenly jarred from the story by his obvious foreshadowing. I don't remember the exact details now. There were several other areas in the book as well. As a result, the story had an "inauthentic" ring to it because the author was relying on these conventions. I don't think he set out to write a book purely for exposure. From what I understand, the author is a doctor who took up writing as a hobby. However, I think his perspective fit into the tenor of the times. It was a manuscript that publishers recognized its salability and snapped it up. Another perspective would never have hit the light of day. Getting into print is as much about politics as it is about quality of writing. And finally, maybe there were some NGO's or charities that cared about Afghani's prior to 9-11, but the country had been in terrible wars since the Soviet 1980 invasion. Then after the Soviet's were repelled there was tribal warfare that resulted in the Taliban's rise to power. Many different countries policies gave rise to this scenario (Ronald Reagan for one was encouraging the "mujahideen" to fight the Soviets, groups that formed the basis of the later Taliban) and there was no one, on a global scale, that ever tried to bring peace to that region. After 9-11, of course, there was the US led bombing and driving out of the Taliban, the rise of a democratic government of sorts. One can debate whether this was good or not (and I for one am not going to get into such a debate), but that was all after 9-11. I realize that both of you (Frances and zoo-station) are not from the US, but many people from the US thought that the Afghanis were another group of Arabs. If you have no idea who they are, then I doubt that you ever cared before. So my use of "no one" was hyperbole rather than stating a specific fact. Frances, I have Allende on my shelf and have not read it yet. Now I am really curious. And zoo.station, pick up Jhumpa Lahiri's work. She is brilliant! And if you want to read about a slice of life in the US, pick up Plainsong by Kent Haruf. It is a wonderful heartwarming book, and definitely comes from a place of authenticity. Best to all, GinaP :cool:

I feel like such a man! I have just been yelling and crying at the television because my Aussie Rules football team were playing for their place in the Preliminary Finals of the league. They lost. This is the first time in years my team, Hawthorn, have gotten this far and so I am heartbroken that they got such a beating. The Hawk's star player Lance Franklin: Kicked the winning goal last week in the last ten seconds of the match when he thought there were minutes. He kicked 7 goals that match and when the F4 cast were watching the AFL in Australia he kicked nine. He has kicked the most goals of all AFL players this year but do you think he kicked even close to that many tonight? No. Instead this 196cm tall, incredibly broad shouldered, part-Aboriginal 20-year-old fumbled over the ball every time it was kicked to him. He ended up kicking three goals but he could have done so much better and all week people had been hyping him up as the winner. Now, I think this player is fantastic but boy did he raise my blood pressure tonight!

I'm sorry to hear your football team lost. Hope it will get even next time. BTW, I trust your word that Lance Franklin is a great player, he is certainly good-looking.