If you can read only one book this entire year, The Kite Runner needs to be that book. (I know that this is such a cliche saying, but I just know that you all would love this book as immensely as I have.)

Before purchasing the book, I was concerned about the setting. What do I know about Afghanistan? Nothing much. My ignorance didn't matter one bit when I started to read. Khaled Hosseini does a beautiful job of describing anything that the reader may not understand, but nothing in this book is difficult to grasp. This book isn't about the politics of Afghanistan. This book is about life. It's about social stigmas, childhood friends, betrayal, guilt, love, and passion.

This amazing story begins with a phone-call. It's an old friend calling our narrator, Amir, who is now 38. The old friend is giving Amir a chance to make himself good again, but he must go back to Afghanistan to do it. Our journey doesn't begin on an airplane, though. First, Amir brings us back in time to his childhood. He pulls us into a world foreign to our own, but into a life that we can relate to. We learn about Amir and his childhood friend Hassan, who loves Amir unconditionally. Hassan always takes up for Amir and protects him from childhood bullies even though he is a year younger than Amir. They are nearly inseparable, until one day when Amir's courage doesn't match up to his friend's. Their lives are changed forever.

The story comes full circle when Amir comes back around to the present time, and the story feels like it has only just begun. The author does not rush an ending, as I’ve seen many other authors do in the past. He takes his time and tells the story as only he knows how, in the most amazing way.

This book is a journey that I will never forget. I absolutely love Hosseini's writing style and the unforgettable imagery he used. I've never used the word 'powerful' to describe a book, but now I truely understand how powerful and moving a book can be. Hosseini's characters were more than well-rounded. They really came to life for me. This book has a resonance that will be with me for the rest of my life. If you can only read one book this year, let it be The Kite Runner.

This is a wonderful essay written by Hosseini regarding his own trip back to Afghanistan after 27 years. You can get a feel for his writing style and some familiarization with The Kite Runner, without any spoilers.

~atouria
www.yarnyoga.com

The book is well written and characterized, but the best thing is the transitions. Each chapter deals with either Eliza or Elias, and they alternate, making this a good book to read while commuting. Peg Kerr works hard to make the transition from one chapter to the other seamless, so that the switch between characters and time periods is not jarring.

Just a warning though. I have cried my way through the last couple of chapters and the author's afterward every time I have read this book. It is incredibly touching without being overly sappy and romantic.

It is in his time-traveling that he meets his future wife, him as an older man and her as a young girl, and you learn of the struggles they must overcome to make their love, and eventual marriage, work. This is truly a love story above all else, but it doesn't fall into the sappy mushyness it could have, and, most importantly, the love story doesn't get lost in the science fiction aspect of the story.

I've been recommending this book to everyone I know; it was that good.

War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning is written by Chris Hedges, a fifteen-year war correspondent and reporter. This, his first book, looks at the seduction and poison of war; how it is integrated into our lives and societies, and points out for us the truths that come from war and the corruption, destruction and perversion that it leads to.

Hedges will tell you "I am NOT a pacifist." This is not a diatribe about the evils of violence, but a profound statement about reality and existence, intertwining morality, philosophy, and personally-witnessed experience.

He has seen children killed in the streets, been prisoner in the Middle East, and immersed in the political turmoil of El Salvador. He lived, worked, breathed with the people who are most affected by war: those being attacked, and those doing the attacking.

I had the opportunity to listen to Mr. Hedges on January 25th, 2005. He gave a speech at my University using information from writing this book. He spoke for an hour, and then answered questions from the audience.

One woman asked how he thought that women in combat would be able to come home and have children after the war. He answered that he didn't know. He pointed out studies showing that more men died from suicide after the Vietnam War than died in combat itself. He said that he would rather not have psychological damage after covering war, and yet it is common.“Seeing a dead child after having my own was almost unbearable because I understood the fragility and sanctity of life,” he said.

Mr. Hedges also talked about the current war in Iraq being perpetuated by America. He said that "The War on Terror" is nearly illogical and a play of words, because "terror" is an abstraction, and fighting a war on it is fighting a war on an idea.

War, Mr. Hedges says, is exhilirating and often addictive. He told us of many friends he lost, addicted to war and the coverage of it that they could not get out. Men and women in Iraq, Bosnia, and the Balkans who found the seduction and power of war to be too much to break free from. He says "[War] gives us purpose, meaning, a reason for living."

I am reviewing this book because I think that it would be an excellent title for our group to consider reading soon. It is honest, real, and at the same time extremely eloquent and profound. I have learned much from this book about why I feel how I do about war (which I will not mention here because I do not want to push my opinion on others), and how others may respond to war in the manner that they do respond. It will open eyes and hearts and minds, and it may be integral to the continuation of our society.

Her style is exactly like she says – plain English. No nonsense. To the point. Some may actually find her a little too abrupt, but what she’s talking about is important, so I think it might be overlooked.

Some of the most important subjects she talks about are “Understanding the Nature of Yarn,” “Achieving the Right Marriage of Fiber, Fabric and Design,” “Pattern Stitches and How They Behave,” “Getting the Right Gauge,” and “Understanding the Arithmetic of Knitting.” (The last one was enough to send me into a cold sweat, but it was greatly needed.)

Another great chapter was on pattern stitches. How does stockinette “forgive” as compared to garter stitch? What about cables, color, etc? Add this to the chapter on various fibers and how they behave and I felt like a scholar! Never will I look at yarn the same way.

One negative to the book: the designs in the second half. They are very, very dated. But the descriptions and patterns are so well described, it would be very easy to incorporate some of the ideas into an updated garment.

I could go on, but I have knitting to do. Suffice it to say, if you have any interest in designing for yourself, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed in what Righetti has to offer.

Reading through the ensemble, I was struck by their plenitude. Part of the pleasure of writing short stories is learning what you can live without. The form relies on an acute, watchful reader--an aficionado, really--who is insulted by fat explanation, fat description, by anything reducible to something more essential; but the consciousness of that scrutiny can lead to a chill, starved sort of story in which the writer seems hesitant to tell you anything at all for fear of being common. I know; I've written a few.

Dubus never succumbed to this anorexic impulse. His language is full-throated, and he's not afraid to linger on the undramatic, even languorous moments in which we define ourselves--conversation over a barbecue, a divorced father driving home alone after dropping off his kids. Dubus takes his time; his stories, like his sentences, tend to run long. But that vigilant reader prowling the flock for bloated stragglers will never catch Dubus out, because at his most complex, he is still irreducible.

Thank you for reminding me of this writer, Cara, and that I must finally actually read his stories!

At the time, I was very new to the writing life and I read Dubus' stories the way I read everything then, with a new eye for details like sentences and metaphors and characters. I had been reading stories all my life, and suddenly I needed to learn how to write them. So it seemed natural to devour every new writer that came along, even if I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be looking for.

In examining the works of Dubus, a writer's writer as his obituary proclaimed, I found his essays. The first collection, Broken Vessels, includes pieces written well before the tragic accident in which he lost the use of his legs trying to help two people on the side of a highway, as well as pieces about the accident and its aftermath. Meditations From A Moveable Chair, his second collection of essays, was his last book before his death. Dubus' essays, like his stories, are infused with the same spirituality that defined him as a person and a writer. His religion seems to be a hard one: born of hard lives, hard loves, and harder circumstances. His characters are often not nice people, but their faith, in spite of this meanness, infuse them with a gritty reality that is wholly believable, even if their gods are not. And his essays reflect the same feelings in his own life.

The friend says: "Well (this woman has published a book), I guess a writer doesn't feel any better than his last book." I said:"Skipper, I don't feel any better than what I wrote today." And his eyes opened and my eyes opened--two epiphanies--and I got a look at that light and thought this guy actually does not hate himself at night for what he did today. He does not worry about getting through the night and getting back to the desk and getting something done tomorrow. I'm not happy if I don't write, but I'm always afraid to go to the desk. It's very simple because you're not sure you can do it.

My favorite story by Andre Dubus is "The Fat Girl." First off, I love the opening paragraph:

Her name was Louise. Once when she was sixteen a boy kissed her at a barbecue; he was drunk and he jammed his tongue into her mouth and ran his hands up and down her hips. Her father kissed her often. He was thin and kind and she could see in his eyes when he looked at her the lights of love and pity.

I love the way he mixes food and sex and love. Certainly not an original idea, but Dubus makes it feel original. The juxtaposition of the words thin and kind and kissed her often. Each one placed for maximum effect. What I love too about this story is it's essentially told to the reader. There are only a few traditional scenes, meaning dialogue and action, but the characters live within the story. Writers who can do this, tell the story without showing the story, always intrigue me. But I guess, really, he does show the story because it all plays out very vividly within the reader's mind.