Product Description

AFTER MORE THAN TWO YEARS ON THE BESTSELLER LISTS, KHALED HOSSEINI RETURNS WITH A BEAUTIFUL, RIVETING, AND HAUNTING NOVEL OF ENORMOUS CONTEMPORARY RELEVANCE.

A Thousand Splendid Suns is a breathtaking story set against the volatile events 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 intimate, human terms. It is a tale of two generations of characters brought jarringly 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.

Propelled by the same storytelling instinct that made The Kite Runner a beloved classic, A Thousand Splendid Suns is at once a remarkable chronicle of three decades of Afghan history and a deeply moving account of family and friendship. It is a striking, heartwrenching novel of an unforgiving time, an unlikely friendship, and an indestructible love -- a stunning accomplishment.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #136482 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-22
• Released on: 2007-05-22
• Formats: Audiobook, Unabridged
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 11
• Binding: Audio CD

Amazon.com Review
It's difficult to imagine a harder first act to follow than The Kite Runner: a debut novel by an unknown writer about a country many readers knew little about that has gone on to have over four million copies in print worldwide. But when preview copies of Khaled Hosseini's second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, started circulating at Amazon.com, readers reacted with a unanimous enthusiasm that few of us could remember seeing before. As special as The Kite Runner was, those readers said, A Thousand Splendid Suns is more so, bringing Hosseini's compassionate storytelling and his sense of personal and national tragedy to a tale of two women that is weighted equally with despair and grave hope.

We wanted to spread the word on the book as widely, and as soon, as we could. See below for an exclusive excerpt from A Thousand Splendid Suns and early reviews of the book from some of our top customer reviewers.--The Editors

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An Exclusive Excerpt from A Thousand Splendid Suns

We have arranged with the publisher to make an exclusive excerpt of A Thousand Splendid Suns available on Amazon.com. Click here to read a scene from the novel. It's not the opening scene, but rather one from a crucial moment later in the book when Mariam, one of the novel's two main characters, steps into a new role.

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Early Buzz from Amazon.com Top Reviewers

We queried our top 100 customer reviewers as of March 6, 2007, and asked them to read A Thousand Splendid Suns and share their thoughts. We've included these early reviews below in the order they were received. For the sake of space, we've only included a brief excerpt of each reviewer's response, but each review is available for reading in its entirety by clicking the "Read the review" link.

Joanna Daneman: "His style is deceptively simple and clear, the characters drawn deftly and swiftly, his themes elemental and huge. This is a brilliant writer and I look forward to more of his work." Read Joanna Daneman's review

Seth J. Frantzman: "Khaled Hosseini has done it again with 'A Thousand Splendid Sons', presenting a new, dashing and dark tale of two generations of women trapped in a loveless marriage, bracketed by great events." Read Seth J. Frantzman's review

Donald Mitchell: "Khaled Hosseini has succeeded in capturing many important historical and contemporary themes in a way that will make your heart ache again and again. Why will your reaction be so strong? It’s because you’ll identify closely with the suffering of almost all the characters, a reaction that’s very rare to a modern novel." Read Donald Mitchell's review

Lawrance M. Bernabo: "All things considered, following up on a successful first novel is probably harder than coming up with the original effort and Hosseini could have rested on his laurels in the manner of Harper Lee, but as "A Thousand Splendid Suns" amply proves, this native of Kabul has more stories to tell about the land of Afghanistan." Read Lawrance M. Bernabo's review

Amanda Richards: "There are parts of this book that will have grown men surreptitiously blotting the tears that are on the verge of overflowing their ducts, and by the time you get to the middle, you won’t be able to put it down. Hosseini's simple but richly descriptive prose makes for an engrossing read, and in my opinion, "A Thousand Splendid Suns" is among the best I have ever read. This is definitely not one to be missed." Read Amanda Richards's review

N. Durham: "All that being said, "A Thousand Splendid Suns" is a bit more enjoyable than Hosseini’s previous "The Kite Runner", and once again he manages to give we readers another glimpse of a world that we know little about but frequently condemn and discard. However, if you were one of the many that for some reason absolutely loved "The Kite Runner", chances are that you'll love this as well." Read N. Durham's review

John Kwok: "Khaled Hosseini's "A Thousand Splendid Suns" is a genuine instant literary classic, and one destined to be remembered as one of 2007's best novels. It should be compared favorably to such legendary Russian novels like "War and Peace" and "Doctor Zhivago"." Read John Kwok's review

Thomas Duff: "Normally I'm more of an action-adventure type reader when it comes to novels and recreational reading. But I was given the chance to read A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (author of The Kite Runner), so I decided to try something out of my normal genre. I am *so* glad I did. This is a stunning and moving novel of life and love in Afghanistan over a 30 year period." Read Thomas Duff's review

Charles Ashbacher: "This book manages to simultaneously capture the history of Afghanistan over the last thirty years and how women are treated in conservative Islamic societies.... In many ways it is a sad book, your heart goes out to these two women in their hopeless struggle to have a decent life with a brutal man in an unforgiving, intolerant society." Read Charles Ashbacher's review

W. Boudville: "Hosseini presents a piognant view into the recent tortured decades of the Afghan experience. From the 1970s, under a king, to the Soviet takeover, to the years of resistance. And then the rise and fall of the Taliban. An American reader will recognise many of the main political events. But to many Americans, Afghanistan and its peoples and religion remain an opaque and troubling mystery." Read W. Boudville's review

Mark Baker: "I tend to read plot heavy books, so this character study was a definite change of pace for me. I found the first half slow going at times, mainly because I knew where the story was going. Once I got into the second half, things really picked up. The ending was very bittersweet. I couldn't think of a better way to end it." Read Mark Baker's review

Grady Harp: "Hosseini takes us behind those walls for forty some years of Afghanistan's bloody history and while he does not spare us any of the descriptions of the terror that continues to besiege that country, he does offer us a story that speaks so tenderly about the fragile beauty of love and devotion and lasting impression people make on people." Read Grady Harp's review

Robert P. Beveridge: "When I was actively reading it, the pages kept turning, and more than once I found myself foregoing food or sleep temporarily to get in just one more chapter. When I had put it down, however, I felt no particular compulsion to pick it back up again. It's a good book, and a relatively well-written one, but it's not a great book. Enjoyable without leaving a lasting impression." Read Robert P. Beveridge's review

B. Marold: "While the events in Afghanistan and the wider world create a familiar framework for the stories of these two women, it is nothing more than a framework. The warp and weft of everyday life, and the interaction of the two women and their close relatives is the heartbeat of the story." Read B. Marold's review

Daniel Jolley: "Khaled Hosseini has written a majestic, sweeping, emotionally powerful story that provides the reader with a most telling window into Afghan society over the past thirty-odd years. It's also a moving story of friendship and sacrifice, giving Western readers a rare glimpse into the suffering and mistreatment of Afghan women that began long before the Taliban came to power." Read Daniel Jolley's review

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From Publishers Weekly
Atossa Leoni, who is German-born of Afghan ancestry, was clearly chosen because she can pronounce all the Afghan words—a big plus, but it's the only plus in this bad reading. Dropping her voice on the last word of every sentence, her phrasing is regularly rendered ungrammatical by breaks at the wrong points. Her narrow vocal range makes for a dull and often difficult listening experience. Despite the reader, the book holds the listener thanks to Hosseini's riveting story—an in-depth exploration of Afghan society in the three decades of anti-Soviet jihad, civil war and Taliban cruelty. He impels us to empathize with and admire those most victimized by Afghan history and culture—women. Mariam, a 15-year-old bastard whose mother commits suicide, is married off to 40-year-old Rasheed, who abuses her brutally, especially after she has several miscarriages. At 60, Rasheed takes in 14-year-old Laila, whose parents were blown up by stray bombs. He soon turns violent with her. Although Laila is united with her childhood beloved, the potential return of the Taliban always shadows their happiness.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine
A Thousand Splendid Suns raises inevitable comparisons to The Kite Runner, which sat on The New York Times best seller list for 103 weeks. Most critics agreed that Khaled Hosseini's second novel is as devastating, if not even more powerful, than his first. A natural, if not always the most eloquent or subtle, storyteller, Hosseini gives voice to two women trying to survive in a despotic household while caught up in the throes of war. Most critics thought that Hosseini successfully evokes his female characters' inner lives—not an easy feat for a male author—while a few observed that Mariam and Laila fail to resonate emotionally. Others noted some melodrama and predictability. Despite these quibbles, the novel offers a chilling, all-too-real portrait Afghan life. "It is, for all its shortcomings, a brave, honorable, big-hearted book" (Washington Post).

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

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Customer Reviews

Almost as good as Kite Runner.
I enjoyed the 2nd novel from Hosseini almost as much as Kite Runner, which I gave 5 stars. The author tells a fascinating human story with well-developed characters in rich prose that is all the more impressive because it is not the author's native tongue. Everyone should read Kite Runner, and once you've figured out why everyone loved the book, you'll want to read this novel, too, and you won't be disappointed.

One of the Few Bestsellers that Deseves the Hype
First off, I must say that this is an important book. There are some reviewers who claim that Khaled Hosseini must have written this with the western reader in mind. This may be true, but in my opinion it is a good thing. He has brought the plight of Afghanistan into the living rooms of those who live in the free world. Some of us may not have ever known or bothered to learn about the horrors that have taken place there; this book makes it personal. I cared about, cried with and for Mariam, Laila, Tariq and their families. I was outraged on their behalf. I wept many times while reading about Mariam's strength of endurance and what it cost her. I wanted to kill Rasheed, Mariam and Laila's sadistic husband. The depiction of the Taliban's sadistic regime left me feeling shell-shocked and harrowed. I honestly don't know how anyone survives such things as these.
There are other reviewers who claim that the "fairy-tale happy ending" ruined the story for them, that it was unrealistic. Well, I did a little research on Kabul. It seems a western reporter went there and remarked to a survivor in Kabul that everyone must be in terrible sorrow. "Are you kidding?" responded the survivor. "We are happy! After all this to finally have some peace, it is a happy thing!" Out of the horse's mouth. So it seems Mr. Hosseini's ending was not so far off the mark of reality after all.
This is an important book because of all that it made me feel, and I am thankful to live in a country where Afghani expatriots are free to write books like this. My life is richer for the experience and privelege of reading A Thousand Splendid Suns.

A sad burqa "romance" with a semi-happy ending
I enjoyed the book. Despite having a mostly sad story line, the two female main characters demonstrated courage, love, and hope in an otherwise brutal and oppressive marriage. This book is not for children since it frequently describes sexual encounters in a somewhat graphic, though tasteful, manner.

No need to recount the story since other reviewers have already done that. I'll just express some thoughts that occurred to me as I read the book:

1) The book describes at least two lines of Islamic thought. One is the oppressive, brutal Taliban variety that treats women harshly, prohibits them from study or work, and views them as male property. The other is a more open minded, progressive variety that encourages women to learn and work. The author clearly prefers the progressive variety. The story shows the danger of having zealots in control of a country. We're truly fortunate to be in a country where one ideology or religion does not control us, particularly an oppressive ideology like the Talibans.

2) The story has two women who grew up without having to wear burqas, marrying a man of the repressive variety who required them to wear a burqa in public. Having lived in Afghanistan for several months, this brought back memories of the women wearing burqas, how uncomfortable they seemed, and the double standard. It reminded me of a time at a lake near San Antonio where I saw three Muslim women sitting on the beach in direct summer sun (very hot) wearing black abayas, waiting and watching while their husbands wearing swim shorts and no shirt played in the water with the kids. It escapes me how some Muslim men don't see how cruel and unfair this double standard is. They claim the cover is for purity, yet if that were true the males would have to cover themselves as well to maintain their purity. Yet, nowhere do we see male burqas or abayas.

3) Most of the story line was about a brutal wife beater. For the wife abusers, the burqa is a great way to conceal bruises.

4) Women under the Taliban had no rights and that is true in many middle eastern cultures still. I'm glad our western cultures got past the "women as chattel" concept. We can only hope the Afghan culture and the rest of the middle east will wake up and stop oppressing half their populations.

5) The Taliban sense of justice is truly warped. In the story, a husband beats a woman, another woman tries to stop him from doing that and ends up killing him to protect both their lives....so the Taliban sentence HER to death because women have no right to disobey their husbands. Scary. Although this story is fiction, it is based on reality.

6) The book reminded me of a Japanese-made film about the life of a woman and her daughter struggling to live under the Taliban. Saw it in Kabul but can't remember the name. Very powerful and depressing movie. It brings the evilness of the Taliban into crystal clear focus, as does this book.

7) The father of one of the women had ostracised her because she was a "harami" (bastard child of his). He refused to acknowledge her and instead married her off to a brutal man far away. At the end, he attempts to gain forgiveness, but it's too late. Made me think of the importance of caring for our children and ensuring they know we love them.

8) The tension that exists in Afghan culture between arranged marriages and marriages desired by both parties is shown. Another example of how the culture is behind the times and inconsiderate of the feelings of people wanting marriage. Too often, the reality there is that a young woman is married off to an old guy that she finds repulsive and, well, old...and often she knows a young man she finds attractive, yet is unable to marry.

9) The ending was powerful with Laila going to the birthplace of her deceased co-wife to honor her and feel connection to the woman.