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| Author: Khaled Hosseini
Publisher: Riverhead
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
Buy New: $9.98
You Save: $15.97 (62%)
New (98) Used (125) Collectible (40) from $9.98
Avg. Customer Rating:  1242 reviews
Sales Rank: 39
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 384
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.7 x 6.1 x 1.2
ISBN: 1594489505
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9781594489501
ASIN: 1594489505
Publication Date: May 22, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Great book in Brand new condition...Great book..
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| Customer Reviews:
 Wow July 2, 2008
I am a tough guy. I am a macho, macho, man. My pores leak testosterone when I sweat. I hate chick flicks. When I read this book I bawled like a baby. As an insight into human suffering in places like Afghanistan I highy recommend this novel.
Excellent Book July 1, 2008
This book brought you into the lives of the characters. It made you feel like you were right there living with them. Great insight into the world of woman and their treatment in Afganistan.
More Splendid Than A Thousand July 1, 2008
After the Kite Runner, I was optimistic yet reserved about this novel. I knew to expect a good story, yet I found it hard to believe a novel could shine brighter than the Kite Runner. A Thousand Splendid Suns did this.
The storyline follows two young girls of different generations as their lives mingle around one man during the chaotic Afghanistan of the 20th century. This novel cannot be missed at any cost. It surpasses even the Kite Runner.
A Wonderful/Awful Book June 29, 2008
Afghanistan under the Taliban, says Eve Ensler in The Vagina Monologues, is a place where hating women is fully codified. Under the Taliban, women could not leave the house without a man, and even then they had to be covered from head to toe in a burqa; women couldn't work; they couldn't get medical treatment--the Taliban took over all the hospitals for the exclusive care of men. If a woman ran away from a brutal husband she was brought back home for his punishment. Any defiance brought beatings and sometimes death. These things, and more, happen to Mariam and Laila, the two main characters in A Thousand Splendid Suns.
The story begins during the Russian occupation of Afghanistan, and follows the rebel Mujahadeen movement that overthrew the communists. Welcomed at first as heroes by the people, the rebels quickly splintered into fighting factions (using weapons supplied by the U.S. for fighting the Russians), and the brutal Taliban emerged victorious. Within two weeks after occupying Kabul, the country's capital, they instituted Shari'a, a system of Muslim law under which women are treated worse than cattle.
It is in Kabul that the lives of Laila and Mariam, two very different women with very different histories, intersect. Theirs is the story behind the history, the truth behind the above mentioned facts, the daily lives behind the daily headlines. This is the part of history they don't teach in school: the details of exactly how wars and movements affect real people. Knowing their stories makes the reader genuinely concerned about Afghanistan, more inclined to follow news reports as we worry about women like Mariam and Laila and their children. A Thousand Splendid Suns has made me feel for the Afghan people on a level deeper than newspaper facts ever can.
Hosseini manages to inject hope, even redemption, into this tale of brutality and misery; the problem is that, in real life, there've been reports of a Taliban resurgence. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, the Afghan Taliban is better organized today than it was in 2001, and they're recruiting new members all the time. Thus, I'm more worried than ever about the millions of Lailas and Mariams whose lives may again be imperiled. Rather than regret having gotten to know them, though, I wish everyone would read A Thousand Splendid Suns and get to know these women like I did. Maybe if we all worried a little bit more, we'd do something to change the terrible situation of women in Afghanistan.
 An incredibly moving story... June 26, 2008
Just when you think you're left with nothing but cynicism from all the difficulties and pain in life, you come across a novel such as this and you find yourself marveling yet again...
It's not so much as a celebration of a woman's spirit, but a tribute as well to unshakeable hope and the humbling capacity of humans for sacrifice.
Reading this novel, I can't help but feel thankful that I have not, so far, experienced the kind of oppression that women in Afghanistan ultimately suffered (at least, from my own standpoint, what I could discern as oppression...but who knows...). Between Mariam and Laila, it's difficult to decide who got it worse. At the surface, it's the former: born ostracized, poor, and, later, unable to bear children; whilst the latter is almost the complete opposite. But such differences pale in the face of a husband's despotism and a country's devastation. One would think that a person can just take so much, and, yet, these two never flagged. They drew strength from one another and from the selves they're left with after every blow from Fate. And always, there was that conviction to fight to survive, in the hopes of finally waking up to that day where the Afghanistan they knew comes back to them.
All-in-all, this was another provocative story by Hosseini. I have to confess, though, that I loved The Kite Runner more. I don't take it against this novel--I guess I was unfairly hoping for a repeat performance of a flawless storytelling. Though still very dramatic, it's not as heart-wrenching-snot-dripping as the first (I'm afraid that's usually how I rate books). But that is just one reader's opinion. This is still a rewarding experience that I wouldn't hesitate to recommend.
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