Previously featured books of the month: A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Housseini Kite Runner by Khaled Housseini Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls Mercy by Lara Santoro Mother Father Deaf by Paul Preston
1000 Splendid Suns by Khaled Housseini          Khaled Housseini was born in Kabul, Afganistan, in 1965.  His family moved to Paris for business, and while they were gone, the Soviets invaded.  They were granted asylum in the United States.  There Housseini went to high school, college and medical school.  While he was an intern, he wrote the New York Times number one best seller, The Kite Runner.        His most recent book A Thousand Splendid Suns is a fictional story taking place in Kabul, Afghanistan, starting in the 1960’s to the present time.  It begins with the youth of a bastard child-Mariam.  Her father slept with her mother, who was his servant.  When his wives find out they ask Mariam and her mother to leave the house.  Her father visits her once a week along with a religious teacher, mullah Faizullah.  The mullah teaches her the Koran, which she becomes strongly fond of.            The other main character is Laila.  She is a beautiful blonde haired, green eyed young Afghan girl.  Unlike Mariam, she is educated and has friends.  She has two brothers who are in the army and her father is an educated man, a teacher.           Laila and Mariam become friends and go through their tribulations together.  They stick up for each other in a time when women are maltreated.  They help each other and share their secrets and lives with each other.  A bond of sisterhood and friendship is born in adversity that nothing can break.  These two are meant to be together, to support one another and to love one another.        The characters are believable.  They went through a lot of suffering during the changes in Afghanistan.  Mariam was my favorite character.  She has been through a lot of struggling to make it to become a strong woman who can make decisions for herself, stick up for herself, and take responsibility for her life.  She is a victorious woman in a troubled society.          The story goes through the time the Soviets take over, to when the US frees the people from the grip of the Taliban.  Many changes happen to Laila and Mariam.  Love gained and lost.  Children enter the picture and bring joy to Mariam and Laila.  Their quest for love and a good, honorable life in Afghanistan is a constant struggle.       When the Taliban take over; women are not allowed to work, travel alone, or be outside alone. There are times when the cruelty of the dominant male becomes outrageous.        This story was very touching.  At many times, it was sad.  It’s a tragedy to hear what happened to Afghanistan and the people living there; the lives that were destroyed, women’s rights being taken away, poverty and death.  The book was interesting with all its twists and turns.  My favorite part of the book was its honesty.  It honestly portrayed the lives and attitudes in Afghanistan.  What I liked least was how tragic the story was.  Even though this book was fictional, I could see it really taking place.  I read both books written by the author and I would read another.  The fact that it takes place in the Middle East attracts me since I am Middle Eastern.        I recommend this book to anyone looking for a real story, a fictional tragedy.  It is a quick read and very moving.  It makes me appreciate what I have, before it is taken away.  I would give this book a 9.5 rating on a one to ten scale.  There is still fighting and male dominance in the Middle East, and many women’s lives are still in danger. Robert Etemadi Eng 180
Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini  An epic tale of fathers and sons, of friendship and betrayal, that takes the reader from Afghanistan in the final days of the monarchy to the atrocities of the present.   The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini is an unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father's servant. This beautifully crafted novel is set in Afghanistan, a country that is in the process of being radically changed. The story reflects “the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption. It is also about the power of fathers over sons - their love, their sacrifices, their lies.” The first Afghan novel to be written in English, The Kite Runner tells a poignant story against a backdrop of history that has not been told in fiction before. “But just as it is old-fashioned in its narration, it is contemporary in its subject - the devastating history of Afghanistan over the last thirty years.” Emotionally gripping as it is tender, The Kite Runner definitely grabs the reader’s attention so much so that one almost forgets this is a novel and not a memoir. The author manages to provide an educational and eye-opening account of a country's political turmoil, while also developing characters whose heartbreaking struggles and emotional triumphs resonate with readers long after the last page has been turned. Cheryl Altman Faculty
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls In The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls delivers an incredible true story of her childhood in the care of her nomadic, non-conforming parents.  Rex and Rose Mary Walls are brilliant individuals and their four children inherit many of their good virtues.  But her father is the victim of an abusive childhood and finds solace in alcohol.  The mother has an artistic gift, but admits to being an “excitement addict”.  She suffers from bouts of depression and shuns the responsibility of providing for her family.  The author’s earliest memory is cooking hot dogs on the stove at the age of three. The family bounces around the Southwest in the 1960’s.  At one point Rex makes a sharp turn in their dilapidated car, the back door swings open, and Jeanette finds herself accidentally thrown from the back seat of the car.  With dust and pebbles stuck on her face she waits for her parents to realize they have lost a passenger.  The twenty minute wait is interminable for a toddler. At the age of 10 the author’s family has settled in Rex’s West Virginia hometown.  The uncouth hillbilly relatives make Rex look like the success story of the clan.  Eventually while still in their teens with the support from siblings, the three oldest children move to New York City to escape their parents’ insanity and to start their own successful lives. This book is touching for many reasons.  Jeanette Walls overcame extreme odds to achieve her present day status as a contributor to MSNBC.  But she always tries to present her parents with affection and generosity.  She survives poverty, fires and near starvation to find her place in the world.  Her parents instill in her an amazing ability to overcome adversity. Additionally, the story is thought provoking about the plight of the “homeless”.  Because of their mental state the parents frequently find themselves on the street or living out of their car.  Even with their children established with successful careers, the parents still elect to live on the streets rather than accept assistance from their children. The Glass Castle is a fast paced book that offers a new perspective on a rarely explored fringe of society.   Denise Green Associate Faculty
MERCY by Lara Santoro   How We Become Blind    Some of us remember this: We are children, lying in the grass, staring at the sky, and wondering when our futures will begin. We had time. It spread out before us like that sky or the grass that held our lounging bodies. Time. We had our fill of it, its vast limitlessness. We saw infinity there, but it was not enough. We longed for our older days not knowing that our time there, in our longed-for futures, would become eclipsed by The List of a Countless Things to Do.   And what, then, would become of this sky into which we had pointed at stars, or found fantastic shapes among the clouds, and wondered about the possibility of a rainbow’s pot of gold? The sky would continue to become what it had always been, a vehicle for weather and birds and dreams. It would remain there, always, as it is right now. But for us, the some of us children who had lain in the grass, speeding toward our tomorrows, the sky would narrow itself into that one more thing we just learn to accept, or, better, forget, on our journey of trying to remember the day we became blind.   In her first novel, Lara Santoro has set about the task of restoring our sight. No small feat. Santoro has chosen Africa, of course, a continent where we cannot forget the sky, and she pushes us out of our comfort zone and onto the path of remembrance and forgiveness. On this continent where 700 people a day die from HIV/AIDS--and often simply because they do not have access to what have become ubiquitous retro-viral drugs in the developed world--we come to terms with life as the many characters we meet have come to live it. Here, even the living are dying, or, as Yeats might proclaim, slouching toward their particular resurrections. For what is our human fall from grace without its promise of redemption?   Father Anselmo, as perhaps the conscience of this novel—and of our sense of Mercy/mercy—exhorts us all through his conversations with Anna, the journalist of our tale, we have only to open our eyes to see. Easier said than done, n’est-ce pas? As are our attempts at understanding the human trilogy of faith, hope and love. We are witness to character after character in this novel making, and often failing, in her attempts at grappling with just such an understanding. Santoro reminds us that love hurts (haven’t you heard) and sometimes it really is not all that pretty. But, like a casino in Las Vegas for some, for those of us who wake up to discover we are not so blind there comes a reckoning that it is the only game in town worthy of our perpetual, if flawed, service.   “There are no simple explanations, they don’t exist: the minutest crumb of human experience is an aggregate of at least a half a dozen elements,” Anna tells us, her readers; and like her, we know that we have stumbled upon this thing called humility, something the Africans have learned well how to serve. It may be difficult for citizens of a democracy to understand that somewhere else, like under the vast African sky, for example, pharmaceuticals belong to the privileged. In the case of such rampant HIV/AIDS infection, it means that life belongs to the privileged as well. In Mercy, both the novel and the African character for whom the novel is named, we learn about bravery in the face of such privilege. Time after time--the essence akin to God according to Father Anselmo—we witness our “privileged” characters come back from the dead. Thanks to Santoro, one or two of them return with her eyes wide open to remind the rest of us there is this task called seeing to attend.   Sarah Vogel Associate Faculty
Mother Father Deaf by Paul Preston               Paul Preston, the author, is the son of a deaf couple.  He wanted to write a book that opened the world to the truth about growing up with deaf parents.  He now manages the newly created National Research and Training Center for Families of Adults with Disabilities.  This is a nonprofit organization located in Berkeley, California called Through the Looking Glass.  He is also a research associate in medical anthropology at the University of California, San Francisco.  He has not written any other books.             This book is non-fiction. It is a research book designed to take the reader into the deaf and hearing cultures, where families embody the conflicts and resolutions of the two often opposing world views.  He interviewed one hundred fifty hearing children of deaf parents.  He had to limit his research to one hundred fifty since several hundred people volunteered their experiences.  This is a rich analysis that is remarkable for its insights into a family normally closed to outsiders.  These stories challenge many of mainstream society’s common myths and beliefs about hearing and deafness and illustrate the drama of belonging.             The study was done during the mid 90’s and it was carried out throughout the United States.  The main character is Paul himself but the interviews he conducts are very interesting.  I found what Martin, an interviewed subject, said about his father very sad.  His dad was a carpenter for several years and never got a supervisory position or went beyond an hourly wage.  He stayed with the same company because to get hired as a deaf person was very difficult, as a result he traveled with that company wherever it went and rarely ever saw or spent time with his family.  This was all because he was deaf.  This is just one of the many discriminating experiences that many of the deaf put up with.  It’s better now but it still exist even if it is within the deaf person themselves.             This book was interesting because it broadened my view of a different culture.  I liked most learning about how children of deaf parents still learn how to talk with the similar ability of a child with hearing parents only no one fully understands why or how this happens, but it does.  What I liked least about the book was the language; I am not one for foul language so I did not appreciate reading it.  I would like to read another book by this author because he does unique work that is based on factual experiences and he holds no punches even when he disagrees with the material.  He is a fair writer and I hope he can write another book maybe on the subject of mainstreaming.  I would only recommend this book to people that are interested in the deaf community or work with the deaf.  It is a little dry for leisure reading but if you have a goal of learning then I would recommend it.  I would give this book an 8.5 on a scale from 1 to 10 because it is a research book and because of the language. Deborah Huckaby English 180

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