| The Kite Runner | 
 enlarge | Author: Khaled Hosseini
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
Buy New: £2.33
You Save: £5.66 (71%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 1308
Media: Paperback
Edition: Film tie-in edition
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5 x 1
ISBN: 0747594880
EAN: 9780747594888
ASIN: 0747594880
Publication Date: December 17, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand new, in stock. Shipped from the UK by First Class Royal Mail service in eco-friendly packaging.
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Amazon.co.uk Review
The Kite Runner of Khaled Hosseini's deeply moving fiction debut is an illiterate Afghan boy with an uncanny instinct for predicting exactly where a downed kite will land. Growing up in the city of Kabul in the early 1970s, Hassan was narrator Amir's closest friend even though the loyal 11-year-old with "a face like a Chinese doll" was the son of Amir's father's servant and a member of Afghanistan's despised Hazara minority. But in 1975, on the day of Kabul's annual kite-fighting tournament, something unspeakable happened between the two boys.Narrated by Amir, a 40-year-old novelist living in California, The Kite Runner tells the gripping story of a boyhood friendship destroyed by jealousy, fear, and the kind of ruthless evil that transcends mere politics. Running parallel to this personal narrative of loss and redemption is the story of modern Afghanistan and of Amir's equally guilt-ridden relationship with the war-torn city of his birth. The first Afghan novel to be written in English, The Kite Runner begins in the final days of King Zahir Shah's 40-year reign and traces the country's fall from a secluded oasis to a tank-strewn battlefield controlled by the Russians and then the trigger-happy Taliban. When Amir returns to Kabul to rescue Hassan's orphaned child, the personal and the political get tangled together in a plot that is as suspenseful as it is taut with feeling. The son of an Afghan diplomat whose family received political asylum in the United States in 1980, Hosseini combines the unflinching realism of a war correspondent with the satisfying emotional pull of master storytellers such as Rohinton Mistry. Like the kite that is its central image, the story line of this mesmerizing first novel occasionally dips and seems almost to dive to the ground. But Hosseini ultimately keeps everything airborne until his heartrending conclusion in an American picnic park. --Lisa Alward, Amazon.ca
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| Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
 Moving August 28, 2008
This book is so powerful and moving, one can only be moved by the storyline of Hassan and Amir and what trauma's both of these character's endured, will keep you entapped until the end.
Top read August 19, 2008
Has to rate as one of the best novels I have ever read. Couldn't put it down. Would be a perfect book for discussion at a book club. The story twists and turns, just like the kites - I plan to buy DVD, let's hope it doesn't disappoint.
Un-putdownable August 18, 2008
I loved this book. Thought provoking and informative, it gives an insight into a world most of us can only guess at, at times disturbing, at times hopeful but always engaging, and portrays the best and worst of mankind's nature - betrayal for self-interest, cruelty, denial and then loyalty in the face of deceit and great compassion. The characters remain true to their social background and personal ambitions throughout and their individual fate is realistic. Wonderful. A book with so much to say that it can be read more than once.
One of the best books I've ever read! July 19, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Since reading this book, it is the first present that springs to mind for all of my friends. Whatever ones' favourite genre, one can't help but fall in love with this book. It's heart-wrenching but beautifully written. Not only is the friendship that develops between two boys from completely different classes fascinating, but also before reading this, my perception of Afganistan was frankly very ignorant, based on the current political scenario. I had no idea what a rich and fascinating cultural heritage Afganistan had. I can't wait to read "A Thousand Splendid Suns", his next book and I'm sure I'll re-read this one again.
 Worth a Read July 15, 2008
Having watched the film, I was reluctant to read The Kite Runner when it was nominated in my last reading group. It was an average film, in my humble opinion; far too much crammed into the allotted time and yet still too long. Nontheless, the book had been bought for me as a present and I am never one to turn up my nose simply because "I just didn't fancy it". After all, you can miss some real gems this way.
Amir and Hassan are a young pair of scallywags in Afghanistan in the early 1970s. They have a seemingly unbreakable bond until one day Amir is faced with the opportunity to show his loyalty to Hassan in one bold, brave swoop. He fails miserably and as such the friendship breaks down. What follows is the break down of the country as the Russians invade and the power is passed into the trigger-happy hands of the Taliban. What also follows is the break down of the storyline, which suddenly goes from a beautiful in-depth study of friendship, parental love and romance to a plot-driven action thriller, complete with cunning disguises and unlikely coincidence.
With the invasion of the Russians, Amir and his father are granted asylum in America and so they flee. It is here that Amir meets his wife. They have a happy marriage, but one thing is missing: a child. One day, after years of not conceiving, Amir receives a phonecall and is offered the chance to atone for his cowardice of years ago. It seems Amir can still help Hassan, even if it involves plunging back into the lion's den that Afghanistan has become; even if it plunges the remainder of the book into a pit of bizarre twists of fate that all eventually curve back round and tie off neatly at the end of the book, in a way life just doesn't.
This is a lovely book of friendship; simple to read and gripping in equal measures. The first half of the book is full of atmospheric imagery: mouthwatering descriptions of lamb kebab, days spent treating kite string with powdered glass, bitterly cold winters, reading under the pomegranate tree. The characters are complex and beautifully written. It is the second half of the book that lets it down, when Hosseini appears to have had enough of the soppy stuff and decides to go down the action route to liven things up a bit. Except that it really doesn't. The delicacy of the bonds he creates in the first half are pushed aside to make way for twists in the plot; some of which you can spot a mile off, others which wouldn't even have crossed your mind, because no writer would make the rooky mistake of stooping to that level of total unrealism, would they?
Make no mistake, I enjoyed this book hugely. Especially the descriptions of Kabul in the 1970s; particularly fascinating as a subject I know next to nothing about. The characterisations are strong and the relationships between Amir and his "Baba" and Amir and Hassan are infinitely intricate. I would definitely recommend it for this alone, despite later setbacks. Definitely worth a trip to the library!
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