This book is worth a listen for the window it opens upon a life not lived by the majority of Americans going about our lives with our ipods and books-on-tape: a hard life, a basic one, yet filled with humanity and wisdom. My favorite phrase form the book: For you my friend, a thousand times over. It was also a surprise as after a long time a non-thriller was so compelling and absorbing. This was a good listen even through it did not fall under the genera of books I usually listen to. I could visualize everything and see it like a movie. All scenes in the book including the kite battles are well written. A folk hero like father, his servants son as a friend, a local bully and an immigrant Afghani General the characters are interesting and events around them thought provoking.

The story is about a privileged weakling in Kabul and how he grows up with a moral burden, migrates to US and finally returns and to redeem himself. Also, do not be surprised if you chuckle aloud while listening. It will touch your soul and do not be surprised if you quietly wipe a tear or two during the listen as I did. A classic, gripping, engrossing story full of powerful characters. If one is searching for a history lesson embedded in a good plot this is not the book. The book is not a lesson in Afghan history or Islam. This book is written and read in the precise way it should have been. But through the devastation, Khaled Hosseini offers hope for redemption. Written against a backdrop of history that has not been told in fiction before, The Kite Runner describes the rich culture and beauty of a land in the process of being destroyed.

It is about the bonds between fathers and sons, and the power of fathers over sons - their love, their sacrifices, and their lies.

The Kite Runner is a novel about friendship and betrayal, and about the price of loyalty. And yet he cannot leave the memory of Hassan behind him. When Amir and his father flee the country for a new life in California, Amir thinks that he has escaped his past. Their intertwined lives, and their fates, reflect the eventual tragedy of the world around them. Raised in the same household and sharing the same wet nurse, Amir and Hassan grow up in different worlds: Amir is the son of a prominent and wealthy man, while Hassan, the son of Amir's father's servant, is a Hazara - a shunned ethnic minority. Taking us from Afghanistan in the final days of its monarchy to the present, The Kite Runner is the unforgettable and beautifully told story of the friendship between two boys growing up in Kabul.

The kite runner cover