A look into the lives of one particular family in Afghanistan - not necessarily a sample of the median family, but nevertheless a great insight to the family and patriarchal dynamics of this one group. Reads like a novel, however it's written by a journalist who was allowed to live with the bookseller's family for a few months. Very well written.

Sent in controlled release to my mother in Chile, South America. Should arrive in early April.

A great book - I loved the author's intimate understanding of day-to-day life in an arab society.

CAUGHT IN VIÑA DEL MAR CHILE

Somehow this book made its way back to me and will now be offered as a ray.

This is just about ready to embark on a journey around the world. Let's keep it moving and see how many miles it travels! You all know the rules - journal when you get it, after you read it and when you send it on. Try not to keep it over a month and have fun!

Here's the tentative list:
chambejd- US/US
Shroffland- US/US-Canada
hopi100 - US/anywhere
Verolyon- France/EU
Hippolein - Finland/EU<-----skip
Yellowbow- Portugal<-------skip
ETMadrid- Spain/UK or France
Ekranda- UK/ <-------asked to be skipped
SazzyMCH - UK/UK <-------asked to be skipped
Megmac- UK/anywhere
Gilla- Australia/anywhere<---------no response
Bearyfriend- Singapore <-------book is here

This arrived yesterday to start the ray. It looks great. I'll get to it soon! Thanks for sharing it with me!

Thanks for letting me read this, istop4books. I really enjoyed reading it and learning about Afghanistan. I was frustrated at times with both the women and men and the limitations they both impose on women. Some of their traditions are just plain crazy. I will say that the Taliban did good in outlawing bird fights and the crazy game played with a cow corspe. I hope this nation can reestablish itself and thrive as it once did.

This was sent to shroffland on 2/27/08.

The book arrived today! Will start it as soon as I finish one of my current reads. Thanks for hosting this bookray!

Started reading on March 13th. Hope to finish within a week.

I got completely involved in these people's lives, and feel as though I know each of them personally. Thank you for sharing this book; it is one of the most thought-provoking and heart-opening I have read in a long time.

I am mailing this on to hopi100, next on the list!

RELEASE NOTES:

On its way to hopi100 - Enjoy!

This just arrived in the mail! Thanks so much -- can't wait to get started! :)

I've enjoyed reading this book so very much. The opportunity to peer into the lives of an Afghan family in a post-9/11 world was so interesting and so revealing. It was truly a pleasure to get to know the personalities and dynamics of Sultan and his family -- and I really appreciate learning more about people in a part of the world I'm largely unfamiliar with. Thanks so much for sharing this!

I'll be sending this to Verolyon over the weekend. Enjoy! :)

After a long absence, this book has returned to the land of the living -- and came back to me over the weekend with no explanation whatsoever from the Postal Service! I'll be PMing Verolyon immediately after I post this JE and re-requesting an address so I can try again!

Received in the mail at last ! Thanks hopi100 for trying again and sorry for the trouble !

I read this book at last - I apologize for the delay !
I enjoyed it a lot, it gives a thorough insight of the daily life of different members of an Afghan family. What I liked the most is the fact the author steps aside and leads you directly into the life of the people she deals with. Plus the fact that the narrative is full of subtlety and without any judgement.
Thank you istop4books and hopi100 for giving me the opportunity to read it.

I PMed Hippolein for his address, but he already got a copy of the book.
I PMed Yellowbow, who's next on the list, and she says she's too busy for the moment.
I PMed ETMadrid, and off it will be !

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

It finally went off to ETMadrid today. Hope it will arrive safely !

Thank you for sending this! It's arrived safely (along with a couple of other bookrings) in London and I'll read it as soon as possible and let you know how I get on.

I have just finished this and found it to ring true with the little I have myself experienced when staying with families in Algeria, where the effects of previously-imposed curfews and Islamic extremism still linger on and effect the way families and women in particular lead their lives.

When Mansur throws his empty coke cans out of the window, I remembered how a tv camera crew I was travelling with threw out empty beer cans onto the desert roadside.

Mealtimes, never-ending housework, hammam-visits, the hoping for suitable marriage proposals, the desire for plumpness, the staying overnight of dinner guests, these are all aspects of life that I witnessed there. There too, women never travelled into town unaccompanied by a male member of the family, although once there, the daughters can work (probably only until they marry and have children). Algeria is obviously a long way away but it's interesting to see how some aspects are so similar. But I did not have cause to be so deeply shocked by what I saw. It was almost the opposite - I appreciated the close-knit way the families worked together (there was only ever one wife in the families I met, simplifying matters somewhat!), and the daily rituals of cooking were for a short time a joy for me, coming from a world in which families rarely have time to dedicate to food in such a way. But I hasten to add that I enjoyed it as a visitor, and fiercely independent, would not last long if subjected to so many restrictions.

For the only 3 months that Seierstad was with this family, this is a very impressive piece of work, as her observations and understanding will not necessarily have always been easily gleaned. I understand that she got into legal complications as the family were very unhappy with the book - but I should look up what happened as I did not follow it. I can quite see that they would not be happy. For the generosity of accepting her into their lives, theirs is a fairly raw deal I can't help feeling. But we as readers learn a great deal and her portrait is a valuable one. I found it very readable - initially more like a long journalistic report and latterly closer to a novel.

What we don't learn is whether Leila marries her sister's step-son or not. Did the breaking up of the family put a (welcome) spanner in the works as far as that was concerned? I'd like to know, but alas I don't think there'll be a second installment.

Addendum: I have looked up the details of the dispute between writer and bookseller, and not found any details of a settlement. What can be found are copies of a couple of the bookseller's letters and, subsequent to reading celticstar's journal entry for this book, this article from the Norwegian press. In the author's position, I'm sure I could never feel truely at ease after publishing a book such as this. Ultimately I feel that she should have used her experience to create an utterly fictional tale and/or to bring to the forefront women's situations in a different manner that is not so injurous to this particular family.

I have always believed that equality should start in the home, and I do also believe that many of the examples of the lack of equality in today's European society stem from the fact that families (mothers in particular) do not always treat their offspring with the equality that they should. Most families have things that go on behind closed doors that they'd never wish the world to know about (despite their best efforts for this not to be the case), and the bookseller here certainly is no exception. When he opened his doors to this journalist, he was also displaying his trust in her. I guess that she made a very conscious choice to prefer to expose the way women often live in Afghanistan over preserving the relationship of trust that she had clearly built up with all the members of the family.

Sorry - this is a bit long-winded! But whilst I whizzed through this book and don't dispute the interest of its contents, I couldn't help imagining what I might have done, or what I might have decided I couldn't do, in the writer's situation. Trust is all important in relations in the culture about which she is writing, and it appears to be the one thing that she has betrayed. She is judgemental, sometimes understandably so, sometimes less so, and the more I think about this as the hours progress, the less comfortable I am with what I read. It's probably true to say that both parties were naïve when they became involved in the project, neither realising the potential repercussions.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Ekranda now has her own copy and SazzyMCH is too busy, so the book is now on its way to Birmingham, to the home of Megmac.

Received today with a lovely postcard :-) The reviews abive are very insightful and I'm looking forward to reading this. I do have one bookring ahead of it.

A compelling read. I closely follow the work of Equality Now who work for the rights of women and girls in countries like Afghanistan so the accounts of the women's lives in this book were of particular interest. I wasn't sure about the author's 'literary style' because she makes a lot of assumptions about her subjects' thoughts and feelings which made me a little uncomfortable.

Ultimately, the book is most effective when it moves away from the family itself. I am glad that this book is out there, it is too easy to lose sight of the fact that real people have had to live day-to-lifes in such an unstable country when its on the news so often it can feel like a movie.

have pm'd Gilla

Gilla didn't get back to me, so I will post on to Bearyfriend this week

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

sent on to Bearyfriend

Got it, thanks. I'm not sure which exact date it arrived having just returned from a trip yesterday. Will pass it on after I'm done reading.

Having read few other books before this about the country and its people, this is another one which doesn't paint very nice pic of the place. I'm mad with the way the bookseller treated others, as well as how the women there had no freedom in their life. You see the way Sultan treated that carpenter who merely stole some of his postcards and he was so adamant in prosecuting him, and how Leila didn't even have the courage to voice up what she wanted in her life so as to keep peace in the family, and chose to sacrifice her own happiness. And also apparently before the bookseller invited the journalist to stay, he already knew she's going to write a book about the family, so I don't understand why he was so angry in the end when the book was printed. Maybe he thought it's going to be all roses written. He should have thought better. The person I pity most was Leila who should have gone with Karim.

Thanks for sharing the book. Eye-opening and informative, though a slow read.

Thanks to istop4books for letting me keep the book or pass along as I see fit. I have forgotton it was actually a ring book. I'm putting this under Avail for the time being.