One Book – One Lincoln – 2005 – Resources

One Book – One Lincoln – 2005:
Additional Resources

Additional Resources for The Kite Runner

• Reviews of The Kite Runner
• About the Author – Khaled Hosseini
• Interviews with Khaled Hosseini
• About the Book
• Excerpts from The Kite Runner
• Reading Group Discussion Guides
• Other Cities Reading The Kite Runner
• If You Liked The Kite Runner, You Might Like …
• Links to resources about Afghanistan, its people, culture and history
• Links to resources about Afghan Kites and Afghan Kite Fighting
• What Other Communities Are Reading

On-Line Reviews of The Kite Runner

Connect to the following on-line reviews of The Kite Runner, by both professional critics and average readers.

• Amazon.com
  Critical Reviews
  Over 700 Customer Reviews
  Customer Reviews on Canadian Amazon.ca site
• BarnesandNoble.com
  Critical Reviews
  Over 190 Customer Reviews
• Afghan Magazine, Mir Hekmatullah Sadat, June 2004
• allreaders.com [multiple]
• The Asian Review of Books, Sue Bond, July 19, 2003
• bookblog.net [multiple]
• bookslords.com [multiple]
• Bookpage.com, Kenneth Champion, 2003
• BookReporter.com, Stephen M. Deusner
• Canadian Literature, Stella Algoo-Baksh
• CurledUp.com, Luan Gaines, May 2003
• The Guardian Unlimited, Amelia Hill, September 7, 2003
• Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Dianne Struzzi [Hartford Courant], June 22, 2003
• MostlyFiction.com, Mary Whipple, June 6, 2003
• “The Servant” The New York Times Book Review, Edward Hower, August 3, 2003
• Powells.com [multiple]
• San Francisco Chronicle, David Kipen, June 8, 2003
• Slate, Meghan O’Rourke, July 25, 2005
• Tom Miller, April 2005
• WatermarkBooks.com, Mark Bradshaw, April 29, 2004

Print Reviews of The Kite Runner available at the Lincoln City Libraries

These journals are all available in the basement Periodicals room at the Bennett Martin Public Library, 136 South 14th St.

• BookList, July 2003, pg. 1864 – Review by Kristine Huntley
• BookList, April 1, 2004, pg. 1360
• Book World, July 6, 2003; pg. 3 – Review by Pamela Constable
• Book World, September 26, 2004, pg. 11
• Entertainment Weekly, June 6, 2003 pg. 82 – Review by Monica Mehta
• Kirkus Reviews, May 1, 2003, pg. 630
• Library Journal, April 15, 2003, pg. 122 – Review by Rebecca Stuhr
• New York Times Book Review, August 3, 2003, pg. 4 – Review by Edward Hower
• New York Times Book Review, May 16, 2004, pg. 32
• People, July 14, 2003, pg. 47 – Review by Ron Givens
• Publisher’s Weekly, May 12, 2003, pg. 43
• School Library Journal, November 2003, pg. 171 – Review by Penny Stevens
• The Times Literary Supplement, October 10, 2003, ppg. 25 – Review by James O’Brien
• Reviews of the Audio Version of the Book
• Kliatt, November 2003, pg. 50
• Library Journal, November 15, 2003, pg. 114

Learn more about the author Khaled Hosseini at the following sites:

• www.khaledhosseini.com [the author’s official Web site]
• Penguin Group USA
• Bloomsbury.com
• Authorsontheweb.com
• Cincinnati Public Library

Interested in reading some interviews with Khaled Hosseini? The following list of links will take you to several interviews he has participated in, mainly covering his debut novel, The Kite Runner.

• Bloomsbury.com [Interview with Riverhead Books, Hosseini’s U.S. publisher]
• National Public Radio
• Newsline.com [Pakistani news site, Nov 2003]
• San Francisco Chronicle [June 8, 2003]
• Afghan Magazine [June 2004]
• The Village Rambler [May/June 2005]
• Barnes & Noble – Meet the Writers
• Audio Interviews with Khaled Hosseini
• The Forum at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, September 26, 2004 [RealAudio format]
• National Public Radio, July 27, 2003 [RealAudio or Windows Media Player formats]
• Minnesota Public Radio [Windows Media Player format]

Want a basic description, or just some general information about the book? You can find it at any of these sites:

Publisher’s information
Hardback [enter book title in search box] Trade paperback [enter book title in search box] Book-on-CD format from Simon & Audio
Audiotape format from Simon & Audio
Listen to an Audio extract from the book [in Windows Media, MP3 or Quicktime formats] Large Print format from Center Point Large Print Books
Wikipedia page for The Kite Runner

Glossary and Pronunciation Guide to some of the names/terms in “The Kite Runner” [Richardson Public Library, Texas]

Another brief Glossary and Pronunciation Guide to names/terms in “The Kite Runner” [Pittsboro Memorial Library, North Carolina]

Awards won by The Kite Runner:

• Alex Award 2004
• Amazon.com Summer 2003 Breakout Book
• American Library Association Notable Book
• Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers book
• Book Sense Bestseller List Sensation
• Borders Orgininal Voices Award winner
• Entertainment Weekly’s Best Book 2003
• Entertainment Weekly Top Ten Fiction Pick of the Year
• San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year

Want to read a sample from The Kite Runner first? Visit one of the following sites:

• Bookbrowse.com [first 2 chapters]
• Barnes & Noble [first 2 chapters]
• USA Today [chapter 1 only]

Leading a book group for The Kite Runner but need some good questions to start the discussions going? Try the following sites:

The Lincoln Journal Star official Resource Guide [coming on September 19th!]

• Penguin Group USA
  Discussion Guidelines and Questions
• ReadingGroupGuides.com
  Discussion Questions [same as Penguin Group USA]
• Cincinnati on the Same Page
• Fairfax County, Virginia
• Richardson Public Library, Richardson, Texas

If You Liked The Kite Runner, You Might Like:

The following books, both fiction and non-fiction, are recommended titles you may wish to pursue if you enjoyed The Kite Runner, and are interested in learning more about Afghan culture and society or the theme of friendship, betrayal and redemption. All books owned by Lincoln City Libraries are hotlinked to their entries in our library catalog, so that you may check on their current availability. If you see a title on this list that is not hotlinked to our collection, please consider ordering it through our Interlibrary Loan department.

Adult Fiction

• Conference of the Birds by Farid al-Din Attar
• Horses of Heaven by Gillian Bradshaw [1991]
• Lie Down With Lions by Ken Follett [1986]
• Legacy of Love by Caroline Harvey [2000]
• Kabul: A Novel by M.E. Hirsh [1986]
• The Far Pavilions by M.M. Kaye [1978]
• The Swallows of Kabul: A Novel by Yasmina Khadra [2002]
• Anthology of Islamic Literature compiled by James Kritzeck [1987]
• The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri [2003]
• Caravans by James Michener [1963]
• Foreigner by Nahid Rachlin [<1999]
• Earth and Ashes by Atiq Rahimi [2002]
• The Siege of Isfahan by Jean-Christophe Rufin [1998]
• Winter in Kandahar by Steven E. Wilson [2003]

Novels Set in Afghanistan

• The Warlord’s Son by Dan Fesperman [2004]
• The Mulberry Empire by Philip Hensher [2002]
• Kabul by M.E. Hersh [1986]
• The Swallows of Kabul by Yasmina Khadra [2002]

Novels of Family, Friendship, Exile and War-Torn Lands

• Crescent by Diana Abu-Jaber [2003]
• The Tree of Red Stars by Tessa Bridal [1997]
• The House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III [1999]
• In the Walled Gardens by Anahita Firouz [2002]
• Heaven’s Edge by Romesh Gunesekara [2003]
• The Blood Latitudes by William Harrison [2000]
• Just Like a River by Muhammed Kamil al-Kahtib [2002]
• A Sky So Close by Betool Khedairi [2001]
• The Last Life by Claire Messud [1999]
• The Depths of the Sea by Jamie Metzl [2004]
• Anil’s Ghost by Michael Ondaatje [2000]
• Homecoming by Natasha Radojcic-Kane [2002]
• The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy [1997]
• Kartography by Kamila Shamsie [2003]
• Women of Sand and Myrrh by Hanna al-Shaykh [1988]

The Lives of Afghan Women

• Zoya’s Story: An Afghan Woman’s Struggle for Freedom by Zoya [2002] [958.1 Zoy]
• The Silenced Cry: One Woman’s Diary of a Journey to Afghanistan by Ann Tortajada [2004] [on order]
• Behind the Burqa: Our Life in Afghanistan and How We Escaped to Freedom by Batya Swift Yasgur [2002]
• Veiled Threat: The Hidden Power of the Women of Afghanistan by Sally Armstrong [2003]
• With All Our Strength: The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan by Anne E. Brodsky [2003]
• Repression, Resistance and Women in Afghanistan by Hafizullah Emadi [2002] [e-book format only]
• Women for Afghan Women: Shattering Myths and Claiming the Future by Sunita Mehta [2002]
• Bint Arab: Arab and Arab-American Women in the United States by Evelyn Shakir [1997] [305.8 AraYs]
• My Forbidden Face: Growing Up Under the Taliban by Latifa [2001] [958.1 Lat]
• Torn Between Two Cultures: An Afghan-American Woman Speaks Out by Maryam Qudrat Aseel [2003]

Memoirs and Travel Tales

• Afghan Stories by [Vanguard Cinema] [2002] [DVD 958.1 Afg]
• The Lion’s Grave: Dispatches From Afghanistan by Jon Lee Anderson [2002] [958.1 And]
• West of Kabul, East of New York: An Afghan American Story by Tamim Ansary [2002] [958.1 Ans]
• To See and See Again: A Life in Iran and America by Tara Bahrampour [1999] [955.054 Bah]
• Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing up Iranian in America by Firoozeh Dumas [2004] [B D8873]
• An Unexpected Light: Travels in Afghanistan by Jason Elliot [1999] [915.81 Ell]
• The Carpet Wars: From Kabul to Baghdad: A Ten-Year Journey Along Ancient Trade Routes by Christopher Kremmer [2002] [915.6 Kre]
• The Sewing Circles of Herat: A Personal Voyage Through Afghanistan by Christina Lamb [2002]
• The Light Garden of the Angel King: Travels in Afghanistan by Peter Levi [1972] [915.81 Lev]
• Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi [2003] [955.054 Naf]
• To Afghanistan and Back: A Graphic Travelogue by Ted Nall [2002] [741.5 Nal]
• Afghanistan Revealed by National Geographic Society [2001] [Video 958.1 Nat]
• The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad [2002] [958.1 Sei]
• The Storyteller’s Daughter by Saira Shah [2003] [958.1 Sha]
• A Kite Journey Through India by Tal Streeter [1996]https://lcl.ent.sirsi.net/client/en_US/default/search/results?qu=storyteller’s+daughter+levi&te=
• An Afghanistan Picture Show: Or, How I Saved the World by William T. Vollmann [1992]
• Searching for Hassan: A Journey to the Heart of Iran by Terrance Ward [2002]

History of Afghanistan

• Historical Dictionary of Afghanistan by Ludwig W. Adamec [1997] [958.1 Ada]
• The Story of My Life: An Afghan Girl on the Other Side of the Sky by Farah Ahmedi [2005] [B Ah4]]
• Daughters of Afghanistan by Sally Armstrong [2004] [DVD 958.104 Arm]
• Ghost Wars by Steve Coll [2004] [958.1 Col]
• Afghanistan: A Short History of Its People and Politics by Martin Ewans [2002]
• Afghanistan’s Endless War: State Failure, Regional Politics and the Rise of the Taliban by Larry P. Goodson [2001] [958.1 Goo]
• The Soviet-Afghan War: How a Superpower Fought and Lost by Lester W. Grau [2002]
• Reaping the Whirlwind: The Taliban Movement in Afghanistan by Michael Griffin [2001] [958.1 Gri]
• 1979: The Year That Shaped the Modern Middle East by David W. Lesch [2001]
• The Man Who Would Be King: The First American in Afghanistan by Ben Macintyre [2004] [B H221m]
• Retreat From Kabul: The Incredible Story of How a Savage Afghan Force Massacred the World’s Most Powerful Army by Patrick MacRory [2002] [958.1 Mac]
• Songs of Love and War: Afghan Women’s Poetry by Sayd Bahodine Majruh [2003]
• The Taliban Phenomenon: 1994-1997 by Kamal Matinuddin [1999]
• The Hunt for Bin Laden: Task Force Dagger by Robin Moore [2003] [953.8 Moo]
• Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia by Ahmed Rashid [2000] [958.1 Ras]
• Afghanistan: Lifting the Veil by [Reuters Journalists] [2002]
• The Origins of Conflict in Afghanistan by Jeffrey J. Roberts [2003]
• The Essential Rumi by Jalai ed-Din Rumi [1997 edition] [891.55 Jal 1997]
• The Secret Rose Garden by Mahmud Shabistari [2002]
• Afghanistan: A Military History from Alexander the Great to the Fall of the Taliban by Stephen Tanner [2003] [e-book format only]
• Pakistan: In the Shadow of Jihad and Afghanistan by Mary Anne Weaver [2002]

Children’s Fiction

• The Kite Fighters by Linda Sue Park [2000] [j Park]
• The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis [2000] [j Ellis]
• Parvana’s Journey by Deborah Ellis [2002] [j ellis]
• Mud City by Deborah Ellis [2003] [j Ellis]
• Kiss the Dust by Elizabeth Laird [1991] [j Laird]
• Refugees by Catherine Stine [2005] [j Stine]

Children’s Non-Fiction

• Afghanistan by Miriam Greenblatt [2003] [j 915.81 Gre]
• Afghanistan by Halima Kazem [2003] [j 915.81 Kaz]
• Afghanistan in Pictures by Lerner Publications [2003] [j 915.81 Ler 2003]
• Afghanistan by Stephen Otfinofski [2004] [j 958.1 Otf]
• Life Under the Taliban by Gail Stewart [2005] [j 958.104 Ste]

Here are some sites containing information about Afghanistan, its people, its culture and its history:

• Afghanistan’s Web Site
• Afghanistan Online
  Afghan history at Afghanistan Online
• Afghana! The Afghan Web Directory
• Afghanistan: A Country Study [from the Library of Congress]
• The Afghan Renascent Youth Association (locally headquartered group, which is participating in two of our One Book – One Lincoln 2005 Special Events!)
• Caldwell Community College Technical Institute Kite Runner pathfinder [numerous Afghanistan-related links]
• CIA: The World Factbook entry on Afghanistan
• Cincinnati’s On the Same Page additional resources

Many of the Lincoln City Libraries’ databases at Research Databases include pertinent information about Afghanistan.

If you’d like to see some photos of Afghanistan in 1976 — one of the time periods covered by The Kite Runner, please visit our 1976 Afghanistan Photos page.

Interested in more information about Afghan kites and the tradition of kite fighting? Visit one of these sites:

• The Art of Gudiparan Bazi
• Afghan History: Kite Running, Kite Flying and Kite Banning [Afghan Magazine, June 2004]
• Afghan Kiting [with links to many more photos]
• Afghan Fighters [part of a broader site about Kite Fighting]
• “Afghan kites make a soaring comeback” [Reuters article – Jan 22, 2002]
• Afghanistan: Artistry In The Air — Kite Flying Is Taken To New Heights [Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Nov 15, 2002]

• Bath and Brunswick, Maine [2005 selection]
• Cambridge, Massachusetts [2005 selection] [no online resources available]
• Chelsea, Michigan [2005 selection] [no online resources available]
• Cincinnati Public Library, Cincinnati, Ohio [2005 selection]
• Deschutes County, Oregon [2005 selection]
• East Lansing, Michigan and Michigan State University [2005 selection]
• Eastern Connecticut – “One Book One Region” [2004 selection]
• Fairfax County, Virginia [2005 selection]
• Johnson County, Iowa [2004 selection] [no online resources available]
• Multnomah County Library, Portland OR [2006 selection]
• Nashua, New Hampshire [2005 selection] [no online resources available]
• Pasadena Public Library, Pasadena, California [2005 selection]
• Pittsboro, North Carolina [2004 selection]
• Reading Across Rhode Island [2005 selection]
• Richardson, Texas [2005 selection]
• Santa Monica Public Library, Santa Monica, California [2005 selection]
• Saratoga Springs, New York [2005 selection] [no online resources available]
• United Valley Libraries, Connecticut [2005 selection]
• Winnetka-Northfield, Illinois [2004 selection]
• Woodland, California [2004 selection]

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What Other Communities Are Reading

Visit the following site to see a comprehensive list of the books used by community-wide reading programs from across the United States and Canada:

One Book Reading Promotion Projects (Library of Congress Center for the Book)

Back to the main One Book – One Lincoln – 2005 page

One Book – One Lincoln – 2004: Peace Like a River by Leif Enger
One Book – One Lincoln – 2003: Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
One Book – One Lincoln – 2002: Plainsong by Kent Haruf

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