Rating: 
Summary: its okay -- but not a 'keepable' book
Review: I thought the book was quite interesting - but not 'keepable'. I couldn't figure out if it was trying to be a NOVEL or just stories of observations. I was saddened by the fate of Leila (the youngest daughter) - which was probably too true to her 'real' life, but couldn't figure out why the story of Tamjal (the interperator) was in the book -- though I guess it was there to describe Karzai and the warlord situation in Afghanistan.It was quick read though. Ali and Nino, a fiction from earlier in this century, has a better story, while at the same time is a glimpse of the western/persian-arabic dynamic
Rating: 
Summary: Compelling Writing
Review: I wish we could rate by half stars - I'm having a hard time deciding between four and five; in any case, I found Bookseller to be quite thought provoking. This seems to be a candid, authentic, and even at times a bit raw look at Afghanistan. Earlier reviewers mentioned a possible lawsuit between the writer and the bookseller - if someone wrote that honestly about my family, I'd probably want to sue them too but it wouldn't mean that the story wasn't true! The insights provided in the book are well worth the reading. Now I can't wait to acquire more books on Afghanistan to learn and understand even more.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting but somehow lacking
Review: It is a very readable book though one must keep in mind that it's a purported portrait of one Afghan family. I do not agree that it panders to Western ideas of society, it's just inevitable for us to read information through cultural blinkers and our personal understanding of society and how relationships work. It is thus natural for the author to feel what she does about the Afghan society where the male plays a dominating role. Not sure about where the author gets information on the thoughts and feelings of the characters but I think she has done a good job in expressing the frustration and I actually enjoyed reading the book after going through the dreadful preface where the author seemed more intent on talking about herself than the content of the book. Interesting concept, but there is something seriously missing, perhaps sincerity.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating But Flawed Book
Review: Journalist Seierstad goes to Afghanistan in 2001 and meets Sultan Khan, an unusual man with a passion for preserving the literary heritage of his country in the face of Taliban oppression. Khan agrees to let Seierstad live with his family, and this book is a portrayal of the Khan family. It's a depressing story of violence, suffering and oppression, particularly the oppression of women. The oppression of women becomes the primary focus of Seierstad's story.And as she portrays women's place in Afghan society as chattel one is given the sense of her increasing anger at the Bookseller of Kabul who befriended her. Because she chooses to use a cinema verite form of story telling, Seierstad never makes an appearance in the book. The family members speak for themselves through what they must have told Seierstad or through what she personally observed. But because of this form of story telling there are many things we never learn. She never tells us much about the Afghani literature Khan tries so hard to preserve. I wanted to know more about it. I also wanted to know if Khan was familiar at all with any Western literature. We never find out what the members of the Khan family or their friends and neighbors think of the American ouster of the Taliban and the search for Osama Bin Laden. In fact, the United States is rarely mentioned in the book, curious given the state of current events in Afghanistan. Do the Khan women who open themselves up to Seierstad ask her any questions about life in the West? We never find out. The story is flawed by the technique she has chosen to use. Still it's a fascinating look at life in Afghanistan today.
Rating: 
Summary: informative & infuriating
Review: Life in an Afghani family after the fall of the Taliban. Asne Seierstad takes us into a society Westerners have never known, inside an Afghan home to see how a family lives day by day, & what makes them tick. It gives an eye-opening introduction into history of this land, the ways of Muslim men & the society of their women. Be sure to check your newly acquired political correctness at the cover of this fascinating little book, for based on facts this reporter observed & conversations she had while residing with the bookseller's family & afterwards, it will infuriate even as it delights, enchants & informs. Come meet a man with a mission & a passion...books...as he survives the tides of repressive religious authorities. Meet his two wives with their stories & their heartaches as children die, family is scorned, tempers rage, brothers fight, daughters are married off & the laws of the land trap them inside their homes. Meet his sons with their yearnings, deceits, pilgrimages & rebellion. Meet his daughters with their endless labors, dreams & little hope. Experience for the first time what life beneath the burka is like... literally, emotionally & mentally. Rebeccasreads recommends THE BOOKSELLER OF KABUL as one of the best ever reads. Thought-provoking, informative & uniquely wise.
Rating:
Summary: Mediocre Portrayal of Afghan Life
Review: Many people will pick up The Bookseller of Kabul and like it because it portrays the stereotypical version of how Westerners view Afghan family life. Buy what they won't know is the rich and diverse history of this land, and the fact that while the Khan family may have been presented accurately, their experience is not necessarily reflective of an entire population.
I found my position as a resident of Kabul to definitely impact how I read this book. I was often frustrated at how the author didn't always contextualize the history of the place and people she was writing about, and I did not think the book was very literary in its style (though, as one reviewer noted, this could be a translator's fault). For people who want a more varied (and accurate) view of Afghanistan, I'd suggest picking up Christina Lamb's The Sewing Circles of Herat instead.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating
Review: Sierstad has written an outstanding book---her writing is lyrical (or at least the translation is!) and the subject is fascinating. Contrary to what other reviewers have said, Sierstad never claims that her family is representative of the Afghani people (in her introduction, she notes that she picked the Khan family because she found them and their stories compelling---she says, however, that the family is by no means typical as they are literate, middle class and urban). That said, the book does provide a penetrating look at a complex and complicated family forced to live under horrific conditions. Within the context of his society, Sultan Khan is an enlightened and liberal man. No fundamentalist, he reads widely and believes in freedom of thought and speech. But for all that Khan is a liberal man in a conservative society---he is still a product of a highly conservative society. As such, he is a polygamist and a man who forces his sons to bind to his will. Khan is not a likeable man but his story, which the author tells in great detail, goes a long way in explaining who he is and why he acts as he does. As a bookseller, Khan was tortured first by the Soviets and then by the Taliban. Not surprisingly, he seeks, above all, to protect himself and all he owns (which for him, includes his family) from the ravages of war. This means, of course, that Khan forces the members of his family to do his bidding (his sons are taken from school and forced to work in his businesses etc.). Khan is a despot. His actions toward his two wives, his children, his siblings and his nephews all reflect his desire to control his fate in a society which has allowed him no control over his own life. That doesn't excuse him, of course. As a westerner reading the book (and as a woman), I was appalled by Khan's horrific treatment of his wives---I found it fascinating that Khan could easily reject those aspects of Islam which he found demanding (praying five times a day) while adhering to those which work to his benefit (polygamy and the right to a teenage wife when he is in his 50s). The book isn't a simple man--bad, woman-good type of book. Look closely at the female characters (Khan's mother is as much a despot as Khan himself is)---their lives are equally complex and they are deeply nuanced individuals. On the flip side (and this can't be denied), women in Afghanistan suffer under the hands of men. I strongly recommend this book!
Rating: 
Summary: Great Fiction, Questionable Reality
Review: Sometimes the best fiction is that which is grounded in some degree of reality. If Asne Seierstad is looking to write a wonderful fiction novel, a novel that reflects more of her journalistic intuition than reality, then she has succeeded. If she was attempting to write a reasoned, insightful, factual account of her time in Afghanistan, she failed miserably. This book reifies all the comfortable, consumable stereotypes about Afghanistan and the Afghan people that exist in our media. Men bad, women good. End of story. No accounting for ethnic differences across the diverse landscape of Afghanistan, no accounting for differences in religious belief, no accounting for socioeconomic conditions. Setting aside the brutal truth that this book laughably fails at being serious, it's a good story. Just take it for what it is: A nice piece of fiction grounded in the gritty reality of post-Taliban Afghanistan.
Rating:
Summary: very good writer, but an ungracious guest
Review: Surely in the 3 months that the author lived in his home, Sultan Khan did at least ONE good thing for someone else!!!! But it isn't mentioned. She also paints everyone in this family as very base, as if everyone in her native Norway is so upstanding. Sultan is the elderly patriarch of a multigenerational extended family, which includes his two wives. He is a bookseller in Afghanistan, a country where 2/3 of the population is illiterate. Sultan sees himself as protecting the history and legacy of his country from before the Taliban took over in 1996. He sees these books and hard work as what the country needs to do in order to rise above the abject poverty brought about by the Taliban and the war that deposed them. The women in Sultan's family have it the worst -- they cook and clean and are generally enslaved as household servants, unworthy of respect from the men for whom they do everything. Not that they have anywhere to go if they decided they wanted to stop. In addition, women of certain age and marital status can lord (or is it lady?) it over other females. One feels for young Leila who wants freedom, as well as the 12-year-old son Aimal who can't go to school, the way he wants to, but must instead work in one of his father's shops instead. I am a first-generation Muslim female and have seen a lot of these scenarios played out time and again among people I have known in Pakistan as well as the USA (luckily, I have never known of an adultress being killed while her murderers, in this case her own brothers, are excused, but I have no doubt that it happens.) I do think another side of the story is worth telling -- my Muslim father insisted all the girls get university educations and encouraged us to go on for graduate studies and get jobs. Such Muslim men, brought up in Islamic republics, DO exist in strong numbers. It would have been nice if the Khan family had been written about in a more balanced view. They are just depicted as one-dimensional -- and that dimension is very unflattering indeed.
Rating:
Summary: Breach of confidence
Review: The book is a good insider look from one Western woman's perspective of the oppressed and horrid lives of women in Kabul. What is inexcusable is the author's breach of her host's privacy and the abuse of that hospitality.
The ignorance of the author's familiarity with the languages of the people she reports on is also astounding.
The book is not all bad though in that indeed the female populace of Afghanistan is in a state of pepetual victimization and the book points that out.
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