The Bookseller of Kabul

Rating:
Summary: Eye-opening
Review: Very insightful. Sultan Khan's family is financially well off--even rich, by Afghan standards. Yet the women live as slaves, with no hope for the future. As enlightened and well-read as Khan thinks he is, his attitude towards his family is medieval. I have often wondered how fundamentalist Muslims justify subjugating half the human race, and why they do not consider that denying women the chance to develop their God-given intelligence and abilities is spitting in the face of Allah.

Rating:
Summary: Slanderous and factually inaccurate
Review: While the author write a vivid picture of life in Kabul, she is a lazy researcher. What she writes should be considered fictional rather than factual. She does capture the essence of life there, but she fails to do research of Afghan history, culture or personalities. In one case she declares that General Dostum, who is President Karzai's Special Advisor for Military Affairs, is illiterate and runs enemies over with tanks. First, he is a well-read man and, second, the infamous tank story was stolen from Ahmed Rashid's book. Rashid admitted that he did not have any proof about the story. She says that Dostum cooked Talibs in transport containers, which is a flat out lie. While prisoners were transported to a prison in the containers, it was in the middle of winter. I personally watched countless Talib prisoners climb out of these contaniers and the only few that died had done so as a result of war wounds. Dostum fought side-by-side with U.S. Special Forces in the liberation of Afghanistan. This author should be held accountable for her poor journalism and slanderous tone.