Dougie's War by Rodge Glass
Dougie Campbell has just returned from the war in Afghanistan. At first he does everything he has dreamed of, climbs a munro, goes to see Scotland play football at Hampden Park, and gets bought rounds and rounds of drinks by strangers and friends all of whom hail him as a hero. But as he is forgotten by the people around him and moves into a flat and life of his own the trauma he suffered as the sole survivor of an explosion that tore apart his jeep and the bodies of his friends emerges and takes over. A really good primer on the true cost of modern soldiering, on PTSD and the lack of support for returning soldiers, and with an in depth section on PTSD, the war in Afghanistan, the World War I comic strip Charley's War that first spoke about the reality of life for soldiers on the western front. The only reason I didn't give it five stars is that I feel it lack the subtlety and quality of drawing of Charley's War, but it is much shorter.
Shadow of the Silk Road by Colin Thubron
A fascinating book about the history of the fabled Silk Road, not a single path but a network of routes stretching from China through Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan and Iran to Turkey. Thubron travelled 7000 miles in 8 months through the Taklamakan desert and conflict ridden mountains. Beautifully written and absorbing. A window on an alien world
The Afghan Amulet: Travels from the Hindu Kush to Razgrad by Shelia Paine
An extraordinary travelogue as Paine travels through Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey in search of the origins of a triangular amulet. She somehow communicates with people with whom she has no language in common and writes of people so without possessions that a local British calendar is a real gift. Makes me more determined to make my tread lighter on the earth. And unlike Thubron Paine is female and there is one episode where she has to jump over muddy streams from the roadside in a burkha, she is regularly asked where her husband is and has to be constantly on her guard against assualt. So many situations where she appears fine and I would have been scared witless!
A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini
I read Hosseini's Kite Runner and was worried that it might have been a one hit wonder and that his second book wouldn't have been as good. It was. A Thousand Splendid Suns focuses on the lives of two women from very different castes and to me Hosseini can write a woman's thoughts and feelings, I was enchanted and captivated.
AZ: "Mariam is only fifteen when she is sent to Kabul to marry Rasheed. Nearly two decades later, a friendship grows between Mariam and a local teenager, Laila, as strong as the ties between mother and daughter. When the Taliban take over, life becomes a desperate struggle against starvation, brutality and fear. Yet love can move a person to act in unexpected ways, and lead them to overcome the most daunting obstacles with a startling heroism".
