A Thousand Spendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

I picked this up on the recommendation of my orthopaedic surgeon. I'm glad I did.

The story of two women in Afghanistan who are ordinary and live ordinary lives. Regimes come and go, sometimes affecting them, sometimes not. After reading this I agree that the Taliban is evil and we were right to go into Afghanistan after them. It did surprise me how young the Taliban leaders were. You would expect old men to be so rigid when in Hosseini's view they come off as men who were threatened by the thought of women as equals. It made me wonder if some of the exetreme reactions are a response to the women's movement. Any women who feels that the Islamist movement is not a threat to women everywhere needs to read about the medical conditions under the Taliban, the educational decrees and travel restrictions. As the Muslim based laws are passed more frequently in Europe, I worry. I worry that people don't see the encroachment and that they won't see it until they have to wear burka.

Even without the political ramifications, it's wonderful story of sisterhood between generations and survival against amazing odds.