Around the World
Discover the best books from around the world! Explore a curated list of global literature, travel guides, and cultural stories to broaden your horizons.
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The Kite Runner
by Khaled Hosseini
The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father's servant, The Kite Runner is a beautifully crafted novel set in a country that is in the process of being destroyed. It is about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption, and it is also about the power of fathers over sonsâtheir love, their sacrifices, their lies. The first Afghan novel to be written in English, The Kite Runner tells a sweeping story of family, love, and friendship against a backdrop of history that has not been told in fiction before, bringing to mind the large canvases of the Russian writers of the nineteenth century. But just as it is old-fashioned in its narration, it is contemporary in its subject-the devastating history of Afghanistan over the last thirty years. As emotionally gripping as it is tender, The Kite Runner is an unusual and powerful debut.
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Shalimar the Clown
by Salman Rushdie
In this gripping international tale of love and revenge, and the ancient and modern conflicts from which they spring, a murder looks at first like a political assassination, but turns out to be passionately personal.
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The Shadow of the Wind
by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The New York Times bestseller âThe Shadow of the Wind is ultimately a love letter to literature, intended for readers as passionate about storytelling as its young hero.â âEntertainment Weekly (Editor's Choice) âOne gorgeous read.â âStephen King Barcelona, 1945: A city slowly heals in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, and Daniel, an antiquarian book dealerâs son who mourns the loss of his mother, finds solace in a mysterious book entitled The Shadow of the Wind, by one JuliĂĄn Carax. But when he sets out to find the authorâs other works, he makes a shocking discovery: someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book Carax has written. In fact, Daniel may have the last of Caraxâs books in existence. Soon Danielâs seemingly innocent quest opens a door into one of Barcelonaâs darkest secrets--an epic story of murder, madness, and doomed love.
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Someone to Run With
by David Grossman
Capturing the lives of Israeli street kids, follows two teenagers--Assaf, a shy and awkward sixteen year old, and Tamar, a talented young singer--and the missing dog that brings them together.
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Cloud of Sparrows
by Takashi Matsuoka
âExotic, entertaining . . . [an] exceptional first novel.ââSan Francisco Chronicle The year is 1861. After two centuries of isolation, Japan has opened its doors to the West. And as foreign ships threaten to rain destruction on the Shogunâs castle in Edo, a small group of American missionaries has arrived to spread the word of their God. They have yet to realize that their future in Japan has already been foreseen. For a young nobleman has dreamt that his life will be saved by an outsider in the New Year. . . and it is said that Lord Genji has the gift of prophecy. What happens nextâwhen the handsome lord meets an appa rently reformed gunslinger and a woman in flight from her own destructive beautyâsets the stage for a remarkable adventure. For as this unlikely band embarks on a journey through a landscape bristling with danger, East and West, flesh and spirit, past and future, collide in ways no oneâleast of all Genjiâcould have imagined. Praise for Cloud of Sparrows âThe book seizes you from start to finish.ââThe Washington Post âAdventure-filled.ââEntertainment Weekly âRich . . . with an ambitious, unexpected ending that cuts deeper than a samurai sword.ââSan Francisco Chronicle
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Reading Lolita in Tehran
by Azar Nafisi
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ⢠We all have dreamsâthings we fantasize about doing and generally never get around to. This is the story of Azar Nafisiâs dream and of the nightmare that made it come true. For two years before she left Iran in 1997, Nafisi gathered seven young women at her house every Thursday morning to read and discuss forbidden works of Western literature. They were all former students whom she had taught at university. Some came from conservative and religious families, others were progressive and secular; several had spent time in jail. They were shy and uncomfortable at first, unaccustomed to being asked to speak their minds, but soon they began to open up and to speak more freely, not only about the novels they were reading but also about themselves, their dreams and disappointments. Their stories intertwined with those they were readingâPride and Prejudice, Washington Square, Daisy Miller and Lolitaâtheir Lolita, as they imagined her in Tehran. Nafisiâs account flashes back to the early days of the revolution, when she first started teaching at the University of Tehran amid the swirl of protests and demonstrations. In those frenetic days, the students took control of the university, expelled faculty members and purged the curriculum. When a radical Islamist in Nafisiâs class questioned her decision to teach The Great Gatsby, which he saw as an immoral work that preached falsehoods of âthe Great Satan,â she decided to let him put Gatsby on trial and stood as the sole witness for the defense. Azar Nafisiâs luminous tale offers a fascinating portrait of the Iran-Iraq war viewed from Tehran and gives us a rare glimpse, from the inside, of womenâs lives in revolutionary Iran. It is a work of great passion and poetic beauty, written with a startlingly original voice. Praise for Reading Lolita in Tehran âAnyone who has ever belonged to a book group must read this book. Azar Nafisi takes us into the vivid lives of eight women who must meet in secret to explore the forbidden fiction of the West. It is at once a celebration of the power of the novel and a cry of outrage at the reality in which these women are trapped. The ayatollahs donâ t know it, but Nafisi is one of the heroes of the Islamic Republic.ââGeraldine Brooks, author of Nine Parts of Desire
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The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
by Alexander McCall Smith
NATIONAL BESTSELLER ⢠Fans around the world adore the bestselling No. 1 Ladiesâ Detective Agency series and its proprietor, Precious Ramotswe, Botswanaâs premier lady detective. In this charming series, Mma Ramotsweâwith help from her loyal associate, Grace Makutsiânavigates her cases and her personal life with wisdom, good humor, and the occasional cup of tea. This first novel in Alexander McCall Smithâs widely acclaimed The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series tells the story of the delightfully cunning and enormously engaging Precious Ramotswe, who is drawn to her profession to âhelp people with problems in their lives.â Immediately upon setting up shop in a small storefront in Gaborone, she is hired to track down a missing husband, uncover a con man, and follow a wayward daughter. But the case that tugs at her heart, and lands her in danger, is a missing eleven-year-old boy, who may have been snatched by witchdoctors. The No. 1 Ladiesâ Detective Agency received two Booker Judgesâ Special Recommendations and was voted one of the International Books of the Year and the Millennium by the Times Literary Supplement.
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