Joanne Harris: Peaches for Monsieur le Curé

It isn't often you receive a letter from the dead. When Vianne Rocher receives a letter from beyond the grave, she allows the wind to blow her back to the village in south-west France where, eight years ago, she opened up a chocolate shop. But Lansquenet is different now: women veiled in black, the scent of spices and peppermint tea, and, on the bank of the river Tannes, facing the church: a minaret. Father Reynaud, Vianne's erstwhile adversary, is disgraced and under threat. Could it be that Vianne is the only one who can save him now?

I loved "Chocolat" and the "Lollipop shoes", but this is an even better story than the two previous ones. I'm not sure how good the story would be for someone who hadn't read the other two books, but I can see how the characters have developed over the years and I as a reader have developed, too. The storyline in this sequel is very topical with Father Reynaud sensing a war between the Maghrebins and the Catholic French. I could not put the book down and found myself totally engrossed in Lansquenet.

Bee Rowlatt & May Witwit: Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad: The True Story of an Unlikely Friendship

May is a tough-talking, hard-smoking, lecturer in English. She's also an Iraqi from a Sunni-Shi'ite background living in Baghdad, dodging bullets before breakfast and battling through blockades to reach her class of Jane Austen-studying girls. Bee is a London mum of three, fighting off PTA meetings and chicken pox, and generally juggling work and family. They should have nothing in common. But when a simple email brings them together, they discover a friendship that overcomes all their differences of culture, religion and age. And, between the grenades, the gossip, the jokes and the secrets, they also hatch an ingenious plan to help May escape the bombings of Baghdad . . .

This is a fascinating read. It's an absolutely fascinating and unbelievable story and it makes for a gripping read. I couldn't wait to finish this book, which left me somehow disappointed, as it doesn't tell us anything about how May and her husband Ali coped with the final escape to the UK. At times, I found it hard to empathise with May and Bee, but the story definitely opened my eyes for the difficulties the war in Iraq has brought for its population. I'm keen to discuss this book with many others!

Asne Seierstad: The Bookseller of Kabul

Two weeks after September 11th, award-winning journalist Asne Seierstad went to Afghanistan to report on the conflict. In the following spring she returned to live with a bookseller and his family for several months. The Bookseller of Kabul is the fascinating account of her time spent living with the family of thirteen in their four-roomed home. Bookseller Sultan Khan defied the authorities for twenty years to supply books to the people of Kabul. He was arrested, interrogated and imprisoned by the communists and watched illiterate Taliban soldiers burn piles of his books in the street. He even resorted to hiding most of his stock in attics all over Kabul. But while Khan is passionate in his love of books and hatred of censorship, he is also a committed Muslim with strict views on family life. As an outsider, Seierstad is able to move between the private world of the women - including Khan's two wives - and the more public lives of the men. The result is an intimate and fascinating portrait of a family which also offers a unique perspective on a troubled country.

This book is a fantastic read and as I am currently quite heavily involved with people from Muslim background and as an Indian friend of mine got married in an arranged wedding recently, I could relate to the story incredibly well. It is an amazing and shocking story and Seierstad explained well the relationships between the family members and the difficulties of free speech and free thoughts amongst women.

Celil Oker: Dunkle Geschäfte am Bosporus

Muazzes Güler, die toughe Chefin einer Computerfirma in Istanbul, kann es nicht leiden, wenn ihre Kunden nicht bezahlen. Um einem besonders hartnäckigen Schuldner Beine zu machen, setzt sie den Privatdetektiv Remzi Ünal auf ihn an. Der muss mitten in der Wirtschaftskrise jeden Auftrag annehmen. Als er jedoch sein Honorar abholen will, findet er Muazzes Güler tot in ihrem Büro vor, mit einem Mauskabel um den Hals.
Schnell stellt Remzi fest, dass in dieser Geschichte gar nichts zusammenpasst. Muazzes Gülers Geschäfte beschränkten sich keineswegs auf Computerteile, und ihr Politikergatte geht für seine Karriere über Leichen.

Das war für mich einmal ein etwas anderer Krimi. Obwohl ich den Detektiv Remzi Ünal mit seinen Komplexen und Selbstverteidigungskünsten ganz interessant gefunden habe, konnte ich mich nur sehr schwer in die Geschichte einfinden. Meiner Meinung nach wurde da zu viel verpackt (Liebesgeschichte, Politikerkarriere, Mafiosi-Machenschaften), als dass es noch möglich gewesen wäre dem Ganzen zu folgen. Aber Okars Zusammenfassung eines Krimis gefiel mir dann doch: "Ein Detektivroman ist eine Tragödie mit einem Happy End"....

Azar Nafisi: Reading Lolita in Tehran

The inspirational tale of eight women who defied the confines of life in revolutionary Iran through the joy and power of literature. For two years before she left Iran in 1997, Azar Nafisi gathered seven young women at her house every Thursday morning to read and discuss forbidden works of Western literature. The women's stories intertwined with those they were reading -- 'Pride and Prejudice', 'Washington Square', 'Daisy Miller' and 'Lolita' -- their Lolita, as they imagined her in Tehran. Nafisi's 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. Azar Nafisi's luminous tale offers a fascinating portrait of the Iran-Iraq war viewed from Tehran and gives us a rare glimpse, from the inside, of women's lives in revolutionary Iran. It is a work of great passion and poetic beauty, written with a startlingly original voice.

I really enjoyed reading the first section, where Nafisi relates her experiences in Tehran to Nabokov's "Lolita". However, after that I really struggled with the book, as it was repetitive and less well referenced and linked. But overall a fascinating story about a country we don't usually learn about.

Renan Demirkan: Schwarzer Tee mit drei Stück Zucker

Eine junge türkische Frau liegt im Krankenhaus und wartet auf die Geburt ihres ersten Kindes. Ihre Gedanken wandern zurück in die Kindheit in einem anatolischen Dorf, dorthin, wo sie mit ihren Freunden in den Nussbaumplantagen zwischen den Schafherden ihres Onkels spielte. Sie erinnert sich an die strenggläubigen Großeltern, an die Verwandten, die zurückblieben, als sie mit ihren Eltern nach Deutschland ging und an die ersten Jahre in ihrer neuen Welt. Die Erzählerin schildert die türkisch-deutsche Jugend eines jungen Mädchens, das seinen Platz im Leben sucht - zwischen den Träumen der Eltern von einer Rückkehr in die Heimat und ihren eigenen Wünschen vom Leben im Hier und Jetzt.

Eine faszinierende Geschichte über türkische Einwanderer in Deutschland. Die Erzählung in Form von Anekdoten war leicht verdaulich, wenn auch die einzelnen Erinnerungsstücke nur schwer zu verkraften waren. Das Gefühl nirgends dazuzugehören, wurde sehr gut beschrieben und so war das Buch eine tolle Lese- und Lernerfahrung.

Khaled Hosseini: The Kite Runner

What a fantastic read! The book was not perfect in that certain things are wrapped up and look slightly far-fetched, but overall a very emotional and interesting book. And I also think I've learned more about Afghan culture in this book than all this time Afghanistan's been on the news.

Narrated by Amir, a 40-year-old novelist living in California, The Kite Runner tells the gripping story of a boyhood friendship destroyed by jealousy, fear, and the kind of ruthless evil that transcends mere politics. Running parallel to this personal narrative of loss and redemption is the story of modern Afghanistan and of Amir's equally guilt-ridden relationship with the war-torn city of his birth. The first Afghan novel to be written in English, The Kite Runner begins in the final days of King Zahir Shah's 40-year reign and traces the country's fall from a secluded oasis to a tank-strewn battlefield controlled by the Russians and then the trigger-happy Taliban. When Amir returns to Kabul to rescue Hassan's orphaned child, the personal and the political get tangled together in a plot that is as suspenseful as it is taut with feeling.