Not sure I can keep up or scan back far enough for the answer, but I read Kite Runner last month, and Three Cups of Tea this month - a Pakistani-Afghani smorgasbord. Runner is a novel, and Tea is a biography of sorts, but they both give excellent insights into the culture and mentality of the mountain peoples of those countries. Both are insightful and inspiring, in my view. I'm currently reading Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild but I am not sure I am going to finish it. It is not the prose, it is the depressing nature of the story so far (which is the true story of a young man who walked off into the wilderness in 1992).

Last edited by NW Ponderer; 01/31/08 12:50 AM.
A well reasoned argument is like a diamond: impervious to corruption and crystal clear - and infinitely rarer.

Here, as elsewhere, people are outraged at what feels like a rigged game -- an economy that won't respond, a democracy that won't listen, and a financial sector that holds all the cards. - Robert Reich