Just finished reading this ....

A Thousand Splendid Suns

Khaled Hosseini

and still gathering my thoughts.  I actually watched a discussion of it on the ABC's First Tuesday Book Club where Jennifer Byrne talked about Afghanistan itself being the main character in this book which I thought was pretty apt.  For me, this was a bit of a problem as I have previously read a few non-fiction accounts of that period of time in Afghanistan so kind of had an idea of what was going to happen next in the political landscape. 

The Kite Runner

Khaled Hosseini

Preferred the Kite Runner in that sense as the political events more of a back drop to the interplay between the characters.  Also thought Kite Runner was good in that it delved into less well-known issues (to me at least) such as the historical divisions between the different ethnic groups in Afghanistan.  Also coincided with some media reporting about the particular problems of Hazara asylum seekers in Australia so gave me a bit more of an insight into that.