The Kite Runner

Wow.

Just, wow.

I loved this book, as hard as parts of it were to read. It's very well-written and takes you inside Afghanistan before and during the rule of the Taliban - a world few Westerners have seen or understand. It follows the life of Amir, a privileged youth who, with his father, flees Afghanistan when Russia invades. They emigrate to the United States, where Amir builds a new life and buries his past. But the past has a way of catching up with you, as it does with Amir, and he returns to Afghanistan to confront it and to find a way to be good again.

It's a breathtaking novel, and impossible to put down.