In Afghanistan, just after the fall of the Taliban, a bookseller named Sultan Khan allowed a Western journalist to move into his home and experience firsthand his family's life in the newly liberated capital city of Kabul. From that act of openness emerges this remarkable book, the most intimate look yet at ordinary life for those who have weathered Afghanistan's extraordinary upheavals. One husband, two wives, five children, and many other relatives sharing four small rooms opened up their lives, unforgettably. First is Sultan, a man whose love of books has exposed him to great risks over his thirty years in the trade. He has seen his volumes censored, ripped apart, even burned in the street by the Communists and the Taliban. Each time, he rebuilt his business, hiding the most controversial texts, surviving prison, traveling treacherous back roads to Pakistan to order much-needed schoolbooks. He takes joy in selling books of history, science, art, religion, and poetry, and defends his business with a primal ferocity against competitors and theft. But Sultan is also a committed Muslim with strict views on filial respect and the role of women. We meet his wife, Sharifa, when she learns that Sultan is taking a new bride, as his status in the community dictates. Despite custom, it is agonizing for the mother of Sultan's children to see her place usurped. We follow their teenage son, Mansur, as he embarks on his first religious pilgrimage, which embodies all the excitement of youth's first rebellion. And we see Sultan's younger sisters, as one prepares for her wedding while another seeks a job to escape her family's tight grip. Stepping back from the page, award-winning journalist Asne Seierstad allows the Khans to speak for themselves about their joys, sorrows, rivalries, loves, dreams, and temptations. Through this close-knit household, we gain an intimate view-as few outsiders have seen it-of life in an Islamic country just beginning to find its way between the forces of modernity and tradition.

Originally published: Boston : Little, Brown, 2003. Includes reading group guide. Translation of: Bokhandleren i Kabul (c2002).

Foreword -- The proposal -- Burning books -- Crime and punishment -- Suicide and song -- The business trip -- Do you want to make me sad? -- No admission to heaven -- Billowing, fluttering, winding -- A third-rate wedding -- The matriarch -- Temptations -- The call from Ali -- The smell of dust -- An attempt -- Can God die? -- The dreary room -- The carpenter -- My mother Osama -- A broken heart -- Epilogue.