Opening a new book is like embarking on a journey: You never quite know where it will take you, and one of the joys of reading is that one book points the way to another. Something snags the corner of your mind as you're turning the pages and you suddenly think, "I'd like to learn more about that," or "I wonder what her earlier novels were like" or "that reminds me of . . ." and when you finish your current title you know exactly where you want to go. What's especially nifty is that each reader follows his or her own particular route, depending on his or her interests and mood.

Where did The Kite Runner take you?

• Follow the example of Nancy's "reading itinerary" below--and then share your own path, whether it's 3 books or 30!
  
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Nancy Pearl's Reading Itinerary for The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Nonfiction about Afghanistan . . .

Of course, I wanted to learn more about Afghanistan, so I began with these nonfiction titles: An Unexpected Light: Travels in Afghanistan by Jason Elliott; The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad; The Sewing Circles of Heart: A Personal Voyage Through Afghanistan by Christina Lamb; and Kabul in Winter by Ann Jones. Reading these (especially the Elliott title), sent me on to books about politics and U.S. involvement in the area, including Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 11, 2001 by Steve Coll; Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War onTerror by Michael Scheuer; and Cobra II : The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq by Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor.

. . . which led to fiction about Afghanistan. . .

Then I realized that I was really craving some more good fiction about contemporary Afghanistan, and I found it, in Under the Persimmon Tree by Suzanne Fisher Staples (a great book for teens as well) and The Swallows of Kabul by Yasmina Khadra. But since I didn't know much (and that's an exaggeration - I knew almost nothing) about the history of Afghanistan, maybe I could find some historical fiction, and I did: The Mulberry Empire by Philip Hensher; Caravans by James Michener; and One Last Look by Susanna Moore. I discovered that Moore's novel was loosely based on a journal kept by Emily Eden, and published under the title Up the Country.

. . . which led to Virago titles and teaching . . .

Eden also wrote two delightful novellas called The Semi-Attached Couple and The Semi-Detached House (terrific titles, aren't they?). These were published most recently (in the 1970s, so not terrifically recently, actually), by Virago, a company that published little known women writers. Two other Virago titles that I just loved are Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor (recently filmed in a rather good adaptation) and I’m Not Complaining by Ruth Adam, about a British schoolteacher in the 1930s. Rereading Adam's novel made me think about two other books about teachers and teaching, including Up the Down StaircaseEducating Esme by Bel Kaufman and by Esme Raji Codell.

. . . which led to travel books . . .

Then I started looking for armchair travel books about Afghanistan and the Indian subcontinent, and went back to reread The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux. Of course, reading Theroux made me want to revisit England with one of my favorite travel writers, Bill Bryson, so I quickly found my favorite chapters in his Notes from a Small Island, and then went on to Looking for Lovedu: Days and Nights in Africa by Ann Jones and Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before by Tony Horwitz. (I learned that Horwitz is married to novelist and journalist Geraldine Brooks, so of course I had to check out her books, including Year of Wonders (fiction) and Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women (nonfiction).

Other armchair travel books I checked out were Passage to Juneau: A Sea and Its Meanings by Jonathan Raban; River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze by Peter Hessler; In Patagonia and The Old Patagonian Express by Bruce Chatwin. Reading the two Chatwin books got me interested in the author, so I read Bruce Chatwin, a biography by Nicholas Shakespeare. Shakespeare is also the author of two novels and an armchair travel book of his own, called In Tasmania: A House at the End of the World.

. . . and then there's books about immigrants and refugees . . .

At the same time, I was busily reading more novels about immigrants and refugees, including Monica Ali’s Brick Lane; Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake and Interpreter of Maladies (I took a detour here to read more winners of Pulitzer Prize for fiction); Leila Aboulela’s Minaret and Nadeem Aslam’s Maps for Lost Lovers.

So I began in Afghanistan and ended in the England of Aboulela and Aslam, with detours to Tasmania, Patagonia, Alaska, and New York City schools.

Where did a book take you?