3 posts from 2007

What's the best book you read this year?

 

Completely unrelated to my Photography - I still thought I'd give this one a shot.. The best book I've read so far was probbaly the one I just finished last night - 'A Thousand Splendid Suns' by Khaled Hosseini. I usually have a rather hard time getting 'emotionally involved' when reading a book (much more so than when watching a movie), but this one sure had me tear up a couple of times.

In his second novel (the first being the highly acclaimed 'The Kite Runner'), Hosseini tells the story of two girls who grow close as women — unlikely friends who are brought together in the chaos of war.

Excerpt:

It's the whistling," Laila said to Tariq, "the damn whistling, I hate more than anything."

Tariq nodded knowingly.

It wasn't so much the whistling itself, Laila thought later, but the seconds between the start of it and impact. The brief and interminable time of feeling suspended. The not knowing. The waiting. Like a defendant about to hear the verdict.

Often it happened at dinner, when she and Babi were at the table. When it started, their heads snapped up. They listened to the whistling, forks in midair, unchewed food in their mouths. Laila saw the reflection of their half-lit faces in the pitch-black window, their shadows unmoving on the wall. The whistling. Then the blast, blissfully elsewhere, followed by an expulsion of breath and the knowledge that they had been spared for now while somewhere else, amid cries and choking clouds of smoke, there was a scrambling, a barehanded frenzy of digging, of pulling from the debris, what remained of a sister, a brother, a grandchild.

But the flip side of being spared was the agony of wondering who hadn't. After every rocket blast, Laila raced to the street, stammering a prayer, certain that, this time, surely this time, it was Tariq they would find buried beneath the rubble and smoke.

At night, Laila lay in bed and watched the sudden white flashes reflected in her window. She listened to the rattling of automatic gunfire and counted the rockets whining overhead as the house shook and flakes of plaster rained down on her from the ceiling. Some nights, when the light of rocket fire was so bright a person could read a book by it, sleep never came. And, if it did, Laila's dreams were suffused with fire and detached limbs and the moaning of the wounded.

Morning brought no relief. The muezzin's call for namaz rang out, and the Mujahideen set down their guns, faced west, and prayed. Then the rugs were folded, the guns loaded, and the mountains fired on Kabul, and Kabul fired back at the mountains, as Laila and the rest of the city watched as helpless as old Santiago watching the sharks take bites out of his prize fish.

Copyright 2007 by Khaled Hosseini. Published by Riverhead Books.

A Thousand Splendid Suns

Khaled Hosseini

I know I'm probably a little early with this but I want to go ahead and get the New Year off to a good start and invite everyone to my 'Celebrate 2008  -- $15.- sitting fee special'!

Mention this blog post when making your appointment and pay only $15.- sitting fee for your first Portrait Session with me in 2008!

Unfortunately, this offer is not transferrable and cannot be combined with any other specials. ;)

Regular pricing as stated on our website ParagoPhotography.com applies.

OK this is more like a test post.. to get me started and motivated! :D Below a picture of my daughter Lucie - she's my No.1 model and the one who inspires me every day..

Thanks for stopping by.. hope to see you again soon. Please visit me at www.paragophotography.com

Lucie In Pink