#6: A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini 

I think a lot of “bestseller” books can get over-hyped. I’ve seen this book in stores and being read on the subway a lot, and it lived up to it all. The story follows two women and their experiences living in Afghanistan from the mid 1970’s through 2003. While reading, I often forgot that the book was written by a man because the relationship between the two main female characters was so deep and realistic. It also feels good to think about the lives of people who live in a country we only hear about in the media. Just like Oscar Wao, I liked getting more insight into a culture with which I was not familiar. This was a well told, emotional, but ultimately uplifting story.