The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul
by Deborah Rodriguez .
A small but select group of us met to dine and talk about this book - the food won.
The book was selected by me Sue Baker because it appeared to tick a number of boxes;
• It was chosen quite some time ago and looked like a ‘higher level’ topic for holiday read (it wasn’t)
• It was picked on the assumption that Nigel and Chris would never actually move away – so a cross between wishful thinking and pulling Nigel’s leg (but they went!!)
• It was cheap (it was a waste of money)
• I was busy / fed up at the time (and again when I read it)
• It was there – in Asda looking like an easy choice (it was lazy choice – I won’t do that again)
The book was disappointing in almost every way – unrealistic….. or at least having not been there no one could say that’s how it is or isn’t in Kabul.
So for kindness - it was improbable.
The book contradicted itself by describing the oppressive life for women and as it complained about the regime we were expected to believe
and balance this against a group of women who appeared to do as they wished – we agreed that this living a life contrary to the regime is (probably) not the way any visitors to any country would act.
It was predictable, corny, simplistic and for such a little book it seemed to be very long …… once you put it down (gladly) you really didn’t want to pick it up again. And most of us didn’t
Apologies all around – but you still should have been there on Friday –
we had a really lovely evening provided by our hosts Chris and Pete for which us guests were grateful x (don’t expect this to be the norm it was a special arrangement and you missed it).
SB
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