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The Last American Man
At the age of twenty-two, Elizabeth Gilbert was doing everything she could to avoid a nine-to-five job. She worked on ranches in Wyoming, rode horses pretending to be a cowgirl, and fell for the smooth-talking cowboys who were the last vestige of the American frontier that she longed for. And then she met Eustace Conway. Eustace Conway is like no other man. At the age of seventeen, he ditched the comforts of suburbia to escape to the mountains where he lived alone in a teepee. Twenty years on, he is still there. Everything he needs he builds, grows or kills. Over the years, he has stopped at nothing in pursuit of bigger, bolder challenges: he travelled the Mississippi in a handmade wooden canoe; he walked the two-thousand-mile Appalachian Trail; he hiked across the German Alps in trainers. Dazzled by his tales of daring and adventure, Elizabeth Gilbert set off on her own adventure to discover the last American man. Written with her trademark warmth and humour that made Eat, Pray, Love an international bestseller, The Last American Man is an unforgettable story of an irrepressible life lived to the extreme
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A Thousand Splendid Suns
Mariam is only fifteen when she is sent to Kabul to marry Rasheed. Nearly two decades later, a friendship grows between Mariam and a local teenager, Laila, as strong as the ties between mother and daughter. When the Taliban take over, life becomes a desperate struggle against starvation, brutality and fear. Yet love can move a person to act in unexpected ways, and lead them to overcome the most daunting obstacles with a startling heroism.
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The Kite Runner
Twelve-year-old Amir is desperate to win the approval of his father and resolves to win the local kite-fighting toumament, to prove that he has the makings of a man. His loyal friend Hassan promises to help him? for he always helps Amir? but this is 1970s Afghanistan and Hassan is merely a low-caste servant who is jeered at in the street, although Amir still feels jealous of his natural courage and the place he holds in his father's heart. But neither of the boys could foresee what would happen to Hassan on the afternoon of the tournament, which was to shatter their lives. After the Russians invade and the family is forced to flee to America, Amir realises that one day he must return, to find the one thing that his new world cannot grant him: redemption.