The Taliban Cricket Club

Things are a little out of kilter this week, as I was rather on a mission with my take on the real life impact of learning difficulties and then distracted with the first snow, which was so lovely.
On the last Tuesday of the month the Peterborough Library book group met once again to discuss this months book, The Taliban Cricket Club. The group was significantly smaller than last month, which made for a much more manageable discussion, with an interesting start where one of the librarians who had lived and taught in Bahrain for 3 years came in to show us the increasingly oppressive nature of the outfits women in the Middle East have to wear, starting with the hajib and onto the chador, she didn’t have the full horror of the burka. It set the scene for an interesting discussion about the book – the majority thought the book was a good read but that the storyline was somewhat far-fetched, and for most the description of the lives of women under the rule of the Taliban was shocking. But for me not only were the lives of girls and women constrained but the young men’s lives were wasted too, a life without purpose is a tragedy and I hadn’t appreciated that previously. The lack of purpose and hope was vividly described as were the horrific random acts of violence. How we take our freedom and way of life for granted for which we really should be thankful. I also loved the descriptions of cricket and the cricket matches, which I think were mostly lost on the Canadians who have never seen a cricket match! It beggars belief that this book was inspired by the fact that the Taliban decided to try to promote cricket in order to improve their international reputation!
There were some views that it was too depressing and realistic – well, and this is probably rather harsh, but really, why bother reading if you want a Hollywood ending – they should be reading Mills and Boon!
The next meeting is in January – I am having to adjust my timetable as my “real” book group has a lovely December meeting with plates of Christmas cheer and no January meeting as many people are away – all topsy turvy in the Northern hemisphere or is it the other way around? I am currently reading Blood and Beauty, a history (factional) of the Borgias, which is keeping me up far too late into the night! Thank you Helen! And thank you for all the book suggestions, I am not sure when I am going to find the time to read all the fabulous books but I will try my best, and I haven’t yet read any new Canadian authors!