Nadia Hashimi joins us to discuss her bestselling book, Sparks Like Stars. This book is the darling of book clubs. The story of Sitara, a privileged young girl living in Kabul, draws you in as the 1978 coup strips everything away from her that she loves. Nadia tells us about her inspiration for Sitara, her family’s experience leaving Afghanistan and the nostalgia they still experience for a Kabul that has disappeared. We also learn Nadia’s opinion about whether Shair pulled the trigger.
Director of the Center for Afghanistan Studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, Sher Jan Ahmadzai tells us his remarkable story: fleeing Afghan as a child, returning to work for the President of Afghanistan, and eventual immigrating to the United States. He expands our understanding of historical and current day Afghanistan, the setting for this month’s book, Sparks Like Stars by Nadia Hashimi.
Discussing Sparks Like Stars by Nadia Hashimi, we dive into the harrowing tale of Sitara, a young girl from a privileged Kabul family whose life changes forever in the 1978 coup of the government. Sitara must assume another identity and travel across the ocean to find safety. But healing will take decades until she finally returns to Afghanistan and comes face to face with the her buried past.
Grief experts, Alyssa Christensen and Amy Lipins join us on the front porch to discuss A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman. We discuss the power of community and support to help those who have lost a loved one honor their person and learn to heal. Alyssa and Amy work at Mourning Hope Grief Center in Lincoln, Nebraska.
In Frederik Backman’s A Man Called Ove, Ove is the quintessential grumpy old man. The self-appointed enforcer of Residents’ Association rules. The responsible man frustrated by the incompetence of everyone around him. The despiser of computers and consultants and joggers. Ove has lost his beloved wife and just been forcibly retired from his job. He has no friends. He decides to end his life. When a new neighbor backs a moving trailer into Ove’s empty rose bed, Ove’s plans to end his life are thwarted again and again. Soon Ove has unintentionally drawn around him a muddle of neighbors, and a stray cat, who collectively shape a new purpose for his life.
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