And the Mountains Echoed

By: Khaled Hosseini

Narrated by: Khaled Hosseini, Navid Negahban, Shohreh Aghdashloo

Length: 14 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's summary

On May 21, 2013, the new novel from Khaled Hosseini: an unforgettable story about finding a lost piece of yourself in someone else.

Khaled Hosseini, the number-one New York Times best-selling author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, has written a new novel about how we love, how we take care of one another, and how the choices we make resonate through generations. In this tale revolving around not just parents and children but brothers and sisters, cousins and caretakers, Hosseini explores the many ways in which families nurture, wound, betray, honor, and sacrifice for one another; and how often we are surprised by the actions of those closest to us, at the times that matter most. Following its characters and the ramifications of their lives and choices and loves around the globe—from Kabul to Paris to San Francisco to the Greek island of Tinos—the story expands gradually outward, becoming more emotionally complex and powerful with each passing minute.

©2013 Khaled Hosseini (P)2013 Penguin Audio

Wonderful book; what's up with the narration?!?

This is an absolutely wonderful book! Everyone should read it. But what's up with the current trend (also manifested in the Audible performance of The Orphan Master's Son) of narrators with heavy and difficult to understand but unidentifiable accents?!? It makes it really difficult, and what is the point?

Enjoy this Beautiful Book!!

Hosseini is an author that I stumbled upon in a search for something different to read. I am so glad that I did! The author reads the book, and I was a little concerned that the names in another culture might be confusing in an audible format. I occasionally got a little lost, but I later "reread" the sections--something that I rarely do. I have to say that Hosseini's narration really enhanced the listening experience. He writes in a unique voice and his descriptions are expressed in a way that crosses all cultural boundaries. This book is one to be savored.

Loved his other books, not this one.

Hosseini's other two books are two of my favorites, so I was excited to get this book and downloaded it almost the day it came out. I should have listened to the excerpt before downloading though, because the narration is AWFUL! Basically, the narration is so bad, I was unable to finish this book.

The few times that Hosseini steps in to narrate are the few bright spots. The other two narrators (a man and a woman) are terrible. It's not only because their heavy accents are such that I could not understand a lot of what they were saying. They are very monotonous as well.

If Hosseini had narrated the whole thing, I probably would have at least finished the book. I gave up about 4/5ths in. Perhaps there was a redeeming twist coming at the end that would have brought everything together, but I just couldn't put up with the narrators anymore.

At the risk of a slight spoiler, I will tell you that this story spans several generations, so the characters you are introduced to at the start of the book will grow old and die before the end. And there did not seem to be any overall point to the story. It's like a long drawn-out snapshot of the lives of some Afghans. It describes in great detail the ups and downs of various people's lives, generally all related to each other, and that's about it.

If there was a grand resolution to the story at the end that I missed, I apologize, but again, the narration was so bad, I could not hold on.

Hosdeini's best work

I could not begin to do it justice.
This book is written in a circle of Afgan history portraying the lives of individuals and families.
It is very well written and read. I really struggled to put it down.

Love, loyalty, and pain

This is the third novel written by Afghan immigrant to the US, Kahlil Hosseini (the others were “The Kite Runner” and “A Thousand Splendid Suns”), but the first that I have read. But, it’s definitely among the best I’ve read this year. The book starts with stories from an extended Afghan family starting with an incident in 1952, then going back to the story of their mother, and slowly expanding, eventually to bring in a few foreigners serving with aid organizations. The interesting thing is that each chapter is from the perspective of one person. At first, I thought that it was going to be a collection of short stories from Afghanistan, but then began to see the connections. Each person has their own perspective and sometimes you read details of a story that you have already read, but from a completely different perspective. Sometimes that’s because we all see things differently in some way, but also it’s because no one knows the whole story. We only know the parts that involve us and maybe things we’ve heard from others. The effect can be a bit confusing at times as you try to put things together in your mind and remember names or relationships. But, It also sucks you into the story and gives you a broader picture. The two children of the first chapter are the subjects of the last chapter, though now about 60 years later, and the story (stories) come full circle. It’s about love, loyalty, struggle, and disappointment. It’s about hard decisions and the regret that follows. It’s about pain. Some of the pain is due to the extreme poverty and harsh climate, and later due to the decades of war from the internal power struggles, the Soviet invasion, the Taliban, and the arrival of the Americans, and that may be hard for us to identify with, having grown up in a peaceful society. But, much of the pain is the same as we all feel as relationships change or die, and disappointments multiply, as life doesn’t turn out quite the way we thought it would and we face the consequences of earlier choices, even some of those we probably would make again if we could go back. I found myself identifying with them more and more as the book developed and moved. It’s one book that, when I got to the end, I wasn’t ready for it to stop. That’s a pretty good compliment for any book.  

Incredible

I can't put into words how much I love every beautiful second of this book. It's masterfully written, and deeply moving. I wish I could be more eloquent, but I'm still processing. Highly recommend!

Great story

Hard to get into (Chapter 4) but was a great story for readers. Provides multiple POVs and is a touching story.

Tough to Understand

this book was tough for me to follow because of the many characters and hard for me to understand due to the thick accent of the readers

achingly beautiful

wow...just wow. Khaled hosseini is a gifted writer and while this book was a tear jerker, it was beautiful and moving and every bit worth my time.

i hate when his books end

If you could sum up And the Mountains Echoed in three words, what would they be?

powerful, emotional, descriptive

What other book might you compare And the Mountains Echoed to and why?

incomparable really but I liked it as much as Cutting for Stone which is my favorite book.

Have you listened to any of the narrators’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

no

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

cry and laugh

Any additional comments?

one narrator I had difficulty understanding and had to replay a few times.