false 4101648 7 Sweeping in scope and mesmerizing in its evocation of time and place, <b>Burnt Shadows </b>is an epic narrative of disasters elided and confronted, loyalties offered and repaid, and loves rewarded and betrayed.<br><br>August 9, 1945, Nagasaki. Hiroko Tanaka steps out onto her veranda, taking in the view of the terraced slopes leading up to the sky. Wrapped in a kimono with three black cranes swooping across the back, she is twenty-one, in love with the man she is to marry, Konrad Weiss. <br><br>In a split second, the world turns white. In the next, it explodes with the sound of fire and the horror of realization. In the numbing aftermath of a bomb that obliterates everything she has known, all that remains are the bird-shaped burns on her back, an indelible reminder of the world she has lost.<br><br>In search of new beginnings, Hiroko travels to Delhi two years later. There she walks into the lives of Konrad&#8217;s half-sister, Elizabeth, her husband, James Burton, and their employee, Sajjad Ashraf, from whom she starts to learn Urdu. As the years unravel, new homes replace those left behind and old wars are seamlessly usurped by new conflicts. But the shadows of history - personal, political - are cast over the entwined worlds of the Burtons, Ashrafs, and Tanakas as they are transported from Pakistan to New York, and in the novel&#8217;s astonishing climax, to Afghanistan in the immediate wake of 9/11. The ties that have bound them together over decades and generations are tested to the extreme, with unforeseeable consequences.<br><br><b>Excerpt</b><br><br>Konrad walks across Urakami Valley, his heart folding in and in on itself. <br><br>Hiroko steps out onto the veranda. Her body from the neck down a silk column, white with three black cranes swooping across her back. She looks out towards the mountains, and everything is more beautiful to her than it was early this morning. Nagasaki is more beautiful to her than ever before. She turns her head and sees the spires of Urakami Cathedral which Konrad is looking up at when he notices a gap open between the clouds. Sunlight streams through, pushing the clouds apart even further.<br><br>Hiroko.<br><br>And then the world goes white. 4148807 31 3 2009 Burnt Shadows total:183|5:47|4:88|3:35|2:11|1:2| 183 716 467 65 4101648 0385666950 9780385666954 144 51 3.91 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4101648.Burnt_Shadows 5 2 false Mon Sep 28 11:26:46 -0700 2009 Mon Sep 28 11:26:46 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4101648 0385666950 9780385666954 144 51 3.91 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4101648.Burnt_Shadows 5 1 false Mon Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 20 18:03:07 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 20 18:33:32 -0700 2009 http://lanew-yorkaise.com/

Maybe it’s because I spent a good part of my college years studying trauma and how people experience and record it; maybe because World War II and its fallout—both figurative and literal—is a topic I find myself drawn to again and again (my thesis wa...more...]]> 4101648 0385666950 9780385666954 144 51 3.91 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4101648.Burnt_Shadows 4 2 false Mon Jun 22 12:51:26 -0700 2009 Mon Jun 22 12:51:38 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5997336 0312551878 9780312551872 11 6 3.91 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1256089002m/5997336.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5997336.Burnt_Shadows 4 1 false Thu Jan 22 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Jan 11 12:58:15 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 24 11:21:15 -0800 2009 xx

Hiroko Tanaka is a wonderful character, and this is a brilliant work, highly appropriate to finish reading on the day Obama announced the closing of "Gitmo." To explain why would give away the entire sto...more...]]> 4101648 0385666950 9780385666954 144 51 3.91 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4101648.Burnt_Shadows 5 1 false Tue Jun 30 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Jun 27 14:37:10 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 30 12:51:08 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4101648 0385666950 9780385666954 144 51 3.91 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4101648.Burnt_Shadows 0 0 false Sat May 30 14:46:33 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 02 12:42:15 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5997336 0312551878 9780312551872 11 6 3.91 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1256089002m/5997336.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5997336.Burnt_Shadows 5 1 false Sun May 31 13:56:05 -0700 2009 Sun May 24 19:10:24 -0700 2009 Sun May 31 13:56:05 -0700 2009
(On debates regarding the formation of Pakistan) And so it went on and on, and in each group Sajjad found those who made complete sense and in each group also those whose opinions made him want to scatter seeds over the speakers s...more...]]> 4101648 0385666950 9780385666954 144 51 3.91 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4101648.Burnt_Shadows 3 0 false Thu Jun 04 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun May 31 06:05:47 -0700 2009 Sun Jun 07 11:50:59 -0700 2009
HirokoTanaka is a unforgettable woman who overcame so many tragedies in this story. Beginning on August 9th, in 1945 when she watches the sun come through the clouds, but then suddenly the world goes white. The ato...more...]]> 4101648 0385666950 9780385666954 144 51 3.91 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4101648.Burnt_Shadows 3 0 false Tue Sep 22 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Sep 12 21:06:44 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 22 19:32:56 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4101648 0385666950 9780385666954 144 51 3.91 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4101648.Burnt_Shadows 1 1 false Mon Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Sep 20 00:00:56 -0700 2009 Fri Oct 02 09:51:35 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4101648 0385666950 9780385666954 144 51 3.91 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4101648.Burnt_Shadows 5 1 false Fri Feb 20 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Mar 16 16:34:03 -0700 2009 Fri Mar 20 08:14:52 -0700 2009 4101648 0385666950 9780385666954 144 51 3.91 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4101648.Burnt_Shadows 4 0 false Sun May 17 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon May 04 16:23:16 -0700 2009 Mon May 18 16:53:39 -0700 2009
Instead of repeating the sequence of events that are outlined in the blurbs, I am going to skim the details. And for those of you who read my review of the new novel, "The Wish Maker", let me say that what I was hoping for in that novel has been d...more...]]> 6347643 0747597073 9780747597070 9 5 3.91 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6347643-burnt-shadows 4 0 false Sat May 30 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat May 23 05:00:01 -0700 2009 Sat May 30 04:13:05 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4101648 0385666950 9780385666954 144 51 3.91 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4101648.Burnt_Shadows 5 0 false Thu Jul 23 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 06 07:09:45 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 24 13:33:18 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4101648 0385666950 9780385666954 144 51 3.91 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4101648.Burnt_Shadows 3 0 false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sat Sep 19 00:51:31 -0700 2009 Sat Sep 19 00:55:09 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4101648 0385666950 9780385666954 144 51 3.91 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4101648.Burnt_Shadows 5 0 false Wed Jun 17 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri May 22 04:47:13 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 23 06:30:47 -0700 2009 more...]]> 6347643 0747597073 9780747597070 9 5 3.91 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6347643-burnt-shadows 4 0 false Tue May 12 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Apr 21 07:13:55 -0700 2009 Wed May 13 09:42:54 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4101648 0385666950 9780385666954 144 51 3.91 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4101648.Burnt_Shadows 4 0 false Mon Aug 24 12:14:12 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 24 12:14:12 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4101648 0385666950 9780385666954 144 51 3.91 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4101648.Burnt_Shadows 4 0 false Tue Aug 18 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Jul 28 19:59:14 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 18 17:14:40 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4101648 0385666950 9780385666954 144 51 3.91 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4101648.Burnt_Shadows 2 0 false Wed Dec 02 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Wed Dec 02 10:50:52 -0800 2009 Wed Dec 02 10:55:26 -0800 2009 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=4101648