While working on a book about Afghanistan, this New York Times reporter was kidnapped by the Taliban. This book details the seven months he is in captivity in tandem with his wife's experience trying to find and free him.
The story not only chronicles these two individual's experiences, but takes the reader through the broader terrain of Afghanistan and Pakistan's modern history of nearly continuous war. It also navigates one through the perils of having a loved one kidnapped and the strange rules you suddenly have to operate under in order to get that person back.
A compelling read about human survival, fear, loss and in the end the extraordinary story of getting out of captivity and back home.
"Attiqullah gets back in the car and I feel relief for no rational reason. He has kidnapped us, but more and more I desperately view Atiqullah as my protector, the man who will continue to treat us well as other militants call for our heads." Page 91
"One morning, two of our guards leave for bomb-making class and Mansoor leaves for the market. As one guard naps in Sharif's bedroom, Hamid announces he is going to pick up bread for our lunch from a nearby madrassa. He departs and I realize we have a chance to escape." Page 217
"One afternoon, a student who appears to be roughly ten years old arrives from one of the local hard-line religious schools. When I ask him what he wants to be when he grows up, he says he wants to be a suicide bomber. When I ask him his second choice, he says he wants to be a mujahideen or "freedom fighter." When I asked him his third choice, he says he wants to be a Muslim." Page 275
Book 4
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