Synopsis
About Kim Barker
See more books from this AuthorA memoir of the five years the writer spent reporting from Afghanistan and Pakistan after the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001...Fierce, funny and unflinchingly honest.
Read Full Review of The Taliban Shuffle: Strange ... | See more reviews from KirkusWhat’s remarkable about “The Taliban Shuffle” is that its author, Kim Barker — a reporter at ProPublica and the South Asia bureau chief for The Chicago Tribune from 2004 to 2009 — has written an account of her experiences covering Afghanistan and Pakistan that manages to be hilarious and harrowing, witty and illuminating, all at the same time.
Read Full Review of The Taliban Shuffle: Strange ... | See more reviews from NY TimesWhile the author admits these flaws in varying measure, at some point, her self-deprecating accounts of her romps seem more like gimmicky braggadocio rather than self-reflective criticism much less exculpation for region-wide offenses. This is unfortunate.
Read Full Review of The Taliban Shuffle: Strange ...Barker's memoir is what you'd hear if the reporter never turned off the voice recorder between interviews — brilliant firsthand outtakes that wind up telling us more about the Afghan debacle than any foreign-policy briefing.
Read Full Review of The Taliban Shuffle: Strange ......if you admire a witty turn of phrase and revel in absurdity, you can’t do better than The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Read Full Review of The Taliban Shuffle: Strange ...These stories run counter to the currents of history, but they are more enduring than some of the supposedly more serious, and certainly more turgid, monographs that Afghanistan has produced of late.
Read Full Review of The Taliban Shuffle: Strange ...As a tall Western woman, Barker also writes laugh-out-loud scenes about spinning around and punching the shorter local men who grope her at press events. Taliban Shuffle is a tragic, funny, merciless good read.
Read Full Review of The Taliban Shuffle: Strange ...Barker’s vignettes are a cross between Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness...Taliban Shuffle is a tragic, funny, merciless good read.
Read Full Review of The Taliban Shuffle: Strange ...Barker’s story, though, paints the world of foreign correspondents from the inside, with insight and hindsight, and is both appalling and brave and recommended.
Read Full Review of The Taliban Shuffle: Strange ...An aggregated and normalized score based on 270 user ratings from iDreamBooks & iTunes