The Taliban Shuffle cover art

The Taliban Shuffle

Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan

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The Taliban Shuffle

By: Kim Barker
Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
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About this listen

Now a Major Motion Picture titled Whiskey Tango Foxtrot starring Tina Fey, Margot Robbie, Martin Freeman, Alfred Molina, and Billy Bob Thornton.

From tea with warlords in the countryside to parties with drunken foreign correspondents in the "dry" city of Kabul, journalist Kim Barker captures the humor and heartbreak of life in post-9/11 Afghanistan and Pakistan in this profound and darkly comic memoir. As Barker grows from awkward newbie to seasoned reporter, she offers an insider’s account of the region’s "forgotten war" at a time when all eyes were turned to Iraq. Candid, self-deprecating, and laugh-out-loud funny, Barker shares both her affection for the absurdities of these two hapless countries and her fear for their future stability.

©2011 Kim Barker (P)2011 Random House Art & Literature Asia India Journalists, Editors & Publishers Military South Asia Words, Language & Grammar Writing & Publishing Witty Funny

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Critic reviews

“Read this and try not to hurt yourself laughing. Who knew war could be so funny? The Taliban Shuffle isn’t like any other book out there about Afghanistan and Pakistan. It’s witty, brilliant, and impossible to put down. Think P. J. O’Rourke meets Paul Theroux. Kim Barker is a gifted storyteller, and her intrepid, sometimes wacky travels through these two strife-torn nations will leave you informed, amused, and—depending on your sense of adventure—wanting to tag along on her next trip.” (Rajiv Chandrasekaran, author of Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone)
“ The Taliban Shuffle is Scoop meets Dispatches, remixed with a 21-century Bollywood soundtrack. Laugh-out-loud funny, it is the true story of what it is like to be a female journalist in one of the world's most exotic war zones, while telling the reader much about what is really going on today in Afghanistan and Pakistan.” (Peter Bergen, author of Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden and The Longest War: The Enduring Conflict between America and Al-Qaeda)
“Yes, there are bombs. And there is carnage. And all sorts of mayhem. But mostly there are people, human beings even, with appetites—for life, for adventure, for riches, for love. Ms. Barker offers this world—the human world caught in the crosshairs of history—with a vitality rarely seen in accounts of the war. A compelling read that offers readers a glimpse of the goings-on behind the byline.” (J. Maarten Troost, author of The Sex Lives of Cannibals)
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there were a lot of descriptions I recognised a lot of characters I recognised bought it all back

I liked it

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Fascinating book and a great insight into the endless troubles.

Struggled at first to get used to the narrator, however, she grew on more and did a fantastic job.

Thank you

Great listen.

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I turned it off in the second chapter. The author writes like a teenager who spent a decade in Kabul doing nothing but moaning and thinking they are great. The self-important, over-descriptive BS was too much for me. Don't waste your money.

Written by a self-important high schooler

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The fact that a major newspaper in the US employed Kim Barker as a foreign correspondent in Afghanistan highlights the incompetence of the whole approach to Afghanistan.

Whiny and ignorant of the culture of the populace. A lot of the book is gossip, borderline kiss and tell nonsense which would be best suited to a British tabloid.

There’s nothing of substance in this book, a total waste of time. Kim Barker should have learned from Suzy Hansen, someone who spent a lot of time in a foreign land and was able to truly see things from a different perspective. Taliban shuffle is complete drivel compared to Suzy Hansen’s work.

Not worth the time

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