BOOK OF THE YEAR Seven months into the year and "The Kite Runner" has already garnered the top spot in my booklist. I picked it up during a recent sleepless night, closing its cover at 2:30 a.m. wishing it were another 200 pages long. It's truly magical, poetic and deep with meaning.

From the first lines of "The Kite Runner," Khaled Hosseini shows how an engaging novel begins -- with simple, exquisite writing that compels the reader to turn the page.

But "The Kite Runner," Hosseini's first novel, is more than just good writing. It is also a wonderfully conjured story that offers a glimpse into an Afghanistan most Americans have never seen, and depicts a side of humanity rarely revealed.

The reader first meets the main character and narrator, Amir, in the opening chapter, as he remembers his childhood in 1970s Kabul and hints at a life-changing moment that has taunted him since boyhood. The tactic of beginning at the end and looking back could have been trite, but not in "The Kite Runner," where Amir's musings leave the reader wanting more.

HOW HAVE WE DROPPED THE BALL? LET ME COUNT... Salam Pax is furious about the handling of the killing of Uday and Qusay Hussein. Beyond the question -- dismissed at the press conference -- of why the military leveled an entire block to kill Saddam's sons when they could have surrounded the building, camped out, captured them and held a trial (which most Iraqis wanted), is the question of why no proof was offered that the bodies were Uday and Qusay. Salam is clear in his assertion that proof is essential, and that the longer we wait to present it the more the Iraqis will see this as another American lie.

It is so unbelievable how they have wasted a chance to show Iraqis they really are doing something. It was the most useless of press conferences, first off this Sanchez speaks only in Militar-ese, meaningless words come out of his mouth while we are all hanging on the edge of our seats waiting for one single picture, definitive proof. It is so easy, all it takes is to show us the friggin’ corpses. They do have them. Someone did see them and when asked why it wasn’t sown to the public they came up with the moral issues stuff. Habibi it didn’t bother you that all those Iraqis, Americans and British are being killed for dubious reasons, so why suddenly become so squeamish? Give the Images to Jazeera, moral issues have never stopped them from showing gruesome images, let them do your dirty work. All I care about is knowing, seeing, being 100% doubt free and that press conference proved nothing. An Iraqi journalist stopped me at the door of that hall and asked me whether I am American media (this happens from hanging around NY Times people too much), I told him I wasn’t but I could put him in touch, he said he was a journalist with IMN (Iraqi Media Network, the coalition sponsored media tool) he said that he wanted to make sure that the American journalists understand that Iraqis have huge doubts and if we would go out on the street we would be told that the whole thing in Mosul was a farce. Actually I was on the street and did ask that question. And people do need proof. The Americans just fucked up. Just like they waited too long after the fall of Baghdad to show the Iraqis they have things under control they have fucked up again by first making the decision to kill the idiots and then not give us clear proof of their death.

EUROPEAN BORDER BLUR As travel and work restrictions vanish across the European Union, a new generation is slowly beginning to unravel the complex web that distinguishes a German from an Italian.

For a glimpse of Europe's young generation on the move and the future of the borderless continent, head to the late-partying Spanish capital, drink a strong shot of coffee and try to keep up with Stina Lunden, a 25-year-old Swedish transplant.

Lunden stands out in Spain -- she is blonde, blue-eyed, Nordic-looking -- but she speaks fluent Spanish, writes in Spanish for Tiempo, a Madrid-based newsweekly, and has thoroughly adopted the young Spanish lifestyle. When she left her desk one night last week, the drill started with beer and tapas at an outdoor restaurant. Next, over to the Plaza de Toros, the open-air bullfighting stadium, for a concert by the Oxford rock band Radiohead. Then, after midnight, over to the trendy La Latina district where the young crowd spilled onto the sidewalk at El Bonanno's bar.

Her group of friends is a mix -- Madrid locals, but an Italian and a Brazilian, too -- and the conversation comes in rapid-fire Spanish, and sometimes English. "You can't do this back in Sweden," she said, as the clock struck 2 in the morning. "People don't go out like this, and stay out this late."

Lunden is part of the new "Generation E" -- E for Europe, a continent that has been essentially without borders for most of Lunden's and her peers' adult lives. For them, traveling from Sweden to Spain is about as simple as it is for an American college student to take a spring break drive from the Northeast to Florida.

LIVE, FROM CAMP DELTA The BBC posts excerpts from letters written by Moazzam Begg, one of two British citizens detained at a U.S. base in Cuba and slated for trial before a military tribunal.

WHAT IRAQIS THINK Channel 4 News and the Spectator (in Britain) have conducted one of the first official polls in post-war Iraq. The results are somewhat encouraging, but there are some numbers that demonstrate just how the Bush team is losing the war for the hearts and minds of Iraqis.

We offered a list of five possible reasons for the war, and asked people to identify the most important.

The top two by a mile were “to secure oil supplies” (47 per cent) and “to help Israel” (41 per cent). Just 23 per cent said our aim was “to liberate the people of Iraq”, while 7 per cent said “to protect Kuwait”.

The formal reason for going to war, “to find and destroy weapons of mass destruction” came last. Just 6 per cent think this was America’s and Britain’s main motive.

What, though, do the people of Baghdad think of the Americans today, three months after they occupied their city? More people feel friendly (26 per cent) than hostile (18 per cent), but fully 50 per cent feel “neither friendly nor hostile”.

BEATING BUSH The Atlantic Monthly's Jack Beatty imagines the ideal candidate. He's not far from the mark.

CAPTURE THE FLAG Salam Pax's third commentary for the Guardian looks at the new governing council in Iraq and their struggle to choose a national flag. Among other things. Salam's commentaries and weblog remain must-reads for anyone curious about the situation in Baghdad.

MID-DAY BREAK On Monday, National Public Radio and Slate Magazine debut Day to Day, a news program designed to provide that needed fix between Morning Edition and All Things Considered.

BREAKING POINT Military analyst Michael O'Hanlon has a keen eye when it comes to probing potential fractures in military affairs, and he sees one on the horizon. The Bush administration has traveled farther down the very path they criticized the Clinton administration about -- overtaxing the military (aka: adventurism). And it's breaking the morale of the troops, and will lead to a swift decline in the ranks if it isn't addressed, O'Hanlon says.

Hordes of active-duty troops and reservists may soon leave the service rather than subject themselves to a life continually on the road. Much more than transforming the armed forces or relocating overseas bases, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld must solve this problem before the Bush administration breaks the American military.

The problem is most acute for the Army. While most Marines, sailors and Air Force personnel go home to a grateful nation, the Army still has more than 185,000 troops deployed in and around Iraq. Another 10,000 are in Afghanistan. More than 25,000 troops are in Korea; some 5,000 are in the Balkans; and dozens here and hundreds there are on temporary assignments around the world. Nearly all of these soldiers are away from their home bases and families.

ACHENBACH IS BACK The Post's best satirist is back, though he's apparently returned with a newsmanlike sensibility. The astute Joel Achenbach returned to the pages of the Style section several weeks ago, and penned a lengthy piece today exploring whether the President's State of the Union... erm, mistake... has what it takes to be a scandal. Or is it just a flap? Politics aside, and issues of war and peace aside, and trust and credibility aside, what this particular drama lacks -- by which I mean the stuff that draws the media like fruit flies -- is sex. There is no Monica, no Fawn Hall, no Donna Rice. There is only a deliberate effort to mislead the American public to satisfy a political agenda that resulted in a war, in the deaths of several hundred Americans and thousands of Iraqis. A scandal? Probably.