"The Kite Runner" author Khaled Hosseini’s latest novel, "And the Mountains Echoed", tells of how we are united by loss, failure and missing out.

It starts as it means to continue: ”Ever since I could think, I’ve had haemorrhoids.” And through the next 229 unflinchingly explicit pages, there is little respite.…

It is a pivotal moment in a heartbreaking story. A young man looks back on the moment that defined his life. ”I became what I am today at the age of 12, on a frigid, overcast,…