From Wikipedia: Based on the Japanese embassy hostage crisis (also called the Lima Crisis) of 1996–1997 in Lima, Peru, the novel follows the relationships among a group of young terrorists and their hostages, who are mostly high-profile executives and politicians, over several months. Many of the characters form unbreakable bonds of friendship, while some fall in love.

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This is a second copy I have. I ordered this without knowing that another copy was coming to me as a surprise RABCK.

Congratulations on winning. I like other Ann Patchett's but I have not read this one yet. It should be good. We'll see who reads this first. Happy reading!

Thank you! I have never heard of this book, and it looks really like something I am going to enjoy! (And the Christmas-card! The first to arrive this year! And of course the labels. And the magnetic book mark!)

Feb 2020. Reading it. What a story!

I liked this book very much!
I live and grew up in a place with easy access to opera (to quote the author) (=Vienna, of all places) and I grew up with opera (although a lot of Viennese don't), and I sometimes like it, but could live without it. So it was fascinating to read about a fascination for opera - and indeed, it is very convincing in the book (although I cannot feel it myself).
But A LOT of other things about the book where great: the absurd difficulties with languages and the one genius of a translator. The grotesque confusion and amateurishness of the terrorists (maybe not in military matters but in what the actually wanted and WTF: how?!). The discreet Stockholm syndrome evolving - or maybe it is only that the terrorist are not that bad anyway :-)? The nice playing with stereotypes, sometimes vehemently fended off, sometimes fulfilled: could the world star singer please cook as she is the only grown woman here? No! But there are French - sure they will cook: and there he is: the French ambassador cooking for all of them. But why are the two terrorist girls considered old enough to be terrorists but maybe not old enough to be able to cook? Really funny.
I´m not sure, but I think it is rather loosely based on the Lima Crisis, but kept some crucial details: (spoiler ahead, in white)
well... spoiler... you can easily guess it is going to happen: all the terrorists are shot. (And not all of them in combat.) And I think it is also easy to imagine that some of them (the real ones, not the book characters) had not done horribly bad things and where a great waste of talent. So this is maybe the best part: reminding you that there might be a human behind the criminal - which sounds nauseatingly romantic if you put it like that, and some are just ... (insert whatever swearword you prefer), but some maybe are not.

Passed on to N