Sultan Khan in the book is based on Shah Muhammad Rais.

There are loads of good high street bookshops, good public libraries and if that doesn't work you can always buy online.

It's not so simple in Afghanistan. There is hardly any web access and outside Kabul there are no bookshops.

Which is where Shah Muhammad Rais stepped in.

Readers of the international bestseller "the Bookseller of Kabul" may recognise the name. He's owned a small bookshop in Kabul since 1972. The book's central character, Sultan Khan, is clearly based on Shah Mohammad Rais

Now, he's kitted out a BUS as a mobile shop and he's been touring northern Afghanistan - as he told World Today presenter George Arney.

Shah Muhammad Rais

First broadcast 9th October 2007