If you are in New York, and interested in Afghanistan, Roseanne Klass will be speaking at 7 p.m. at the Barnes and Noble bookstore at 82nd Street and Broadway. Yes, right in the heart of the Upper West Side, a conservative who has been an expert on Afghanistan since the early 1950s — will discuss her book and answer questions.

The book, by the way, is a reissue of her 1963 classic travelogue, Land of the High Flags. The new subtitle, Afghanistan When the Going Was Good, points, sadly enough, to the deterioration of a proud and fascinating culture after 30 years of war. The book is beautifully written, elegiac in places, though not romanticized. It describes, with historic and cultural explanation, the Afghanistan that was. Ms. Klass worked as a teacher for several years, in which time she made many friends — of the ordinary and the powerful — and learned more than most Americans about the nuances of the culture.

When I read Rory Stewart’s much praised The Places in Between, a memoir about a walk he undertook across Western Afghanistan in 2002, I was horrified at the barren and suspicious culture he rendered. I believe that he was accurate. But if that book is all you know of Afghan society, you will be forced to wonder what it was anyone wanted to rescue — from the Soviets or the Taliban, or themselves. Ms. Klass’s book provides a richer picuture of a society beginning to open, in sunnier times. She recently described the two books as “bookends” of sorts. So, even if you don’t get to her talk tonight, the book is well worth reading — and a great pleasure at that.