100 Books Like Turkey

For Istanbul the best walking guide ever. This book seamlessly conducts a visitor around the city’s sights, weaving stories from its history into street-by-street locations and managing above all else to avoid the sin of becoming boring. It makes you want to see every stretch of pavement and every building mentioned in the book. The only warning is it’s a thick paperback and you’ll want to take notes from it in advance rather than carrying it around with you.

A big fat, fact-packed but readable history of the city as it changed from Constantinople into Byzantium and finally Istanbul. This is the book that places Viking immigrants alongside Romans, Goths, Moors, Ottomans, Venetians, and so many other races in a glorious cultural stew that makes the history of most other cities seem linear and dull by comparison. 

I confess, I like food. I’m also keen to use cafes and restaurants where the emphasis is on cheap, tasty, and nutritious fare rather than forking out for establishments where a hefty bill is occasioned as much by expenditure on the decoration, linen, and silverware as the quality of the cooking. This is not a book about the westernised hotels and restaurants but about back street locantas serving lentil soup and stewed chicken with bottles of Turkish red wine or even just Coca-Cola and selling satisfying lunches for a pittance (thanks of course in part due to the impact of Turkish inflation on the exchange rate). This book is why even if you’re on a city break in Istanbul as a family you won’t need to rely on self-catering or standardised hotel dinners. There’s a wonderful English language bookshop near the Grand Bazaar that’ll sell you a copy of this… show more.

Months after reading this book, I found myself wondering what Yashim the eunuch was up to and how his odd assortment of friends were doing, so I was relieved to find that it was the first of a series. Yashim is unique, remarkable, and lovable, as well as being an excellent cook whose technique I sometimes try to copy.

Set in the 1830s, his special circumstances allow him entry to parts of Istanbul and the palace that are off limits to others, naturally of great interest to snooping readers like me. Goodwin is a historian, so he knows his stuff. He's also a very good writer. 

Turkish Awakening is the result of Alev Scott’s desire to discover the land of her mother’s birth and explore contemporary Turkish life and politics. Scott combines personal insights with an objective gaze to focus on a confusing and often contradictory culture, to try to unravel the complex relationships between modernity and religion unfolding in Turkey today. She chats with taxi drivers, examines how sex work and transgender inhabitants coexist, sometimes uneasily, next door to conservative Muslims recently relocated from the country, and explores the impact of popular soap operas featuring the newly rich on the aspirations of ordinary Turks and international tourism. The rise of the ruling Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (AKP – Party for Justice and Progress) is covered as well as Turkey’s changing relationship with the EU. The book ends with Scott’s observations about the protests that sprang to life in Gezi Park in Istanbul and then spread… show more.

I love the senses in my books. I want to know what the setting smells like, what it sounds like, and how much indigestion I am going to get from the local fare. If you do as well, Joesph Kanon is your guy, and this is your book.

I found this book before I traveled to Istanbul, and honestly, I liked it better than the city, which was chaotic and dirty. But Istanbul Passage is anything but chaotic and dirty; you’re going to love it.

Living in a world where we can look at images of places we’re planning to travel without even going there means it’s easy to forget the importance of letters sent from foreign countries. Especially ones as well written as these. Ogier De Busbecq was an ambassador for the Hapsburg Empire in the court of Suleyman the Magnificent in the 16th century, but his observations, comments, and snippets of gossip read like he was in Istanbul last month. He had a keen eye for detail and nothing escaped his notice – palace machinations, dirty politics, and even prison conditions, gleaned from the time he spent incarcerated.

Eric Ambler was the first author to write with realism and authenticity about the world of spies. His work often features ordinary people who are not criminals or professional spies, but who suddenly find themselves caught up in that murky world. In this novel, while in Turkey, mystery writer Charles Latimer meets Colonel Haki, who shows him the body of a notorious criminal, Dimitrios, in the Istanbul morgue. Intrigued and sensing a story, Latimer investigates Dimitrios’ career, which will turn out to be a lot more intriguing and dangerous than anything he bargained for. Ambler’s thrillers keep you on the edge and this one, which includes a ride on the Orient Express, will have you furiously turning the pages. Dimitrios set the standard for every spy thriller that followed. 

Reading this novel is like opening a secret back door into history. I was propelled into an intimate atmosphere in the kitchens, boudoirs, living rooms, and offices of those involved in the slow-motion collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

I was privy to the political and personal intrigues of an unforgettable cast of characters, both men and women, as well as to their erotic and emotional lives in a rapidly changing society. 

The individual conflicts described in this book stem from the reality of relationships that are supposed to be in a certain way, but somehow get twisted into something different, rather forbidden, or at least with blurred boundaries. I love the interweaving of spirituality, cultural diversity, and the parallel timelines, past and present. The characters are complex and represent different value systems. Swinging between their own personal struggles, trying to find suitable answers to the big questions of life, they get caught in a web of events that lead to surprising consequences.