Books about/set in Istanbul
May 23, 2022 8:57 AM Subscribe
I'm invited to a wedding in Istanbul in August, and want to get in the mood by reading books about/set in Istanbul.
Non-fiction, essays, novels in all genres - I'm open to all suggestions. Maybe not Elif Shafak - I started The Forty Rules of Love last summer and couldn't really get into it.
As to my general tastes, here is a list of some of my favourite novels about other cities:
Vienna: The Strudelhof Steps, or Melzer and the Depth of the Years, by Heimito von Doderer
Berlin: Emil and the Detectives, by Erich Kästner
Paris: A Place of Greater Safety, by Hilary Mantel
London: NW, by Zadie Smith
New York: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith
Non-fiction, essays, novels in all genres - I'm open to all suggestions. Maybe not Elif Shafak - I started The Forty Rules of Love last summer and couldn't really get into it.
As to my general tastes, here is a list of some of my favourite novels about other cities:
Vienna: The Strudelhof Steps, or Melzer and the Depth of the Years, by Heimito von Doderer
Berlin: Emil and the Detectives, by Erich Kästner
Paris: A Place of Greater Safety, by Hilary Mantel
London: NW, by Zadie Smith
New York: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith
Response by poster: Modern, historic, any period. The key thing for me is good prose and some descriptions of Istanbul; regarding anything else, I'll let myself be guided by serendipity.
posted by sohalt at 9:56 AM on May 23, 2022
posted by sohalt at 9:56 AM on May 23, 2022
The city features prominently in Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr, which I’m currently taking a short break from as I check Metafilter, gotta go get back to it now!
posted by oxisos at 9:59 AM on May 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by oxisos at 9:59 AM on May 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
Best answer: Orhan Pamuk will be mentioned. I have mixed feelings about his novels, but everything that I've seen is rather evocative of Istanbul. 'Strangeness in my Soul' has detailed descriptions of the development of suburban Istanbul in the 20th century.
'Midnight at The Pera Palace' by Charles King is a fascinating non-fiction book about the massive shift in Turkish culture between the world wars. Highly recommended. (TIL: hey a Netflix fantasy series with the same title that sounds nothing like the book? Whut?)
posted by ovvl at 10:45 AM on May 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
'Midnight at The Pera Palace' by Charles King is a fascinating non-fiction book about the massive shift in Turkish culture between the world wars. Highly recommended. (TIL: hey a Netflix fantasy series with the same title that sounds nothing like the book? Whut?)
posted by ovvl at 10:45 AM on May 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
Best answer: I read My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk a few years ago and loved it. It’s set around 1600 or sometime like that. He has a memoir I haven’t read but have flipped through called Istanbul: Memories and the City, which seems to have a lot about Istanbul during the cold war and possibly other periods.
posted by Whale Oil at 11:16 AM on May 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Whale Oil at 11:16 AM on May 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: TIL: hey a Netflix fantasy series with the same title that sounds nothing like the book? Whut?
I'm currently watching the Netflix series, and I think it's quite fun - a fantasy romp, with lots of time-travel shenanigans, and a weird ?love? triangle (the present-day heroine has a lot of chemistry with her time travel compagnions' dad in the past). Sounds like the source material is very different and also worth checking out!
May I ask why the ambivalence about Pamuk? I have a dim memory of starting My Name is Red at some point, and not finishing it, just for reasons of not getting round to it, not necessarily because of quality. But I obviously didn't delve very deeply.
posted by sohalt at 11:20 AM on May 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
I'm currently watching the Netflix series, and I think it's quite fun - a fantasy romp, with lots of time-travel shenanigans, and a weird ?love? triangle (the present-day heroine has a lot of chemistry with her time travel compagnions' dad in the past). Sounds like the source material is very different and also worth checking out!
May I ask why the ambivalence about Pamuk? I have a dim memory of starting My Name is Red at some point, and not finishing it, just for reasons of not getting round to it, not necessarily because of quality. But I obviously didn't delve very deeply.
posted by sohalt at 11:20 AM on May 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
The Oracle of Stamboul had a lot of descriptions of the city, but I found the story struggled to get started in any meaningful way. If you go in not expecting much of a plot, you'll enjoy the descriptive parts.
posted by soelo at 11:55 AM on May 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by soelo at 11:55 AM on May 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
There's always From Russia With Love, (the book, not the movie) though I'm not sure how realistic it is, and you did say anything...
posted by lhauser at 12:22 PM on May 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by lhauser at 12:22 PM on May 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
If you don't mind historical fantasy, I tremendously enjoyed Guy Gavriel Kay's Sailing to Sarantium and its sequel when I visited Istanbul.
posted by TwoStride at 1:00 PM on May 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by TwoStride at 1:00 PM on May 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
May I ask why the ambivalence about Pamuk?
I can't answer about ambivalence, just want to recommend, I have still not been to Istanbul, but Pamuk is the main reason I want to go. Read everything he has written, if you ask me, including Snow, which isn't about Istanbul.
In the more fantasy-like genre, I have a feeling that The Long Ships by Frans Bengtsson has a chapter or more on Byzantine, but I may be wrong. If it exists, it will be in the second book. I mean, the Vikings might not reach Byzantine, though I think they do, but the magical image of the center of the world of the time holds up, for sure.
The Art of Turkish Cooking by Neset Eren is a work of literature as well as a cookbook, though there are tons of straight up recipes.
posted by mumimor at 2:02 PM on May 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
I can't answer about ambivalence, just want to recommend, I have still not been to Istanbul, but Pamuk is the main reason I want to go. Read everything he has written, if you ask me, including Snow, which isn't about Istanbul.
In the more fantasy-like genre, I have a feeling that The Long Ships by Frans Bengtsson has a chapter or more on Byzantine, but I may be wrong. If it exists, it will be in the second book. I mean, the Vikings might not reach Byzantine, though I think they do, but the magical image of the center of the world of the time holds up, for sure.
The Art of Turkish Cooking by Neset Eren is a work of literature as well as a cookbook, though there are tons of straight up recipes.
posted by mumimor at 2:02 PM on May 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
I’m ambivalent about Pamuk because I have never enjoyed his books (despite a period of strong interest in Istanbul and its history) - I have wondered if it’s a translation problem or just that I don’t love books by men that feature romantic yearning, where the result is that women become symbols rather than people. I chalked it up to my own preferences and moved on.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 2:14 PM on May 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Lawn Beaver at 2:14 PM on May 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
While Googling to _try_ to find a police procedural that I once read that was set in Istanbul, I ran across this article which may have a book or two that interests you
posted by TimHare at 3:37 PM on May 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by TimHare at 3:37 PM on May 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
reply: Orhan Pamuk is a very talented author, and everything he writes about Istanbul is very evocative of the place and time/times. I have mixed feelings about his work because I bounced off of/was underwhelmed by some of his most famous pieces ('The White Castle'; 'Snow';).
Also, I found his interesting memoir 'Istanbul: Memories and the City' a bit too close and cloying for me, but I will say that it really digs into the sense of place, so I would still recommend it, and you might appreciate it more than I did, and maybe I'll try reading it again and like it.
'My Name is Red' is my favourite. It is dense and kinda weird at the start, but it turns into three interesting stories: a murder mystery, a romance, and a swell essay about the nature of art and human creativity. (Recommended for anyone okay with the idea of the colour of a pigment as one of the many various narrators).
Now I'm looking forward to watching the TV version of 'Midnight at The Pera Palace'. From the description it sounds like the screenwriters took the setting and grafted an entirely different plot on top, which maybe could be great, kinda like Blade Runner.
posted by ovvl at 5:44 PM on May 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
Also, I found his interesting memoir 'Istanbul: Memories and the City' a bit too close and cloying for me, but I will say that it really digs into the sense of place, so I would still recommend it, and you might appreciate it more than I did, and maybe I'll try reading it again and like it.
'My Name is Red' is my favourite. It is dense and kinda weird at the start, but it turns into three interesting stories: a murder mystery, a romance, and a swell essay about the nature of art and human creativity. (Recommended for anyone okay with the idea of the colour of a pigment as one of the many various narrators).
Now I'm looking forward to watching the TV version of 'Midnight at The Pera Palace'. From the description it sounds like the screenwriters took the setting and grafted an entirely different plot on top, which maybe could be great, kinda like Blade Runner.
posted by ovvl at 5:44 PM on May 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
Are you up for some TV as well? Ethos raised a stir in Turkey for dramatizing the visible tensions in Istanbul between the rural/religious and urban/secular (and even a mention of Kurdish/Turkish). More recently, Netflix also released The Club, focusing on a seedy nightclub in 1950s Istanbul -- again raising controversy due to the majority of the cast playing Turkish Jews or Greeks, and raising awareness about the wealth tax imposed on those populations in the 1940s.
When I lived in Istanbul, I found this was without a doubt the best guidebook available, packed with history and love and full of notes about amazing sights just around the corner. Unfortunately, it's pricy and 12 years out of date now, but it could still be worth picking up. I see that the authors released another guidebook focused on the Bosphorus 10 years ago as well, and one of the authors has released an English translation of a new guidebook on Istanbul a couple years ago.
posted by Theiform at 10:05 PM on May 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
When I lived in Istanbul, I found this was without a doubt the best guidebook available, packed with history and love and full of notes about amazing sights just around the corner. Unfortunately, it's pricy and 12 years out of date now, but it could still be worth picking up. I see that the authors released another guidebook focused on the Bosphorus 10 years ago as well, and one of the authors has released an English translation of a new guidebook on Istanbul a couple years ago.
posted by Theiform at 10:05 PM on May 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
I had an evocative weekend mooching round Istanbul a few weeks after the Gölcük earthquake in 1999. I reflected a lot on an earlier fall of The City which may be captured in 1453 The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West by Roger Crowley.
posted by BobTheScientist at 11:37 PM on May 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by BobTheScientist at 11:37 PM on May 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
Ms Fabius suggests:
For police procedural / crime in modern day Istanbul - Barbara Nadel’s Ikmen series. Often topical investigations eg the Gezi park protests, reflecting Istanbul’s long history and varied communities. https://www.headline.co.uk/contributor/barbara-nadel-2/posted by fabius at 6:12 AM on May 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
Historical crime - Jason Goodwin’s Yashim series. Set in early 19th century Istanbul at the Ottoman court http://jasongoodwin.info/fiction/ .
This thread is closed to new comments.
Do you want something modern or historic? If historic, what period? One thing about Istanbul is that it has history piled on top of history piled on top of more history.
posted by Nerd of the North at 9:39 AM on May 23, 2022 [3 favorites]