Luis de Bernieres’s Birds Without Wings is definitely one of the finest novels I have read in the last decade. It is a masterpiece. This is a beautifully written epic story about the tragic drama and historical events that stormed Anatolia and Greece by the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is also the story of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and his rise to fame and power. But most of all it is the story of ordinary human beings: Turks, Greeks and Armenians who lived and worked together, befriended; fell in love; quarreled; hated and killed each other.

http://imad_moustapha.blogs.com/my_weblog/2008/01/birds-without-w.html

 Ros the book seems very interesting. How did you reach the blog of the syrian ambassador though

Sorry to disappoint you, dear, do not remember now.

Just ordered it on Amazon.  I will let you know what I think of it Ros.  Have you read it yet?

I will in the future, still have O. Pamuk´s book to read (in German)

This is a great book for any first time visitors to Turkey.  It´s a great book for putting many of the sites that you would visit into a bit of a context. 

http://www.palgrave-usa.com/catalog/product.aspx?isbn=1850436185

Oh....without his written (personal) knowledge I would not have been able to explore the historical sights and hidden places in Istanbul

Long live John Freely!

 I agree.....he has a book on Istanbul too...I think it is call Imperial City or something like that.  I read it a long time ago.

Sounds like a good read. Thanks Ros.

Sounds like a good read. Thanks Ros.

to all of you who like to read about the decline of the Ottoman Empire through the eyes of the Sultans and their concubines in the harem from the time of Suleiman the Magnificent  to the death of a leaderof a different stamp: Kamal Ataturk.

by Noel Barber,  Istanbul   1970-72   

TOTALLY FASCINATING!!!!!!!!!!!!

THE LORDS OF THE GOLDEN HORN (MacMillan)