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By Root 1028 0

through more than 20 modern states in a great crescent across the Eurasian continents, starting at the Great Wall of China, through Central Asia, the Caucasus, Iran, Turkey, the Balkans, Europe and even a fledgling community in the United States. The Turkish spoken by its biggest and most developed member, Turkey, is widely spoken by significant ethnic minorities in European states like France, Britain, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, Russia and Romania. They are most prominent in Europe’s most powerful state, Germany, where Turkish can be heard on every other street corner of the capital, Berlin.” Pope traveled extensively through the lands of the Turkic-speaking peoples and argues that Turkic peoples can no longer be treated as marginal players; they are noteworthy peoples in their own right. An utterly fresh and fascinating book.

Tales from the Expat Harem: Foreign Women in Modern Turkey, edited by Anastasia M. Ashman and Jennifer Eaton Gökmen (Seal, 2006, fourth edition; the Turkish translation was published in 2005 in Istanbul, and with a foreword by Elif Shafak). “If there were ever a place,” write this team of coeditors, “tailor-made to play host to wanderers, travelers, and those pursuing lives outside their original territory, surely Turkey is that place.” The women’s tales in this unique collection are funny, amazing, and sometimes heartbreaking. I shed a few tears while reading some of these narratives, but this is mainly an upbeat volume. These modern-day Scheherazades “wrestle urges to overly exoticize the unfamiliar and strive to balance self-preservation with the fresh expectations placed on them by Turkish culture.”

A Traveller’s History of Turkey, by Richard Stoneman (Interlink, 2006). I’ve been a longtime fan of this series. Each volume, authored by a different writer, presents a concise history of a place, in an entertaining style, without compromising any historical moments, all packed into a portable paperback.

Turkey: Bright Sun, Strong Tea, by Tom Brosnahan (Travel Info Exchange, 2005). Tom’s memoir, which I referenced earlier, is a terrifically interesting and fun read. He tends to refer to it as good airplane and end-of-the-day reading, and it is, but I think that implies there isn’t much substance in the book. Be assured that his personal story, though sometimes humorous, includes boatloads of tips and facts about Turkey and the Turks, and if you don’t read this, well … you’re truly missing something. The book is available online (go to either brightsunstrongtea.com or turkeytravelplanner.com) and in Turkey (notably at all the English-language bookstores in Istanbul).

Turkey Unveiled: A History of Modern Turkey, by Nicole and Hugh Pope (Overlook, 1998). The Popes are journalists, Nicole for Le Monde and Hugh for The Wall Street Journal (he was the bureau chief in Istanbul), so between them they are uniquely qualified to write about contemporary Turkey. Tom Brosnahan, in fact, says of Hugh that “we should all read just about anything Hugh Pope writes on Turkey. I do.” Though this book was published almost a decade ago, it’s still very much worth reading. The Popes learned that Turkey is not easily labeled: “European, Western, Eastern, Islamic, fascistic, anarchic, whatever. It has something of all these elements, of course. But Turkey is in a category all its own.”

Turkish Delights, by Philippa Scott (Thames & Hudson, 2001). If this were just a book of pretty pictures, I would not love it so much, but the text is truly informative and interesting. Scott reminds us that “without the contributions and influence of the Ottoman Turks, life would be different and diminished. For centuries Western art and culture have been enriched and refined in many ways which today we take for granted.… All in all, this is a rich inheritance.”

Turkish Reflections: A Biography of a Place, by Mary Lee Settle (Prentice Hall, 1991). Settle admits she knew next to nothing about Turkey when she first went there in 1972. “What I did not know then is that the country of Turkey has the worst and most ill-drawn public