Making excellently slow progress on Orhan Pamuk's Istanbul. Since his memoir sees the Nobel Laureate at his most melancholic and Proustian, then slow reading is the only way to go. In contrast I fairly shot through Stephen Kinzer's Crescent & Star: Turkey Between Two Worlds which Jamilah very kindly leant to me, expressing much enthusiasm for the text. I could see why. It's very informative indeed on Turkish history and culture in general, especially the Ataturk era and its legacy. Kinzer has very clear views on where Turkey needs to go in future - towards the EU and democracy - and is a tad patronising and simplistic at times, but his heart is in the right place and he clearly knows a lot about Turkey, which he conveys in a thoroughly engaging manner.
Jamilah also passed me a novel by Elif Shafak, about whom she was even more enthusiastic than she was about Mr Kinzer. So at the moment there's no escape from Turkey for me, a very welcome state indeed.
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