Orhan Pamuk
Istanbul, Memories and the City
Nobel Prize-winner Pamuk writes with dazzling grace of the city of his birth, a magical place of crumbling mansions and Ottoman riches.
Richard Stoneman
A Traveller’s History of Turkey
An accessible, well-written overview of Turkish history from the Paleolithic to the present.
Eyewitness Guides
Eyewitness Guide Turkey
Gorgeously illustrated and filled with excellent maps, this compact book provides a thorough overview of history, traditions and sights.
Freytag & Berndt
Turkey Map
This shaded relief map includes a detailed map of Western Turkey (1:800,000) on the reverse.
Fodor’s Istanbul’s 25 Best
This slim guide with a pullout map covers with style what to see, where to go and what to do.
John Freely
The Western Shores of Turkey, Discovering the Aegean and Mediterranean Coasts
An excellent overview of the ancient sites of the Turkish coast from Istanbul to Gallipoli, Antioch, Pergamum, Ephesus and Halicarnassus.
Ayla Esen Algar
Classical Turkish Cooking
Algar’s enchanting cookbook includes easy-to-follow Turkish recipes and delightful vignettes about their traditional origins. Everything we’ve made has been fantastic!
Robyn Eckhardt
Istanbul and Beyond, Exploring the Diverse Cuisines of Turkey
The most extensive Turkish cookbook to date. Beginning in Istanbul, journalist Robyn Eckhardt and her husband take a culinary adventure through Turkey’s lesser-known provinces, plus Syria, Iran, Iraq, Armenia and Georgia.
Roger Crowley
1453, The Holy War For Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West
In this well-paced history, Crowley recounts the dramatic events leading up to and surrounding the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks.
John Julius Norwich
A Short History of Byzantium
A richly detailed and evocative history of the span of the great empire from the 4th to the 15th century, brimming with intrigue, palace revolution and treachery.
Seton Lloyd
Ancient Turkey, A Traveller’s History
A lively tale of cultures and conquest, from the Hittites to St. Paul, that illuminates the living past of Turkey’s archaeological treasures. This classic by Professor Lloyd, first director of the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara is now in a 25th anniversary edition.
Stephen Kinzer
Crescent and Star
This insightful, anecdotal report on contemporary life, culture and politics in Turkey comes from a former New York Times Istanbul bureau chief who is especially attuned to the powerful geographic position of Turkey and its multiple identities in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
Jason Goodwin
Lords of the Horizons
Goodwin artfully combines his modern travels with scholarship, history and reflection, capturing the outrageous personalities, events and vagaries of the ancient Ottoman Empire.
Lyn Rodley
Cave Monasteries of Byzantine Cappadocia
A professor of Byzantine Studies, Lyn Rodley puts the rock-cut monasteries, hermitages and complexes of Cappadocia into historical context in this scholarly account, first published in 1985.
Freya Stark
The Lycian Shore
The Lycian coast and hinterlands are thoroughly explored in this reprint of a classic account of a 1950s journey by the stalwart Freya Stark, one of our heroines. Heading south from Smyrna, Stark explores rock tombs of Xanthus, shores of the Dalyan River, Hellenic cities of Termessos and Perge and other sites along the Aegean.
Louis De Bernieres
Birds Without Wings
De Bernieres offers sweeping historical scope, memorable characters, drama and many new vocabulary words in this stupendous novel set in Anatolia during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
Angie Brenner, Joy Stocke
Anatolian Days & Nights
When Joy Stocke and Angie Brenner meet on the balcony of a guesthouse in a small resort town on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey, they think they have only a mutual friend and a summer dream in common. Soon, they discover a shared love of travel, history, culture, cuisine and literature – and begin a ten-year odyssey through Turkey.
Mary Lee Settle
Turkish Reflections, A Biography of a Place
Settle’s captivating travelogue is a richly detailed portrait of contemporary Turkey, its people, monasteries, myths, archaeological treasures and living traditions. Exemplary.
Jason Goodwin
The Janissary Tree
With beautiful descriptions of Istanbul and its palaces, this engaging and bizarre historical mystery will keep you reading. The Ottoman Empire mysteries continue with The Snake Stone and The Bellini Card, set in 1840s Venice.
Rose MacAulay, Jan Morris (Introduction)
The Towers of Trebizond
Mixing high farce, archaeology, history and lively travel writing, Rose MacAulay’s impossibly witty short novel is back in a new edition. Originally published in 1956, the book follows the adventures of English missionaries traipsing across Turkey from Istanbul to Trebizond.