Sherrie E. (sherrie824) reviewed Turkish Reflections : A Biography of a Place on + 57 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 3
Fantastic armchair tour for the reader of exotic Turkey. Amazing descriptions make you feel the heat, smell the aromas, hear the sounds.... for me it was like watching a DVD in my mind with all the sensory perceptions at hand! I personally enjoyed it very much.
Helpful Score: 1
The author combines her personal experience in Turkey and glimpses into history to give us a fascinating portrait of this ancient land.
I have not gotten to read this book. I got it for a book club, and it I have never really been able to get interested in it, so I thought someone else might like it!
Summary:
In an exotic, engaging journey deep into the heart of Turkey, Settle, who won a 1978 National Book Award for her novel Blood Tie (set in Turkey), revisits a country where past and present are everywhere intertwined. Contradicting the unflattering Western stereotypes of Turks, she depicts a people she admires for their capacity for friendship, their essential warmth and honesty. Istanbul, noisy and frantic, is also "as polite and friendly as a country village," and tough-skinned rural folk are "almost naively gentle" beneath their exterior harshness. Settle's hauntingly poetic evocation of a people and place is filled with moments of quiet rapture as she inspects the remains of ancient kingdoms, retraces the paths of Seljuk sultan Aladdin, dips in thermal baths and views mosques and churches, castles, sphinxes and the prison where Nazim Hikmet, Turkey's finest modern poet, was imprisoned for his work.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Summary:
In an exotic, engaging journey deep into the heart of Turkey, Settle, who won a 1978 National Book Award for her novel Blood Tie (set in Turkey), revisits a country where past and present are everywhere intertwined. Contradicting the unflattering Western stereotypes of Turks, she depicts a people she admires for their capacity for friendship, their essential warmth and honesty. Istanbul, noisy and frantic, is also "as polite and friendly as a country village," and tough-skinned rural folk are "almost naively gentle" beneath their exterior harshness. Settle's hauntingly poetic evocation of a people and place is filled with moments of quiet rapture as she inspects the remains of ancient kingdoms, retraces the paths of Seljuk sultan Aladdin, dips in thermal baths and views mosques and churches, castles, sphinxes and the prison where Nazim Hikmet, Turkey's finest modern poet, was imprisoned for his work.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
