Istanbul cover art

Istanbul

Memories of a City

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Istanbul

Written by: Orhan Pamuk, Maureen Freely
Narrated by: John Lee
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About this listen

Istanbul is a shimmering evocation, by turns intimate and panoramic, of one of the world's great cities, by its foremost writer. Orhan Pamuk, winner of the Nobel Prize in 2006, was born in Istanbul, in the family apartment building where his mother first held him in her arms. His portrait of his city is thus also a self-portrait, refracted by memory and the melancholy-or hüzün- that all Istanbullus share: the sadness that comes of living amid the ruins of a lost Ottoman Empire.

As he companionably guides us across the Bosphorus, through Istanbul's historical monuments and lost paradises, its dilapidated Ottoman villas, back streets and waterways, he also introduces us to the city's writers, artists and murderers.

Like the Dublin of Joyce and Jan Morris' Venice, Pamuk's Istanbul is a triumphant encounter of place and sensibility, beautifully written and immensely moving.

©2013 Orhan Pamuk (P)2013 Faber Audio Europe Middle East Sociology Urban
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This book is so very transformative. The author's transformation transforms the reader as well. I am deeply impacted.

Istanbul is not a city

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Loved every bit of it! the most unique way of telling one's story along with the story of a city

the best of nonfiction

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The narration is exceptionally good. The story is fairly linear and I fell out of interest multiple times. Some chapters seem very true and one can connect their own lives to it. But I wouldn't recommend this unless you've exhausted everything else in your list.

Great narration, uninteresting story.

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