Reading Recommendations for Turkey

I read John Julius Norwich's "A Short History of the Byzantine Empire" and found it captivating. It is intelligently written, humorous, and easy to understand. Although, I am a bit of a history buff, so I may be biased to works like this. I felt it really prepared me for Turkey, historically, since it covers from 300 AD when Constantine moved the capital to Constantinople all the way to the Turkish capture of the city in 1453.

It is especially relevant for Istanbul since many of the sights you will see are Byzantine.

I found Crescent and Star: Turkey Between two Worlds by Stephen Kinzer to be a helpful background for contemporary Turkey.

I really enjoyed "Portrait of a Turkish Family" by Irfan Orga. It gives you some background on Turkey's recent history.

I just started reading "Snow" by Orhan Pamuk--it's good so far but I'm not far enough along to make a recommendation.

Those are two Turkish authors to check out though!

I did read Istanbul by Orhan Pamuk. I wasn't too crazy about the writing, but it's worth checking out of the library to see the marvelous pictures.