"An extraordinary and transcendentally beautiful book . . It is a long time since I have read a book of such crystalline originality, or one that moved me so much"- Katie Hickman.

Turkey's greatest living novelist guide us through the monuments and lost paradises, dilapidated Ottoman villas, back streets and waterways of Istanbul - the city of his birth and the home of his imagination

This evocative book succeeds at both its tasks. It is one of the most touching childhood memoirs I have read in a very long time and it makes me yearn more than any glossy tourist brochure could possibly do  to be once again in Istanbul" -Noel Malcolm

An irresistibly seductive book, and its seduction lies not in the author's self portrait, but in his poetical identification with Istanbul... His novels have already made him celebrated throughout the world, but perhaps he will be longest remembered for this wistful memorial to the city of his heart-Jan Morris