Turkish reflections

Mary Lee Settle takes readers across Turkey in a personal account of a country seldom glimpsed from the outside. Here a felled tree can be a criminal matter, and a ship is sent down the slipway only after a goat has been sacrificed. Entire communities come out at nightfall to walk the streets together. Settle visits centuries-old monasteries that now house nightclubs, subterranean cities hollowed out of stone, and glossy yachts belonging to the wealthy moored near caravans of camels laden with hammered copper cookware.

Her route follows the paths of rulers and wanderers alike, from emperors and sultans to nomadic herders and shepherds. Along the way she traces the routes associated with Alexander the Great, Tamerlane, Genghis Khan, and Atatürk. The book moves across the country as much as through time, blending recorded history with local legend, unresolved mystery, and myth.