Welcome to Litsy!

Excellent biography of how cities change,and how some histories can be hidden.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7578863564

https://youtu.be/IDSdg_etAkM?feature=shared

^ made a YouTube video showing off the books I bought in Istanbul

Sorry about the terrible audio on this one.

If anyone has read any Elif Shafak or Orhan Pamuk drop me a message... where should I start????

Thank you for supporting the channel. I keep working on it 😊

Short description: The book begins with a murder in Istanbul 1591. The aftermath is told from the perspective of several sometimes unreliable narrators.

But it's so much more complex. It explores art history and cultural history. It explores the influence of the West on the Ottoman Empire. It's creative, ambitious, and quite simply a masterpiece. The quote above is from my favorite chapter.

I read this for a personal #readtheworld challenge.

Theodora trying to decide what to read next.
#readingcats #catsandbooks #TuxedoCats

I did not intend for this to be my non-fiction #chunkster for the year, but that's what it became. I'm glad I read it, but damn it was a slog to work through.

#xmaschacha #wintergames2024

For 50+ days, Constantinople defended itself and its 1200+ years of history as the eastern-most bastion of Christendom against the Turkish Ottomans‘ assault. This is a very detailed account of the siege and battle, and some of the aftermath. Sultan Mehmet was only 21 when he felled the city that had withstood many previous attempts. I suspect age aided his endurance. But he was also a young military genius and had extraordinary control of the ⬇️

The author of the tagged book describes the sources he most trusted to write this historical account of the siege and fall of Constantinople, Doukas being one of them. How crazy that Doukas‘s account stops mid-sentence!

“If there is any moment at which it is possible to recognize a modern sensibility in a medieval event, it is here in the account of reactions to the news of the fall of Constantinople. Like the assassination of Kennedy or 9/11 it is clear that people throughout Europe could remember exactly where they were when they first heard the news.”

I realize how inappropriate this is but in the chapter when Constantinople fell, I had to play this song. Now everyone will have this song stuck in your head. Sorry, not sorry. It is a good song.