Want to know what books Hugh Pope recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Hugh Pope's favorite book recommendations of all time.
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Edmondo De Amicis and Maria Hornor Lansdale | 4.50
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Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has... more This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.
This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.
Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface.
We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. less 
Hugh PopeThis is by Edmondo de Amicis, an Italian travel writer. He’s an observer; he doesn’t go into philosophical depths about anything. The book is very well translated, so it’s very accessible. The reason I like it is that the late-19th-century, early-20th-century Ottoman Empire shares a lot of commonalities with today. As a society, it was an easy-going place, and Turkey today is much more easy-going... (Source)
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2
Hugh PopeI’ve been frantically trying to work out which book I would choose for the history of the modern Republic. It’s really hard. Jeremy Seal’s book, A Fez of the Heart, is really readable, but he’s gliding too quickly. He’s not as bad as Tim Kelsey’s Dervish, which is terribly prejudiced. Seal’s book is lightly prejudiced in a British-travel-writer fashion, but I decided it was taking too many... (Source)
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3
"Pamuk is a writer who shares my reverence for the great art of the novel. He takes the novel seriously in a way that is perhaps no longer possible for Western writers, boldly describing it as European civilization’s greatest invention."—Michael McGaha
Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk is a prominent voice in Turkish literature, speaking to the country’s history, culture, and politics. In 2006, he became the first Turkish writer to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Autobiographies of Orhan Pamuk is the first book-length study of the life and writings of Pamuk. It... more "Pamuk is a writer who shares my reverence for the great art of the novel. He takes the novel seriously in a way that is perhaps no longer possible for Western writers, boldly describing it as European civilization’s greatest invention."—Michael McGaha
Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk is a prominent voice in Turkish literature, speaking to the country’s history, culture, and politics. In 2006, he became the first Turkish writer to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Autobiographies of Orhan Pamuk is the first book-length study of the life and writings of Pamuk. It provides both a historical and cultural context that will help readers better understand and appreciate both the man and his work. It begins with a brief biography, outlines Pamuk’s contributions to Turkish literature and history, examines how his art has evolved over the past thirty years, and discusses some of the writers who provided inspiration. Though his books deal with specifically Turkish issues, like all great literature the themes they explore are universal. In addition to a thorough analysis of his seven published novels, including Snow and My Name is Red, an entire chapter is devoted to his first two novels, Cevdet Bey and Sons and The Silent House, which have yet to be translated into English.
This is a comprehensive examination of the Nobel laureate’s work, free of jargon and of interest to anyone who enjoys good literature. less Hugh PopeOrhan Pamuk is one of the best things that Turkey has managed to produce in recent decades. He’s a symbol of someone who has managed to escape from the Turkish context, where there’s an ingrained tendency for emotions to rule the intellect, to be unclear in order to protect your own sloppiness. Orhan Pamuk is very different from this. I remember even back in the early 80s, he was clearly set on... (Source)
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4
A Memoir
Fethiye Cetin, Ureen Freely | 4.49
When Fethiye Cetin was growing up in the small Turkish town of Maden, she knew her grandmother as a happy and universally respected Muslim housewife. It would be decades before her grandmother told her the truth: that she was by birth a Christian and an Armenian, that her name was not Seher but Heranush, that most of the men in her village had been slaughtered in 1915, that she, along with most of the women and children, had been sent on a death march. She had been saved (and torn from her mother’s arms) by the Turkish gendarme captain who went on to adopt her. But she knew she still had... more When Fethiye Cetin was growing up in the small Turkish town of Maden, she knew her grandmother as a happy and universally respected Muslim housewife. It would be decades before her grandmother told her the truth: that she was by birth a Christian and an Armenian, that her name was not Seher but Heranush, that most of the men in her village had been slaughtered in 1915, that she, along with most of the women and children, had been sent on a death march. She had been saved (and torn from her mother’s arms) by the Turkish gendarme captain who went on to adopt her. But she knew she still had family in America. Could Fethiye help her find her lost relations before she died? There are an estimated two million Turks whose grandparents could tell them similar stories. But in a country that maintains the Armenian genocide never happened, such talk can be dangerous. In her heartwrenching memoir, Fethiye Cetin breaks the silence. less 
Thomas de WaalIt’s an extraordinary story that broke the taboo in Turkey, almost overnight, about the fact that so many people in Turkey had Armenian grandparents, or great-grandparents. (Source)
Hugh PopeThat’s exactly right. It’s a very empathetic, straightforward read. It’s short. It gives an insight into the ethnic origins of Turkey today that no one has been talking about until very recently. A lot of Armenians were deported and a lot were massacred, but a lot also stayed behind in Turkish families. This book is about someone discovering, quite unexpectedly, that her grandmother is one of... (Source)
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5
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was virtually unknown until 1919, when he took the lead in thwarting the victorious Allies' plan to partition the Turkish core of the Ottoman Empire. He divided the Allies, defeated the last Sultan, and secured the territory of the Turkish national state, becoming the first president of the new republic in 1923, fast creating his own legend.
Andrew Mango's revealing portrait of Atatürk throws light on matters of great importance today-resurgent nationalism, religious fundamentalism, and the reality of democracy. more Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was virtually unknown until 1919, when he took the lead in thwarting the victorious Allies' plan to partition the Turkish core of the Ottoman Empire. He divided the Allies, defeated the last Sultan, and secured the territory of the Turkish national state, becoming the first president of the new republic in 1923, fast creating his own legend.
Andrew Mango's revealing portrait of Atatürk throws light on matters of great importance today-resurgent nationalism, religious fundamentalism, and the reality of democracy. less Hugh PopeYes. Andrew Mango has exactly the right background to understand Turkey. He knows the country inside out. He was brought up in Istanbul, speaking several languages, and was the head of the BBC Turkish Service. He’s a great collector of all the memoirs and biographies about what happened to make Atatürk the man that could found the modern state of Turkey. A lot of what the Republic has turned into... (Source)
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