Jason Goodwin's top 10 books about Turkey

Encompassing poetry, history, fiction and even cookery, the author picks his favourite reading about this 'elusive and contradictory' country

• Jason Goodwin
• guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 31 August 2011 12.47 BST  
•  

A carpet seller in Istanbul's Grand Bazaar. Photograph: Patrick Ward/Corbis
Jason Goodwin fell in love with Istanbul while studying Byzantine history at Cambridge. Since then, he has written a number of highly praised non-fiction books, including On Foot to the Golden Horn and Lords of the Horizons: A History of the Ottoman Empire. He has since begun his series of novels featuring Yashim, the Turkish eunuch detective.
The first, The Januissary Tree (2006), was winner of the Edgar Allan Poe award for best novel. He followed this with The Snake Stone (2007) and The Bellini Card (2008). His newest Yashim novel, An Evil Eye is published by Faber.
"Now the top destination for Mediterranean tourists, Turkey is rather more than a sunny spot on the beach. Home to successive civilisations from the ancient Hittites to the Romans, from Byzantium to the Ottoman Empire, this is a country forged by one man, Ataturk, in the 1920s, out of the rubble of a multi-national, multi-faith Ottoman empire. Almost a century later, the identity of the country is still elusive and contradictory. Turkey lies along so many fault-lines, between Europe and the Middle East, between the secularity of the state and popular faith, between a many-splendoured past and current explosive growth. The country's borders march from Armenia and Iraq to Bulgaria and Greece, from the rain-swept coast of the Black Sea to the indented waters of the Aegean, enclosing 21st century Istanbul as well as remote, almost Biblical landscapes of the interior. "Is Turkey slowly learning to live at ease with its history – or is it set to abandon the secularism of its founder? Is it still a candidate for EU membership – or has that moment passed? Fiction may sometimes bring the reader a closer sense of the shattering transformations as well as continuities of Turkish history. The following selection is influenced by my interest in 19th century Istanbul, where I chose to set my series of thrillers. Then, the Ottoman capital was grappling with the issues of modernity v tradition, nationalism v multiculturalism, the rule of law and the weight of custom, as well as defining its relationship with Europe and Russia. To visitors from the west, this was the east; easterners saw it as a window on the west. With its Greek, Armenian, Jewish minorities, Istanbul was then a cosmopolitan place; today, another multinational crowd strolls amongst the mementoes of imperial grandeur."
 
1. Istanbul: Poetry of Place, edited by Ates Orga
With Strolling Through Istanbul in one pocket, and this slim volume in the other, you should be perfectly equipped to explore the former capital of the Byzantine and the Ottoman empires. Packed with poetry and a little prose, Istanbul brings you the voices of the city's inhabitants, from sultans to modern-day feminists.
2. Snow by Orhan Pamuk
Complex, fragmentary, unreliable and poetic, this thoroughly postmodern novel abounds with puns, ironies, double-takes and imponderable conflicts of love, faith and social justice, reflecting not only aspects of the human condition but also of 20th-century Turkey's preoccupations with secularism, religious freedom and revolution. In the city of Kars, a young journalist, Ka, comes to investigate a spate of suicides relating to the wearing of headscarves – and opens up a kaleidoscopic world of claims, counter-claims and conflicting priorities.
3. Turkey: a Short History by Norman Stone
A fanfare for modern Turkey and a vivid, provocative, often funny, always insightful account of how it came about. Stone pulls together his accomplishments as a philoturk, a philologist, controversialist and narrative historian to sweep his readers along a short crash course in Turkish origins, their history and current challenges. If you don't really know why a portrait of Ataturk hangs in almost every shop in Turkey, read this book.
4. Classical Turkish Cooking by Ayla Algar
This may allow you to extend the highlights of your trip indefinitely. There are sexier cook books, but I like the austerity of this one, which expresses much that is gentle and domestic in Turkish culture, and then lets you eat it. Classical meze, soups, meat and fish dishes, and of course pilaffs and pastries – hundreds of recipes, with insights into the history and development of a world-class food culture.
5. Turkish Letters by Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq
The Flemish nobleman wrote his Letters while on an ambassadorial mission to Istanbul between 1554 and 1562, making him a brilliant eye-witness of the Ottoman state at its height, under Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent. Busbecq was a botanist, linguist, antiquarian, scholar and zoologist; he brought back lilac and the tulip.
6. Constantinople: City of the World's Desire by Philip Mansel
The definitive history of the city from 1453, by one of our finest historians, also explains how a multi-ethnic, polyglot empire was controlled by a single dynasty for more than 600 years. Mansel mines a vast range of sources to bring the fashions, pomp and politics of this ancient world capital to life.
7. Birds without Wings by Louis de Bernières
I keep picking this up – and putting it down again, because I can't quite face the onrushing tragedy. Needless to say, it's the story of a doomed love affair between Philotei and Ibrahim, as relations between Greece and Turkey collapse in the First World War; prelude to the massive population exchange of 1923, which ended Greek settlement of Asia Minor. Gallipoli is in it; so is Ataturk; so are some characters from Captain Corelli's Mandolin. De Bernières insists this is the better book and I believe him.
8. Eothen by AW Kinglake
The title, which means "from the east" is, as the author points out, the hardest thing in the book, a sly travel account purporting to be written by a Victorian hooray which makes for spectacularly funny reading. Jonathan Raban has described the narrator as having the "sensibility of someone who is a close blood-relative of Flashman": witness his thoroughly waspish account of a meeting with Lady Hester Stanhope. Typical, too, is his insouciance towards the plague in Cairo, which claims his heroic doctor while the narrator survives unmoved.
9. A Short History of Byzantium by John Julius Norwich
The three volumes of his magisterial history, boiled down into one, may seem too condensed at times, but Norwich deftly and entertainingly outlines the often outrageous story of an empire that lasted 1,123 years and 18 days. It is as good on Byzantine art and church matters as on the peccadilloes of the emperors – and their triumphs.
10. Rebel Land by Christopher de Bellaigue
Caught up in a journalistic furore after his mention of the Armenian massacres that occurred in the dying days of the Ottoman empire, Bellaigue decided to find out for himself what may have happened. He settled on – and in – the town of Varto, which once had a huge Armenian population. Without delivering any final answers, Bellaigue's beautifully written account of his experiences with locals, secret policemen and even exiles still sheds light on this intractable issue, if only to illuminate the complexity of the situation both then and now.

Where are the best snorkeling spots in Hawaii?

From No Worries Hawaii, by Jerry & Janine Sprout.

BEGINNER SNORKELING
Easiest-entry, fish-filled calm waters to get you hooked on snorkeling.


KAUAI

BEACH HOUSE BEACH
     Dreary curbside appeal belies the coral heads, fish, and turtles.  Near Prince Kuhio Park, it's among Kauai's best.

POIPU BEACH
      Easy sandy entry at the beach park.  Not tons of fish.

Worth a look:  LYDGATE PARK (WAILUA)

OAHU

HANAUMA BAY NATURE PRESERVE
     Looks dreamy from above, but crowds and drab coral keep it a notch from the top.

MAGIC ISLAND
     Man-made pool at Ala Moana Park.

MAUI

KAMAOLE BEACH PARKS
     The rocky tips between the three beach parks in Kihei are home to fish and coral.  Nice sandy entries and not overcrowded.

LA PEROUSE BAY-AHIHI COVE
     Pristine waters off the jagged shore of Maui's most recent volcanic eruption.

ULUA-MOKAPU BEACHES
     Nice sandy nooks in front of Wailea's resorts with easy entry and near-shore coral.

BIG ISLAND

KAHALU'U BEACH PARK
     Kona's beach park is protected by a reef and supports acres of fish-filled coral.  The parking lot fills up early.

BEACH CLUB BEACH
     Fewer swimmers know the charms of this baby, located at the south end of the beaches at Mauna Lani Resort.

CARLSMITH BEACH PARK
     If the sun appeared more often, this county beach park with a huge man-made pool would score even higher.


AND THE WINNER IS...All the islands have choices, but MAUI edges the Big Island for the best snorkeling for beginners.


OVERALL GOOD SNORKELING
The best spots for intermediate to advanced snorkelers.

KAUAI

TUNNELS
     Coral boils down into a blue channel, off a sandy beach, rimmed by jagged "Bali Hai" mountain.  Parking is problematic; show up early or late.

KE'E BEACH
     At the Kalalau Trailhead, Ke'e gets hammered with footsteps on nice days.  But this big sandy-bottomed oval beneath Napali (The Cliffs) is worth the hassle.

LEHUA ISLAND
     You'll need to hop a charter at Port Allen and cruise 20 miles to the gin-clear water of this little bird sanctuary next to Ni'ihau.

Worth a look:  HIDEAWAYS-KENOMENE BEACH (Princeville); ANINI BEACH, AHUKINI LANDING (Lihue Airport); WHALER'S COVE (Poipu-Kuhio); HOUSE BEACH (Anahola)

OAHU


MAKAI RESEARCH PIER
     Tour companies van people to this easy-entry coral garden on the Windward Side.  You swim around near the pilings of the dock house for the little subs used by the University of Hawaii.

THREE TABLES-SHARK'S COVE
     Close-together "snorkeling parks" on the North Shore, in Pupukea.  Usually summer only.  Lots of interesting formations.

CROMWELL'S COVE
     A sense of place:  beautiful cove at Black Point, near the ritzy mansion of Shangri-La.  The fab place was the 1937 vision of heiress Doris Duke, queen of the arts.


Worth a look:  LANIKAI BEACH (Kailua); GOAT ISLAND (Windward-north); KAHE POINT (West Side); KAIONA BEACH PARK (Waimanalo); KALUAHOLE BEACH (Diamond Head); ALLIGATOR ROCK (North Shore); and MOKOLI'I ISLAND (Chinaman's Hat-Windward)


MAUI

HONOLUA MARINE PRESERVE
     After walking down the highway from a parking lot, crossing a stream under a giant banyan, and arriving at a rocky beach, you may have doubts.  Then get in the water and go flying over fish-rich coral hillocks.

CHANG'S POINT-TURTLE TOWN
     Entry can be chancy from the lava spit, but not bad.  Tour boats anchor within 200 feet of shore.  Yes, there are turtles.


MOLOKINI ISLAND
     Join the crew of the flotilla of boats that take the short cruise to the volcanic crescent island three miles offshore Kihei.  Visibility and marine life are right up there with the best in Hawaii.

KALAELOA COVE (AQUARIUM)
      All that a'a lava (the sharp kind) on shore translates to very clear water.  Lots of people, occasionally too many, make the pesky half-mile hike.

OLOWALU BEACH
     Roadside parking and easy sand entry not far south of Lahaina.  You'll have company, including snorkel tours that anchor here.  A good option for families.

CORAL GARDENS
     Experienced snorkelers will want to make the swim to this cove, located at the Lahaina side of the highway tunnel.  Check it out from the guardrail above.  You may see tour boats anchored.

NU'U LANDING
     For adventure snorkelers, this is a find on calmer days.  Nu'u is on the isolated south shore.  A short walk leads to tiny clear pockets in a low, lava point.  Could be the next big thing.

Worth a look:  PU'UNOA BEACH (Lahaina), ONEULI (Black Sand) BEACH (Makena), WAIANAPANAPA STATE PARK (Hana), KAPALUA BAY, BLACK ROCK-SHERATON BEACH (Ka'anapali), WASH ROCK (McGregor Point), HALEKI'I Bay (Kaupo)

BIG ISLAND

TWO STEP
     Tabletop sections of a smooth-lava reef provide entry for the best easy-access snorkeling in Hawaii.  Next to Pu'uhonua O Honaunau National Park.

CAPTAIN COOK MONUMENT
     Kayak, sail, or hike down 1,300 feet to get to this historic spot at the north mouth of Kealakekua Bay---which draws crowds.  A wall of coral lines a near-shore drop-off.


WAIOPAE TIDE POOLS MARINE DISTRICT
     A marine conservation district on the North Puna Coast is the site of numerous, large tide pools rich in sea life.  Otherworldly.


MAHUKONA WHARF
     Step down a ladder at the wharf of an old sugar mill in Kohala.  Ship wreckage adds interest to the snorkel, as do the occasional harmless ray and octopus.


KAWAI POINT
     Experienced flipper fiends can shore-dive where tour boats anchor, from the north end of Kona's Old Airport Beach.

FROG ROCK-KOHALA WATERFRONT
     Only high swells detract from these out-of-the-way snorkeling venues at the south end of the Kohala coast.  Not for novices.

KEALAKEKUA HISTORICAL PARK
     Pick a day when the bodyboarders aren't there (lower surf) and you'll find excellent conditions for the coral hills to the left side of the rocky beach.


Worth a look:  BEACH 69 (Waialea Bay-Hapuna), HONOMALINO BEACH (Miloli'i), KEAHOU SUNDECK (near Sheraton), KAHUWAI BAY (Kona Village), NINOLE COVE (Black Sands-Pahala), MOKU OLA (Coconut Island-Hilo), KEAWAIKI BAY-BROWN'S RETREAT (South Kohala), KOAI'E COVE (Lapakahi State Park), MAKAHA CAVERNS (Makaha)


AND THE WINNER IS...Give the edge to the BIG ISLAND in a slugfest with Maui.  With no stream runoff, the Big Island's near-shore waters sparkle.  Maui has many accessible, easy-entry spots that are not as far apart.  Oahu and Kaua'i tie for third and will deliver the goods---just not in as many places.

Five Movies That Explain How the ’80s Still Define Our World

Five ’80s Flicks That Explain How the ’80s Still Define Our World 
by David Sirota

Back To Our Future posits that the 1980s--and specifically 1980s pop culture--frames the way we think about major issues today. The decade is the lens through which we see our world. To understand what that means, here are five classic flicks that show how the 1980s still shapes our thinking on government, the “rogue,” militarism, race, and even our not-so-distant past.

1. Ghostbusters (1984): Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz, Egon Spengler, and Winston Zeddmore seem like happy-go-lucky guys, but these are cold, hard military contractors. Between evading the Environmental Protection Agency, charging exorbitant rates for apparition captures, and summoning a Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, the merry band shows a Zoul-haunted New York that their for-profit services are far more reliable than those of the Big Apple’s wholly inept government. At the same time, the Ghostbusters were providing 1980s audiences with a cinematic version of what would later become the very real Blackwater--and what would be the anti-government, privatize-everything narrative of the twenty-first century.

2. Die Hard (1988): Though the 1980s was setting the stage for the rise of anti-government politics today, it was also creating the Palin-esque “rogue” to conveniently explain the good things government undeniably accomplishes. Hitting the silver screen just a few years after Ollie North’s rogue triumphalism, John McClane became the ’80s most famous of this “rogue” archetype--a government employee who becomes a hero specifically by defying his police superiors and rescuing hostages from the twin threat of terrorism and his boss’s bureaucratic clumsiness. This message is so clear in Die Hard, that in one memorable scene, McClane is yelling at one police lieutenant that the government has become “part of the problem.” Die Hard, like almost every national politician today, says government can only work if it gets out of the way of the rogues, mavericks, and rule-breakers within its own midst.

3. Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985): “Sir, do we get to win this time?” So begins the second--and most culturally important--installment of the Rambo series. The question was a direct rip-off of Ronald Reagan’s insistence that when it came to the loss in Vietnam, America had been too “afraid to let them win”--them, of course, being the troops. The theory embedded in this refrain is simple: If only meddling politicians and a weak-kneed public had deferred to the Pentagon, then we would have won the conflict in Southeast Asia. Repeated ad nauseum since the 1980s, the “let them win” idea now defines our modern discussion of war. If only we let the Pentagon’s Rambos do whatever they want with no question or oversight whatsoever, then we can decisively conclude the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan…and we can win the neverending “War on Terror.”

4. Rocky III (1982): Before the 2008 presidential campaign devolved into cartoonish media portrayals of the palatable “post-racial” Barack Obama and his allegedly unpalatable “overly racial” pastor Jeremiah Wright, there was Rocky III more explicitly outlining this binary and bigoted portrayal of African Americans. Here was Rocky Balboa as the determined but slightly ignorant stand-in for White Middle America. Surveying the diverse landscape, the Italian Stallion could see only two kinds of black people—on one side the suave, smooth, post-racial Apollo Creed, and on the other side the enraged, animalistic Clubber Lang. Rocky thus gravitated to the former, and reflexively feared the latter, essentially summarizing twenty-first-century White America’s often over-simplistic and bigoted attitudes toward the black community today.

5. The Big Chill (1983): This college reunion flick from Lawrence Kasdan is hilarious, morose, and seemingly nostalgic for the halcyon days of the past; but powerfully propagandistic in its negative framing of the 1960s. Over the course of the film’s weekend, character after character berates the 1960s as an overly decadent age that may have been rooted in idealism, but was fundamentally destined to fail. Sound familiar? Of course it does. The 1980s-created narrative of the Bad Sixties can still be found in everything from national Tea Party protests to never-ending culture-war battles on local school boards. The message is always the same: If only America can emulate the Big Chillers and get past its Sixties immaturity and liberalism, everything will be A-okay.


Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live in Now--Our Culture, Our Politics, Our Everything by David Sirota

What is the best compact waterproof camera?

According to dpReview, it's the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS3:

If you plan to spend a significant amount of time underwater, or in other types of adverse conditions, the Panasonic TS3 is without a doubt the strongest performer in this group. It is one of the toughest cameras in this group, but crucially, it is also one of the best. We love its chunky controls, simple menu, and excellent still and video image quality.


Click here for the complete comparison test/ review.