One of my other holiday books was Orhan Pamuk’s [amazon_link id=”0571275990″ target=”_blank” ]A Strangeness in My Mind[/amazon_link]. I love all his books – his ability to make real the characters of people so very different from the reader is extraordinary. Given the context of what’s happening now in Turkey, all the more reason to read this saga of family life from a village in Anatolia in the 1960s to Istanbul now. This is a love story, a reflection on family, but it sheds much light on the rural to urban shift, the clash of cultures, the effects of the deracination caused by migration, the corrosiveness of poverty, the tension between secular modernism and Islamic traditions.

[amazon_image id=”0571275990″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]A Strangeness in My Mind[/amazon_image]

And I *loved* China Mieville’s [amazon_link id=”033053419X” target=”_blank” ]The City and The City,[/amazon_link] a random title picked for Son 2, who ignored it. I’ve read a couple of his others. This one is pure genius, an apt read for these increasingly nationalistic times.

[amazon_image id=”033053419X” link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The City & The City[/amazon_image]

As well as a few thrillers, of varying quality, I read Brooke Harrington’s [amazon_link id=”0674743806″ target=”_blank” ]Capital Without Borders[/amazon_link] and Ryan Avent’s [amazon_link id=”0241201039″ target=”_blank” ]The Wealth of Humans[/amazon_link] and will post reviews closer to their publication date.