Istanbul: The Collected Traveler: An Inspired Companion Guide (Vintage Departures Original) |  | Author: Barrie Kerper
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $19.00
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Seller: supermoviedeals
Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 40035
Media: Paperback
Edition: Original
Pages: 624
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.2 x 1.3
ISBN: 0307390594
Dewey Decimal Number: 914.9618044
EAN: 9780307390592
ASIN: 0307390594
Publication Date: September 15, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
THE COLLECTED TRAVELER
For Travelers Who Want More Than a Guidebook
Bringing The Collected Traveler along on your trip is like having your own savvy personal tour guide who knows the place intimately. This unique guide to one of today's hottest tourist destinations combines fascinating articles by a wide variety of writers, woven throughout with the editor's own indispensable advice and opinions-providing in one package an unparalleled experience of an extraordinary place.
THIS EDITION ON ISTANBUL FEATURES:
• Seductive, colorful, and in-depth articles that illuminate the dazzling treasures and monuments of Istanbul, from the Grand Bazaar to the Sultans' palaces; the delights of Turkish cuisine; the rich pageant of Istanbul's history; and the people and personalities that define it today.
• More personal pieces that take the reader beyond the usual tourist highlights, offering intimate reports on everything from the heavenly scent (and taste) of Turkish roses to the glitzy nightlife of this city of “minarets and miniskirts” to the unusual pleasure of being pummeled to within an inch of your life in an historic Turkish bath.
• Enticing recommendations for related reading, including novels, histories, memoirs, and the most useful guidebooks.
• An A-Z Miscellany of concise and entertaining information to arm you for your trip-on everything from Alexander the Great and Ataturk to Whirling Dervishes and Turkish Wine.
• Interviews, Q & As, and commentary from visitors and residents, ranging from the 18th-century society wit Lady Mary Wortley Montague to Nobel Prize-winner Orhan Pamuk.
• Spotlights on unusual shops, restaurants, hotels, and experiences not to be missed.
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| Customer Reviews:
This is the only Istanbul book you'll ever need December 17, 2009
E. Dance
12 out of 12 found this review helpful
Istanbul -- The Collected Traveler, is unlike any book I've ever read. Most books, whether non-fiction or fiction, have minor characters. Not this one. Kerper has collected winning articles from a stable of thinkers and writers, each as brilliant, authoritative and uniquely knowledgeable about aspects of Turkey, in general, and Istanbul, in particular, as the next.
At first I found this unsettling. With all the heavy hitters sharing their favorite insights as well as the limelight, I felt adrift. I wanted someone - a main voice - to cling to. But that's because this is the first book of Kerper's I've read. What became clear is that there actually is a main narrator here, Kerper herself, but she keeps herself in the background, gently guiding instead of expounding.
The best way to absorb her book, I found, was by pretending I was going to a party with her, a party stuffed with luminaries, Turkish scholars and experts, all of whom she knew but I didn't. Then I let her introduce me to the brightest minds in the crowd - John Freely, Mary Cable, Annette Grossbongardt - who go on to teach me about all things Turkish.
Entrust yourself to Kerper's care because she knows what she's doing. She gives an education like none other - an education that will delight, inform and allow you to know what to look for when your airplane lands.
Superb! December 17, 2009
Mrs. Catharine P. Taylor (Massachusetts)
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
This provides a traveler with the overview and background that don't print out with the plane ticket. It isn't the guide for those wanting to choose a hotel or a restaurant but for those who want to understand something of a city, a history, and a culture not their own. The choice of articles -- including some evocative older pieces -- makes you feel you are there, and the hints about customs and reading lists are immensely useful. This is a guide with which to travel, even from your armchair.
No place is simple July 20, 2010
Himri (Tempe, AZ USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Before reading this book, I didnt know much about Istanbul. But now nothing 'Istanbul' escapes me. What of the chef mentioned in the New Yorker? He is already talked of in the book. Musa Dagdeviren. What did Mark twain think of Istanbul in his 'The Innocents Abroad'. He will not go there again. What did Paul Therox see on his 'The Great Railway Bazaar' train? Such is the fascination that grows of a place, its people, their food, origins, their monuments, streets and daily life.
Most places are not this old to have such a long history to know of. So how much ever I may wish to know of all places to the extent covered in this book, might not be possible.
It takes a curator, a gardener, journalists, writers, reporters, cook book authors, an Egyptologist, a tour guide and many more to bring the far away land to life.
The list and notes of related books is extensive.
I have seen TV ads of hamam as a kid. But now I know of the bath house tradition.
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