The Irish-American physicist, academic and traveller John Freely wrote more than sixty lively books on travel, history and science before he died in 2017, aged 90. But It was Istanbul, where he emigrated with his family in 1960 to take up a post teaching physics at the American Robert College, that turned him into a writer. His first book, 'Strolling Through Istanbul' – written with his fellow academic Hilary Sumner-Boyd – was an instant success when it was published in 1972 and has never been out of print since. With the exception of Oğuz, so thin that he was known as The Ghost because he barely cast a shadow, everyone in John Freely's rumbustious memoir, including the author himself, is larger than life. Bohemian Istanbul was a haven for myriad misfits who found their feet in the city. Clamorous, glamorous, eccentric, cosmopolitan and frequently outrageous, they included the 'berserker' Peter Pfeiffer, a resourceful exile with three passports; Aliye Berger, the beautiful queen of bohemian Pera; the writer James Baldwin and, fleetingly, the future Pope John XXIII. This elegy for a lost world encapsulates the flavour of their daily life and nightly excesses. Well lubricated with lemon vodka and Hill Cocktails served by Sumner-Boyd's gloomy housekeeper, 'Monik Depressive', the Freely crowd weave their way from the Galatasaray fish market and the taverns of Çiçek Pasajı to the Russian restaurant Rejans, and frequently on to the Freely household on the Bosphorus hills, where a party will soon be in full swing and eggnog flowing freely. 'Stamboul Ghosts' is lllustrated with Ara Guler's poignant black-and-white photographs, which make of Freely's beloved city an evocative stage-set.

Turkey occupies a strategic position in today's world: culturally, historically, and geographically, it is the link between Islam and Western democracy, between Europe and the Middle East. The only predominantly Muslim nation to be a member of NATO and an ally of Israel, Turkey straddles both Europe and Asia. And it boasts an economy larger than any of the states that have joined the EU in recent years-Istanbul alone has a bigger economy than that of Hungary or the Czech Republic-with pipelines that carry much of the world's oil and gas. Andrew Finkel has spent twenty years in Turkey writing about the country for a number of leading news media such as The Economist and Time magazine. In this concise book, Finkel unravels Turkey's complexities, setting them against the historical background of the Ottoman Empire, the secular nationalist revolution led by Kemal Ataturk, and repeated political interventions by the military, which sees itself as the guardian of Ataturk's legacy. Finkel reveals a nation full of surprises. Turkey's labyrinthine politics often lead to such unexpected outcomes as leaders of the untra-nationalist party starting on the road to EU membership by voting to scrap the death penalty-which also meant giving a reprieve to the convicted leader of the Kurdish separatist movement. And where else but in Turkey, Finkel writes, would secularist liberals have supported a prime minister who was once jailed for promoting religious extremism? From the Kurdish question to economic policy, from Turkey's role in Iraq to its quest for EU membership, Finkel illuminates the past and present of this unique, and uniquely consequential, country.

Turkey occupies a strategic position in today's world: culturally, historically, and geographically, it is the link between Islam and Western democracy, between Europe and the Middle East. The only predominantly Muslim nation to be a member of NATO and an ally of Israel, Turkey straddles both Europe and Asia. And it boasts an economy larger than any of the states that have joined the EU in recent years-Istanbul alone has a bigger economy than that of Hungary or the Czech Republic-with pipelines that carry much of the world's oil and gas. Andrew Finkel has spent twenty years in Turkey writing about the country for a number of leading news media such as The Economist and Time magazine. In this concise book, Finkel unravels Turkey's complexities, setting them against the historical background of the Ottoman Empire, the secular nationalist revolution led by Kemal Ataturk, and repeated political interventions by the military, which sees itself as the guardian of Ataturk's legacy. Finkel reveals a nation full of surprises. Turkey's labyrinthine politics often lead to such unexpected outcomes as leaders of the untra-nationalist party starting on the road to EU membership by voting to scrap the death penalty-which also meant giving a reprieve to the convicted leader of the Kurdish separatist movement. And where else but in Turkey, Finkel writes, would secularist liberals have supported a prime minister who was once jailed for promoting religious extremism? From the Kurdish question to economic policy, from Turkey's role in Iraq to its quest for EU membership, Finkel illuminates the past and present of this unique, and uniquely consequential, country.