Jason Goodwin's Blog: Talking Turkey, page 10

Writing – or idling?

This morning, after the usual flurry of sending the children off to school, I found myself still in pyjamas and so I got back into bed, to read a bit, and maybe think.

Kate, just about to do a school run herself, didn't think it looked much like work. Her whole attitude bristled with suspicion. Which raises the question of what, exactly, writing does look like.

I suppose St Jerome is the proper model.

But later, perched Jerome-like in front of my screen, I happened to come across this lovely literary blog, with a review of Lords of the Horizons, at http://tinylibrary.blogspot.com/2011/02/lords-of-horizons-by-jason-goodwin.html

To the casual observer, I was by then at work, like our saint here. But actually I was just messing about.

 

Come along! Events in the next month…

Guildford Book festival – Join Jason at the Reader's Day on Saturday October 15th. http://www.guildfordbookfestival.co.uk/ 

that's bound to be jolly, and then at Daunt's Book Shop 

Roger Crowley in conversation with Jason Goodwin

Wednesday, 19th October at 7.00pm in Marylebone

A magisterial work of gripping history, Roger Crowley's City of Fortune tells the story of the Venetian ascent from lagoon dwellers to the greatest power in the Mediterranean – an epic five-hundred-year voyage that encompassed crusade and trade, plague, sea battles and colonial adventure.

In Venice, the path to empire unfolded in a series of extraordinary contests – the sacking of Constantinople in 1204, the fight to the finish with Genoa and a desperate defence against the Turks. Under the lion banner of St Mark, Venice created an empire of ports and naval bases, which funnelled the goods of the world through its wharfs. In the process the city became the richest place on earth – a brilliant mosaic fashioned from trade on one hand, and plunder on the other. The story is told in a gripping narrative that will fascinate anyone who loves Venice and the Mediterranean world.

Jason Goodwin made his name with wonderful travel writing, and he has gone on to enjoy huge success with his superb Ottoman thrillers that center on the seductive character of Yashim the Eunuch. The latest in the series, An Evil Eye, was published in the summer.

Tickets are £8 (including a glass of wine and 20% off the speaker's books). They may be purchased from our Marylebone shop in person, with credit/debit card by telephone (020 7224 2295) or here online.

BUT IF YOU ARE HUNGRY, TOO -

Eype Centre for the Arts Autumn 2011 'Book 'n Author' Week Literary Festival in Dorset, on Friday 21st October

Friday October 21st at 6.30pm: An evening of Turkish Delight – a Turkish buffet followed by a talk by JASON GOODWIN – scholar of the Ottoman empire and author ofAN EVIL EYE, the latest of the Yashim detective series.

[image error]Increasingly drawn to 19th century Istanbul life and Turkish cooking we are hosting a buffet of delicious Turkish food to be followed by a talk by Jason on what draws him to the city where East meets West. An accomplished travel writer he has in the past few years turned his considerable skills to writing detective novels set in Istanbul in the early 1800s. His first in the series The Janissary Tree introduced Yashim, the Turkish slipper wearing debonair detective which became a best seller and won the Edgar Award of the Mystery Writers of America in 2007. This was followed by The Snake Stone and The Bellini Card. These have been translated into more than 40 languages. An Evil Eye is the latest in the series. A review of the book in the Independent says, 'Historical novels may be sometimes lightly regarded, but this one is full of the virtues of that genre, bringing to life an immeasurably different world' and 'The bare outlines are enlivened by Goodwin's skilful use of colour and detail, especially Yashim's recipes, which set the reader drooling.'

Tickets

Turkish Delight evening on Friday 21st with Jason Goodwin at £12.00 to include buffet

Available from the Bridport Tourist Information Centre on 01308 424901.

http://www.eypechurcharts.co.uk/2011_literary_festival.html

AND FINALLY, RUDE DEBATE AT

The Bridport Literary Festival

http://www.bridlit.com/index.php?page=2011

The Festival Debate
Friend or Foe?
Dr. Philip Mansel - author of LEVANT: Splendour and Catastrophe on the Mediterranean, Roger Crowley - author ofCITY OF FORTUNE: A History of Venice, Professor Norman Stone - author of TURKEY: A Short History and Jason Goodwin creator of the 'Yashim' mysteries. Turkey has always been at loggerheads with Europe. Our 4 historians debate how European is Turkey and how Turkish is Europe? The relationship has always been marked by links as well as by conflicts – in diplomacy, culture and economics.

Thursday 10 November 6:30pm
Tickets: £8.00

a great blog

Here's a link to a great blog by  Miranda Innes. Do you want to learn how to draw, or stay in Perugia, or do yoga?

Or simply relax in Marrakesh?

Miranda is my aunt, and all this is good:

http://mirandainnes.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ten good books

Here's a list from yesterday's Guardian: 10 of my favourite books about Turkey (though to judge from some of the comments, you might think I'd written a list called 'The Only Ten Books about Turkey You Should Ever Read'!)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/aug/31/jason-goodwin-top-10-books-turkey

See what you think…!

click on this – please

My website at www.jasongoodwin.info is alive, kicking, and woefully handmade.

Do check out the link and let me know what you think. What's missing? Is the design too terrible? There's a groovy contact form in there, which may be useful.

All thoughts gratefully received.

 

 

Housekeeping and apologies

Shortly before the British launch of An Evil Eye, a greedy web-hosting company in Melbourne made off with my website. Largely on principle (and partly because they asked for money, and I'd lost all my original set-up passwords, user names and such), I have walked away from it, with my nose in the air.

I'm about to start another at www.jasongoodwin.info. My children assure me that the dot-info tag is very low, but there's someone else who has .com and frankly, .info describes exactly what I want. Plus it's delightfully cheap.

Meantime, apologies to anyone searching elsewhere on the web. Come back later!

I've had some great feedback for An Evil Eye already, both in the States and in the UK, and I was chuffed that the Christian Science Monitor chose The Janissary Tree and its sequels as one of its favourite foreign detective series…

http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/2011/0701/Top-7-detective-series-set-in-foreign-locales/Yashim-the-Eunuch-series-by-Jason-Goodwin

And here is Marco Ventura's delicious cover, for Faber in the UK.

 

Portugese edition of The Snake Stone (Yashim no 2)

and it matches Porto Editora's previous edition of  The Janissary Tree beautifully!

 

 

 

Washington Post's finest moment since Watergate?

Jason Goodwin's THE EVIL EYE is a Washington Post pick for "Best of

Summer Reading."

AN EVIL EYE , by Jason Goodwin(Farrar Straus Giroux, $26). The discovery

of a Russian corpse in a Christian well in the heart of a Muslim land

clarifies the muddle of the decaying Ottoman Empire.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/washington-post-critic

s-pick-the-best-books-for-summer-reading/2011/04/25/AGC33WZH_story.html

 

 

An Evil Eye Reviews

From the Globe and Mail:

An Evil Eye

By Jason Goodwin, FSG, 304 pages, $29.95

The fourth novel in the marvellous Investigator Yashim series is the best of a great bunch. Goodwin's grand evocation of the glories of the Ottoman Empire takes us into the heart of Istanbul in 1839. Admiral Fevzi Ahmet, Yashim's old leader and mentor, has defected to the Egyptians. Why would one of the Sultan's most honoured men show him such disrespect? The Sultan wants Yashim to investigate, but the search leads Yashim to the closed world of the Sultan's harem, where it appears the secret of the Admiral's betrayal lies. A great addition to a superb series with an unforgettable investigator.

And from the Literary Review:
'It's always a pleasure to visit Istanbul in the 1840s with Jason Goodwin and his sensitive, civilised detective Yashim … Both interesting and highly entertaining.'

CWA suspense – Dagger in the Library Nomination

Having rather diffidently gone online to check on the Daggers – phew! I'm in, along with five other devious and crafty crime-writers: SJ Bolton (Bantam Press, Transworld), RJ Ellory (Orion), Mo Hayder (Bantam Press, Transworld), Susan Hill (Vintage), and Philip Kerr (Quercus). Great company.

The Daggers are Britains's own awards for crime writing, in various categories; what's lovely about the Library Dagger is that it's awarded by librarians and library users, and not just not for a single book but for all the books we've written.  Libraries are facing hard times as the other, duller 'books' get balanced, and local authorities look to make cuts in their budget. Protest is the only option: I am warmed to incadescant rage by the erection of new traffic lights in my local town, replacing a perfectly good zebra crossing, at a cost of millions (it's construction, folks!) while local village libraries are closed. I suspect that transport departments build empires for themselves, and find pointless work to do, while libraries costing next to nothing are scotched.

Libraries are church. They are coffee morning, afternoon tea. They are beacons, they are surprising. They succeed because they are always there. They feed children with ideas, they provide mothers with respite, they comfort and counsel the elderly. They are radical and unfazed. The people who work in them – and I only recently addressed a feisty bunch, the ALA, in America – are smart and funny and paid for library work, not for being the counsellors or teachers that they are. They are the largest of the Little Platoons Burke spoke about, when he atomized civic life two – three – centuries ago.

Lending a book doesn't create work in County Hall. It creates minds. It creates the synapses of society, any society worth inhabiting.

Hurrah for the Daggers! But all halloos for the libraries!