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Defne’s Year In Books

Defne’s 2020 Year in Books

Take a look at Defne’s Year in Books. The long, the short—it’s all here.

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Defne’s Bookshelves

read (174)
currently-reading (6)
to-read (30)
top-ten (12)

Defne’s Friends (275)

Mehmet Kır

583 books | 260 friends

Gulcingizem

341 books | 25 friends

Burak Kuscu

1,547 books | 329 friends

RACA

1,022 books | 560 friends

Nurhan Suerdem ( yüzyıllık yalnızlık)

523 books | 107 friends

Sine

1,238 books | 849 friends

Beyza

550 books | 115 friends

Alper Kaya

324 books | 388 friends

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Defne Suman

Goodreads Author

Born

in İstanbul , Turkey

Website

http://www.defnesuman.com

Twitter

Sumanyoga

Genre

Fiction, Historical Fiction, Spirituality

Influences

Arundathi Roy

Member Since

May 2012

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Defne Suman -born in Istanbul, Turkey- is an author, student and teacher of Hatha Yoga, a source of inspiration to many people, a traveler and a citizen of the world. Defne’s fascination with human psyche and her curiosity to discover the hidden dynamics behind various social interactions brought her to complete a graduate degree at Boğaziçi University’s Sociology Department. However, upon completion of her MA, instead of continuing with PhD at UCLA where she was admitted with full scholarship in 2003, she decided to do something new and hit the road toward South East Asia, leaving academia and her academically-oriented family behind.

Since then, she is learning and teaching Hatha Yoga, traveling the world and the seven seas and resting in Defne Suman -born in Istanbul, Turkey- is an author, student and teacher of Hatha Yoga, a source of inspiration to many people, a traveler and a citizen of the world. Defne’s fascination with human psyche and her curiosity to discover the hidden dynamics behind various social interactions brought her to complete a graduate degree at Boğaziçi University’s Sociology Department. However, upon completion of her MA, instead of continuing with PhD at UCLA where she was admitted with full scholarship in 2003, she decided to do something new and hit the road toward South East Asia, leaving academia and her academically-oriented family behind.

Since then, she is learning and teaching Hatha Yoga, traveling the world and the seven seas and resting in her rotating home towns: Istanbul, Athens and Portland (Oregon).

A lover of books and writing since her childhood, Defne kept her writings away from the public eye for most of her adolescent and young adult years. Only after she started learning Hatha Yoga under the guidance of Zhander Remete, she turned her gaze inwards and found the courage to meet the Reader. In 2007 she opened her blog The Human Condition where she posts blogs not only about yoga but also about people, travelling, social change, literature and the essence of things in life through the lens of her own experience.

Her greatest source for inspiration is the never-ending search for the Truth and the belief that it is the knowledge of this Truth, inherent in every person’s psyche, that connects us all together through time and space.

Her first book, Mavi Orman (Blue Forest) is a compilation of personal journals and essays. It was published in 2011 in Turkish and was followed by her first novel Saklambaç (Hide and Seek) in 2013, also in Turkish. Her latest novel Emanet Zaman (Borrowed Times) is a historical fiction that takes place in Smyrna during the very last years of Ottoman Empire. It is published early 2016 in Turkey and in Greece simultaneously. Later came Yaz Sıcağı (In the Heat of Summer) that deals with the Turkish army's occupation of Cyprus and how it stays as taboo subject in families who are involved with it.

Her latest book Kahvaltı Sofrası (At the Breakfast Table) came out in 2018.

In Kahvaltı Sofrası Suman continues to explore the themes and tropes that prevail in her previous novels, presenting them to the reader in new dimensions. Most notably among these are collective forgetting and remembering, trauma, the repression and uncovering of truth at the personal and social levels, questions pertaining to identity, such as, the connection between language and identity, covert identities, and the malleability of identity. Moreover, Suman’s novels examine the conflict between a pluralistic notion of selfhood and a monolithically constructed national identity. The paradigms of exile and displacement, of speaking from minority positions, are intertwined with the above-mentioned themes. Altogether, these premises establish a narrative network of signification, through which the philosophical core of Suman’s work can be discerned. ...more

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Defne Suman’s books

Average rating: 4.32 · 896 ratings · 129 reviews · 8 distinct works • Similar authors

	Kahvaltı Sofrası 4.20 avg rating — 232 ratings — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Emanet Zaman 4.41 avg rating — 174 ratings — published 2016 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Yaz Sıcağı 4.43 avg rating — 162 ratings — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Mavi Orman 4.47 avg rating — 153 ratings — published 2011 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Saklambaç 4.37 avg rating — 79 ratings — published 2014	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	İnsanlık Hali 4.65 avg rating — 43 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Yağmur'dan sonra 3.42 avg rating — 53 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Silence of Scheherazade by Defne Suman (Goodreads Author), Betsy Göksel (Translator) 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Defne Suman's Blog

Evden Kaçmanın Yolları!

Evlere tıkıldığımız koskoca bir yılın ardından huzurlarınızda EVDEN KAÇMANIN YOLLARI!

Evden Kaçmanın Yolları, Doğan Kitap, Nisan 2021

Bu kitap geçen Eylül ayında aklıma düştü. Bir hayaldi. Çocukluğumda ne çok evden kaçtığımı (sadece ikinci kata kadar inebiliyordum ama özgürlüğü kanıma sızıyordu), lise yıllarında nereye gittiğini bilmediğim otobüslere binerek bile isteye şehirde kaybolduğumu, an

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Defne is Currently Reading

Defne is currently reading

Kenarda

by Ayhan Geçgin

bookshelves: currently-reading

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Oct 22, 2020 06:08AM

Defne is currently reading

Veba

by Albert Camus

bookshelves: currently-reading

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Oct 23, 2019 08:45AM

Defne is currently reading

Just Kids

by Patti Smith (Goodreads Author)

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Aug 14, 2019 04:35AM

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Defne’s Recent Updates

Defne is now following Salman Rushdie Author of Midnight's Children
8 hours, 15 min ago · like
Defne liked a quote “Would you like to save the world from the degradation and destruction it seems destined for? Then step away from shallow mass movements and quietly go to work on your own self-awareness. If you want to awaken all of humanity, then awaken all of yourself. If you want to eliminate the suffering in the world, then eliminate all that is dark and negative in yourself. Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self-transformation.” Lao Tzu
Jan 10, 2021 12:46PM · like · more quotes by Lao Tzu
Defne liked a quote “I am very careful to be shallow and conventional where depth and originality are wasted.” L.M. Montgomery
Jan 10, 2021 12:43PM · 1 like · like · more quotes by L.M. Montgomery
Defne liked Pelin Burcu's review of Emanet Zaman:
Dec 27, 2020 04:06AM · see review
Defne and 1 other person liked Alex Trusk's review of Emanet Zaman:
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Dec 27, 2020 04:05AM · see review
Defne has read Bir Nedene Sunuldum by Yalçın Tosun	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Oct 22, 2020 06:09AM · 4 likes · like
Defne is now following Yalçın Tosun Author of Anne, Baba ve Diğer Ölümcül Şeyler
Oct 22, 2020 06:09AM · like
Defne wants to read Kurbağalara İnanıyorum by Barış Bıçakçı	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Oct 22, 2020 06:08AM · 3 likes · like
Defne is currently reading Kenarda by Ayhan Geçgin	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Oct 22, 2020 06:08AM · 2 likes · like

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Defne’s Quotes

“A person's looking for a simple truth to live by, there it is. CHOICE. To refuse to passively accept what we've been handed by nature or society, but to choose for ourselves. CHOICE. That's the difference between emptiness and substance, between a life actually lived and a wimpy shadow cast on an office wall.”
― Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker

tags: choice, free-will, life, still-life-with-woodpecker, tom-robbins

35 likes

“A life spent entirely in public, in the presence of others, becomes, as we would say, shallow”
― Hannah Arendt

tags: life, public, shallow

3 likes

“the moment that an artist takes notice of what other people want, and tries to supply the demand, he ceases to be an artist, and becomes a dull or an amusing craftsman, an honest or a dishonest tradesman. He has no further claim to be considered as an artist.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man Under Socialism

tags: art, dull, shallow, superficiality

1 likes

“I am very careful to be shallow and conventional where depth and originality are wasted.”
― Lucy Maud Montgomery

204 likes

“Would you like to save the world from the degradation and destruction it seems destined for? Then step away from shallow mass movements and quietly go to work on your own self-awareness. If you want to awaken all of humanity, then awaken all of yourself. If you want to eliminate the suffering in the world, then eliminate all that is dark and negative in yourself. Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self-transformation.”
― Lao Tzu

120 likes

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