A Strangeness in My Mind

One of the Best Books of the Year
The Washington Post • The Wall Street Journal • San Francisco Chronicle • Financial Times • Los Angeles Times • The Boston Globe • Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“A magnificent novel.” —The Wall Street Journal

“Pamuk does for Istanbul something like what James Joyce did for Dublin. He captures not just the look and feel of the city, but its culture, its beliefs and traditions, its people and their values.” —The Washington Post

“Delightful. . . . Tremendous. . . . [Written with] virtuosic craft, intellectual richness, emotional subtlety and a feeling of freedom.” —The New York Times Book Review
 
“Complex, ambitious. . . . It is Pamuk’s boundless compassion that makes the life of a struggling street vendor become, on the page, as monumental and as worthy of our attention as a sultan’s.” —Anthony Marra, San Francisco Chronicle

“An unconventional love story. . . . A hymn to life’s physical and mental chaos.” —The New York Times
 
“Reading Pamuk is like sipping a glass of fine wine or reading a late Dickens novel. Writers don’t get any better. . . . With A Strangeness in My Mind the author has made Istanbul into one of the world’s great literary cities.” —Counterpunch
 
“A glorious and teeming everyman epic.” —The Boston Globe
 
“A remarkable feat. . . . Light and funny. Pamuk’s perspective is generous. He takes a long view of history. The intermingling, and clashes, of cultures and peoples are part of what makes a city great, he suggests.” —Chicago Tribune

“Poignant. . . . There are no uncomplicated human beings for Pamuk, who takes as one of his principal themes here the gulf between what people say publicly and think privately.” —Los Angeles Times
 
“A textured and rewarding narrative.” —The Economist
 
“Warm and gently engrossing. . . . At its heart, this is a novel about work, love and family.” —The Sunday Times (London)
 
“Beautifully done, suffused with a nostalgic light.” —Financial Times
 
“Passages recall Wordsworth, that champion walker from whose greatest poem Pamuk takes this novel’s title. . . . [A] humble boza seller and his transfiguring imagination underscore why we’re drawn to the Nobel-winning double who has imagined him.” —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
 
“Magnificent. . . . Pamuk is becoming that rare author who writes his best books after winning the Nobel Prize for Literature.” —The Independent (London)
 
“A fictional continuation of Istanbul. . . . A nuanced novel that asks questions many are too afraid to utter: What if we are left behind, unable to adapt to a rapidly changing world? What if we dedicate our life to something that doesn’t matter?” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
 
“Mesmerizing. . . . A thoroughly immersive journey through the arteries of Pamuk’s culturally rich yet politically volatile and class- and gender-divided homeland.” —Publishers Weekly (starred)
 
“A Strangeness in My Mind is more than a coming-of-age story. It is also about the transformation of a city and a fascinating one at that.” —Portland Press Herald
 
“Rich, complex, and pulsing with urban life: one of this gifted writer’s best.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred)
 
“Pamuk captures the rapid growth and change of his beloved city.” —NPR
 
“[A] carefully detailed and compassionately told tale. . . . [Pamuk writes] with a universal warmth, wit, and intelligence.” —Library Journal