My Year in Books and My Favourite Thing About Turkey

y year in books!

This is an idea I got from a post on Staircase Wit:

Rules: Using only books you have read during the year (2021), answer these questions. Try not to repeat a book title. Let me know, below, if you did a version of this too.

How do you currently feel: The Good, The Bad and the Little Bit Stupid by Monica Lewycka

Where do you currently live: The Exile by Diana Gabaldon

If you could go anywhere, where would you go: A Day at the Seashore (Little Golden Books)

What is your favourite form of transportation: The Grand Tour by Agatha Christie

Trains and boats and walking (and possibly surfing, though I haven't tried it yet)!

Your best friend is: The Master Puppeteer by Katherine Paterson

You and your friends are: Baby-sitters Club Friends Forever 1: Everything Changes by Ann M Martin

What's the weather like: The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon


What do you fear: The Madness of Crowds by Louise Penny and The Darkest Dark by Chris Hadfield

What is the best advice you have to give: Return to the Vineyards by Laura Bradbury and Go Wild in the Mountains by Goldie Hawk and Rachael Saunders

Share a thought for the day: Listen To My Trumpet by Mo Willems

How would you like to die: Peace at Last by Jill Murphy

Your soul's present condition: Ten Years in the Making by Kate Davies

Over a decade ago, I was a guest poster on Turkish Muse!

Here's what I wrote at the time:

"My Favourite Thing About Turkey: The Neighbourhoods

My favourite thing about Turkey... besides the food, the weather, the SEA... is the neighbourhoods!

Whether you're in a small village where everyone's trying to feed you köy yemekleri (and how can you resist?), a tourist-crowded resort town, or in sprawling Istanbul, every place in Turkey feels delightfully small, and hidden treasures abound.

I still remember my surprise at stumbling across Cezayir Sokaği in the Taksim neighbourhood, that street of lovely multi-coloured restaurants and cafés. The layers of history are equally astounding – scratch a little in the sand and you uncover civilizations that go back thousands of years. You might even find a Greek statue or Mycenaean pottery on a snorkelling expedition, as my uncle often does.

There’s also the friendly stray cats, the sunshine – and the language that, despite many borrowed words, still sounds like hardly any other language on earth and is so terribly useful for even the simplest of phrases, especially with repeated words: mışıl mışıl uyuduk, hayal meyal hatırlıyorum...

Something indescribable gets into your bones when you’re in Turkey, so that months away feel like years, and if more than a few years have gone by since your last trip there, you begin to feel a certain ache. A longing... And sights like this one, with the mountains in the distance, leave you gazing wistfully into space, dreaming of sun baked roads and low green hills, rolling toward the horizon."

It's still valid, especially since, sadly, I haven't been back to Turkey since that year!

Is there a place you're longing to visit?