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Turkish Awakening: A Personal Discovery of Modern Turkey Paperback – Import, May 27, 2014

4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 124 ratings

Slightly off-mint
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Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Faber & Faber Non-Fiction; Main edition (May 27, 2014)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0571296572
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0571296576
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13.2 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.31 x 0.98 x 8.5 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 124 ratings

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Alev Scott
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Customer reviews

4 out of 5 stars
124 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the book easy to read and understandable. It provides a personal insight into Turkish culture with modern content.

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10 customers mention "Readability"10 positive0 negative

Customers find the book an easy read that provides a personal insight into Turkish culture. They appreciate the author's honest depiction of the mentality and her description of her experience in a fluid way. The book is a good introduction to Turkey for travelers.

"...is just the kind of book I wanted, to bring me up to date in a highly readable way with what is happening in Turkey today...." Read more

"Easy read of a country in flux" Read more

"...Very readable in a non-fiction style." Read more

"...sense of magnanimity this book is sad, funny, brutally honest depiction of Turkish mentality!..." Read more

3 customers mention "Modern content"3 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the author's modern approach. They find her writing intelligent and covering sensitive topics with a fresh perspective.

"...With a fresh, modern intake, she beautifully describes her experience in such a fluid way that this book is a true page-turner. Highly recommended!!" Read more

"This book is up to date, modern and gives a wonderful personal insight into Turkish culture...." Read more

"Excellent, comprehensive, non judgemental, intelligent, modern, covered every sensitive issue, good reading for travellers to Turkey." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on April 5, 2015
    This is just the kind of book I wanted, to bring me up to date in a highly readable way with what is happening in Turkey today. In addition to a warm-hearted assessment of the people and their traits of character, it covers a multitude of social, cultural and political aspects, concluding in a cool-headed opinion about where the country is now going. It is the kind of book I would like to have written about Turkey.
  • Reviewed in the United States on August 1, 2018
    Easy read of a country in flux
  • Reviewed in the United States on July 12, 2014
    We have just finished four days in Turkey and loved it. I found this book very helpful to what is going on in modern Turkey. Our amazing local guide gave us excellent history to round out our knowledge. This book seemed to have accurate information and was an excellent introduction for someone (me) who knew nothing about the culture. Very readable in a non-fiction style.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on March 30, 2014
    With a tinge of unmistakable English sense of magnanimity this book is sad, funny, brutally honest depiction of Turkish mentality!

    A humble correction: Mersin is not in the east.
  • Reviewed in the United States on August 17, 2014
    This was an interesting book - but longer than it needed to be. I wish I had read it before going to Turkey rather than after the trip as there would have been things that prehaps I would have been more aware.
  • Reviewed in the United States on June 17, 2014
    Anyone even mildly interested in the cultural (and political) melting pot of Turkey will greatly benefit from Alev Scott's detailed insight into this fascinating country. With a fresh, modern intake, she beautifully describes her experience in such a fluid way that this book is a true page-turner. Highly recommended!!
    2 people found this helpful
    Report
  • Reviewed in the United States on September 8, 2017
    The writer awakens to the realisation that the warm, passionate, friendly, courteous, generous, romantic, humane, charming, benevolent, compassionate, gregarious, welcoming, hospitable, patriotic, and proud, proud, proud Turkish people are, really, just like Americans and just like you and me if only we were passionate, friendly, courteous, generous, romantic, humane, charming, benevolent, compassionate, gregarious, welcoming, hospitable, patriotic, and proud, proud, proud of being who we are. "kiss me. I'm Turkish" is the next bumper sticker.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on May 14, 2016
    For much of the way, this personal narrative remains the best contemporary account in English I have so far found about Turkey. The daughter of a mini-skirted Turkish Cypriot who left for London in the 1960s, Alev comes to her adopted motherland in this new century full of curiosity. She aims to report to us with neither too much or too little slant about her honest observations. In topical chapters these range over communication barriers, etiquette, sexuality straight or gay, religious and secular clashes and compromises, political tensions, economics, and then the history and culture of the nation beyond what is often the inevitable focus of most Western ex-pats on the concrete megapolis of 13 million Istanbullus.

    While the latter part of the presentation bogs down in socio-political analyses, the scope of Scott's survey is welcome. She gets beyond the social studies titles on Turkey. Her slightly distanced stance as one familiar with Turkey at a distance via her mother meshes neatly with what is apparently a privileged upbringing including the classics, which she memorably tries to teach at a broken-down public university in Istanbul.

    Finally, be sure to get the cover of the book as shown here. It's an updated 2015 edition. This integrates, not only with two end-chapters, but in a revised text throughout, her eyewitness account of the Gezi Park protests. Part Orwell's 1984 and part Hugo's Les Miserables, as she phrases it, the police crackdowns and the protesting crowds demonstrate the clashing symbols of a nation she defines as still very young and "insecure."

Top reviews from other countries

  • AMRI
    5.0 out of 5 stars First class journalism
    Reviewed in Spain on February 25, 2019
    Easy reading, broad coverage, direct experience. While a little bit outdated, the presentation of different aspects of Turkish society and their assessment from a liberal, multicultural viewpoint, is very well done.
  • Ritu Khanna
    3.0 out of 5 stars A beginner's guide to Turkey. As I know the ...
    Reviewed in India on May 25, 2018
    A beginner's guide to Turkey. As I know the country reasonably well, it didn't really offer me much additional information.
  • Jean M
    5.0 out of 5 stars Well written
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 27, 2017
    This was an excellent book, well written and clarified for me some of the cultural mysteries encountered when I visit Turkey which is quite frequently.
    It is an easy read lacking the jargon that is often associated with this type of book.
    Turkey is a large, lovely , interesting, country very diverse .
    Istanbul is very unique with so much to offer.
    Let's hope Alev Scott follows this book with more of the same observations as we move on in this troubled world.
  • Cindy
    5.0 out of 5 stars Insightful
    Reviewed in Italy on November 12, 2016
    As a Peace Corps Volonteer in Turkey way back in the Sixties, I found Ms Scott's observations of the same society fifty years on most interesting.
  • RobynFree
    3.0 out of 5 stars A metropolitan view
    Reviewed in France on October 25, 2016
    An interesting review by an expat Turk who returned to their homeland but is limited to experiences of Istanbul. Provincial Turks are different. Also much has changed since 2014 and the political and economic instability of the country is more pronounced now. The impact of Syrian refugees on Istanbul and Turkey generally are not apparent.