Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #415328 in Books
• Published on: 1994-06-15
• Released on: 1994-06-15
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

About the Author
Kenizé Mourad, who wrote the preface, is a journalist and the author of the novel Farewell Princess (1982). Her mother, the princess Selma, was the grand-daughter of Sultan Murat V. The other contributing authors are Lale Apa, editor-in-chief of the magazine Istanbul, The Guide; Teresa Battesti, a curator at the Musée de l'Homme in Paris; John Freely, an American author whose publications include Strolling Through Istanbul, the Blue Guide to Istanbul, and Classical Turkey; Nedim Gürsel, a researcher at the CNRS in Paris and author of numerous fiction and non-fiction works devoted to Istanbul; Tim Hindle, a British journalist writing for The Economist, a co-founder of the magazines Istanbul, The Guide and Eurobusiness, and author of The Sultan of Berkley Square; Arzu Karamani, the editor of the home decorating column in the Turkish edition of Marie-Claire magazine; and Gérard-Georges Lemaire, a writer and curator.

Jérôme Darblay's photographs appear regularly in international home decorating and architecture magazines and have been featured in the books Inside Paris, Living in Venice, and Maisons de Famille.

Caroline Champenois is a journalist and style editor specializing in home decorating and is a frequent contributor to the magazines Maison et Jardin and Madame Figaro. She is also the author of the chapters Homes of Charm and Modernity within Tradition.

Customer Reviews

Do not buy it from Amazon.com !
When i bought this item,estimated shipping time was 10-12 days. However, amazon changed the date several times at the date when they were supposed ship. They made me wait four months and at the end they've sent an e-mail saying that they can't obtain this item and they've cancelled my order. It was that easy for them ! Even now, despite that the book is unavailable, they listed the book as avaialbale in 2-3 weeks! Never buy this book from Amazon.com. I am planning to buy it from ecampus.com.

Even if just for the photos
Some of you may be looking for a book on this subject for more than good photos but I won't detail about the writing. I feel that the other review on this book has already done a good job on that. I just want to say it is a great book even if it is just for the photos. Very beautiful photographs - perfect for coffee tables, etc... I have visited Istanbul and the photos make me sick to visit again.

Not perfect but probably the best there is nowadays
For anyone under a spell of Istanbul, this is a book to have and behold. The photography is excellent if also typical of glossy coffee table books: romantised and beautiful, very - yet the images chosen cover a wide range and offer interesting and evocative - or inspiring, if you like - insights into the life in Istanbul and its settings. Visually, then, the book is a little gem (far better than another recent one, "Living in Turkey"). There are several essays included whichare of varying quality. The preface by an Ottoman princess is - on a second reading - not too bad and rather charming, while her attitude - both nostalgic and protective is as expected as, perhaps, it is befitting, too; a diary by a Turkish writer leaves one with mixed feelings and somewhat at loss as to what is at stake in it (in my opinion, it is the weakest of the essays in the book). "A Day in Istanbul" is rather matter of fact description of the city by and what there is to be seen. "Interiors" is probably what most people would expect to find in a book like this - after all, it leans heavily on interior decoration; the selection of interiors is, as expected, very biased: focusing on yalis or the more contemporary residences of the fashionable Istanbulites, Turkish or foreign - but then, most interior books do the same and this is not to say it is not pleasant to behold, only that at times the text seems little bit selfindulgent in terms of the people whose homes are shown - of course, as long as we don't know these people and their names mean nothing to us, it doesn't really matter, but I can imagine that people, say, in Istanbul might read and view the book rather differently... (also, it might be noted that the books is written by people who mostly reside someplace else than Istanbul). The only section where the text surpasses the pictures is the one about the palaces, or I felt so, as they don't really give you a sense of the buildings nor the interiors - it is a very personal selection and quite small one at that, too. The following section on "Traditions" saves much of the book anew: only, minor, drawback is that the relevant text and pictures don't manage to keep pace but are separated, at times afew pages apart. Finally, the "Rendezvous" is a pleasant, casual and intimate, retake on the city as to what to do and where to go, especially if you don't have a home in Istanbul and you have to experience the "living in Istanbul" through cafes, bars and restaurants. The last part, "Visitors guide" would have been best left out: not only does it start to turn the book - ambiguously and dissapointingly - into a guidebook, but it will also date it - no doubt, when first published, it was useful and it will be nostalgic in a hundred years' time, but in between it is bit of a letdown. Yet, in spite of its drawbacks, it still remains the best book I've found currently available on life and interiors in Istanbul. And some of my friends who know the city better than me, agree. I myself borrowed the book from a library, kept it for a month, extended it for another and then bought my own copy...