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Aysegul Savas' first short-story collection, Long Distance, has just been published, while her acclaimed 2024 novel, The Anthropologists, is now out in paperback. Below, the Paris-based Turkish author recommends six books for readers who enjoy setting.
'Strange Weather in Tokyo' by Hiromi Kawakami (2001)
Viewed through drinks at train station bars, walks through sprawling markets, trips to pick mushrooms, and meals at lantern-lit izakayas, the Tokyo of this magical novel unravels piece by intimate piece. Buy it here.
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'The Fish Can Sing' by Halldor Laxness (1957)
On the opening page we're told of Brekkukot, "a little turf-and-stone cottage with two wooden gables." And this is where our narrator, the orphan Alfgrimur, grows up, among cod fishermen and eccentric pastors, and one day meets Iceland's most famous singer. Buy it here.
'Like a Sky Inside' by Jakuta Alikavazovic (2024)
This marvelous essay describes a night the author spent at the Louvre, wandering the endless rooms and encountering ghosts—of the Renaissance and ancient Egypt—and setting up her sleeping bag at the foot of the Venus de Milo. The author encounters also the ghost of her father and their trips to the museum in her childhood, when he would ask her how she might go about stealing the Mona Lisa. Buy it here.
'Mrs. Dalloway' by Virginia Woolf (1925)
No other book can capture London's narrowing, widening, echoing, bustling spirit. The city is humming with mechanics: automobiles, clocks, airplanes. It bustles with daily activity, from doctor's appointments to mail deliveries. As much as by their pasts, the characters are shaped by all the forces of the city, and the rush of a single day. Buy it here.
'Istanbul: Memories of a City' by Orhan Pamuk (2003)
Reading Pamuk's work has changed the ways I view my native city. I have learned to love Istanbul through his writing and have often hoped to see the city as he does, with its magnificent, melancholy ruins, even if Pamuk's Istanbul is as much a fictional place as it is a real one. Buy it here.
'On the Calculation of Volume' by Solvej Balle (2024)
In this novel, a woman wakes up to the same day for every day of a year. The damp November light filtering through her home in Clairon-sous-Bois in France, the sound of the kettle, the opening and closing of doors, the afternoon rain, take on new meaning as we furrow deeper into the time and space. Buy it here.
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Hong Kong jails democracy advocate Jimmy LaiSpeed Read The former media tycoon was sentenced to 20 years in prison
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Japan’s Takaichi cements power with snap election winSpeed Read President Donald Trump congratulated the conservative prime minister
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Seahawks trounce Patriots in Super Bowl LXSpeed Read The Seattle Seahawks won their second Super Bowl against the New England Patriots
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6 gorgeous homes in warm climesFeature Featuring a Spanish Revival in Tucson and Richard Neutra-designed modernist home in Los Angeles
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Touring the vineyards of southern BoliviaThe Week Recommends Strongly reminiscent of Andalusia, these vineyards cut deep into the country’s southwest
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Nan Goldin: The Ballad of Sexual Dependency – an ‘engrossing’ exhibitionThe Week Recommends All 126 images from the American photographer’s ‘influential’ photobook have come to the UK for the first time
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American Psycho: a ‘hypnotic’ adaptation of the Bret Easton Ellis classicThe Week Recommends Rupert Goold’s musical has ‘demonic razzle dazzle’ in spades
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Properties of the week: houses near spectacular coastal walksThe Week Recommends Featuring homes in Cornwall, Devon and Northumberland
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Melania: an ‘ice-cold’ documentaryTalking Point The film has played to largely empty cinemas, but it does have one fan
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Nouvelle Vague: ‘a film of great passion’The Week Recommends Richard Linklater’s homage to the French New Wave
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Wonder Man: a ‘rare morsel of actual substance’ in the Marvel UniverseThe Week Recommends A Marvel series that hasn’t much to do with superheroes
