Read My Name Is Red

A poet returns to Kars in a blizzard as girls kill themselves over headscarves; Pamuk's political novel.

Sethe, a runaway slave, and the ghost of the daughter she killed; Morrison's masterpiece.

A butler drives to Cornwall and considers what he gave up for a lord; Ishiguro's Booker.

An old woman in a Silesian village and hunters who keep dying; Tokarczuk's eco-thriller.

Visit Istanbul, Turkey's historic city straddling Europe and Asia. Explore the Hagia Sophia (a 6th-century Byzantine cathedral turned mosque and museum), marvel at the Blue Mosque's six minarets and 20,000 Iznik tiles, wander the Grand Bazaar (one of the world's oldest and largest covered markets with over 4,000 shops), and cruise the Bosphorus Strait for views of palaces and bridges linking continents.

Visit Istanbul's church turned mosque turned museum

Istanbul's six-minareted mosque.

Sunken Byzantine reservoir under Istanbul, its columns rising from black water.