History Lovers! This book club is for you! Each season we select a book for our first meeting to read together that covers a theme or time period of history. For our second meeting, we read from a list of books around the topic of the first book.
For March, we will be reading Ottoman Odyssey: Travels Through a Lost Empire by Alev Scott. Just stop by the Reference Desk to register and pick up a copy.
For April, we will read from a list of books about the Ottoman Empire. For that discussion, we will meet on Monday, April 29 a 7 pm on Zoom. (Note the change from 4th Monday to the 5th Monday because of
About Ottoman Odyssey:
Alev Scott’s odyssey began when she looked beyond Turkey’s borders for contemporary traces of the Ottoman Empire. Their 800 years of rule ended a century ago—and yet, travelling through twelve countries from Kosovo to Greece to Palestine, she uncovers a legacy that’s vital and relevant; where medieval ethnic diversity meets twenty-first century nationalism—and displaced people seek new identities.
It’s a story of surprises. An acolyte of Erdogan in Christian-majority Serbia confirms the wide-reaching appeal of his authoritarian leadership. A Druze warlord explains the secretive religious faction in the heart of the Middle East. The palimpsest-like streets of Jerusalem’s Old Town hint at the Ottoman co-existence of Muslims and Jews. And in Turkish Cyprus, Alev Scott rediscovers a childhood home. In every community, history is present as a dynamic force.
