NCW Libraries

Byzantium, Constantinople, Istanbul-- one city, where stories and histories collide. The gateway between East and West, North and South, it has been the capital city of the Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman Empires. Hughes takes us on an historical journey from the Neolithic to the present, exploring the ways that Istanbul's influence has spun out to shape the wider world. This is the story not just of emperors, viziers, caliphs, and sultans, but of the...

"In a true voyage of discovery, Richard Fidler and his son, Joe, make a journey to Istanbul. Fired by Richard's passion for the rich history of the dazzling Byzantine Empire--centered around the legendary Constantinople--we are swept into some of the most extraordinary tales in history. The clash of civilizations, the fall of empires, the rise of Christianity, revenge lust, murder."--Jacket flap.

Anna Zarides arrives in Constantinople in 1273 to prove the innocence of her twin brother Justinian, who has been exiled for conspiring to kill a nobleman. Disguising herself as a eunuch named Anastasius, Anna moves freely, using her skills as a physician to get close to key players in her brother's fate. Then she meets Giuiliano Dandolo, a ship's captain conflicted not only by his own mixed heritage, but by his growing feelings for Anastasius.

"From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of perhaps the most bestselling and beloved literary fiction of our time comes a triumph of imagination and compassion, a soaring novel about children on the cusp of adulthood in a broken world, who find resilience, hope, and story. The heroes of Cloud Cuckoo Land are children trying to figure out the world around them, and to survive. In the besieged city of Constantinople in 1453, in a public library in Lakeport,...

"When the Ottoman Empire collapsed, so many spies mingled in the lobby of Istanbul's Pera Palace Hotel that the manager posted a sign asking them to relinquish seats to paying guests. As the multi-ethnic empire became a Turkish republic, Russian émigrés sold family heirlooms, an African American impresario founded a jazz club, Miss Turkey became the first Muslim beauty queen, and a Boston professor unveiled the lost treasures of the Hagia Sophia....

HISTORICAL FICTION. For over a thousand years, the medieval city of Constantinople has been the jewel on the crown of the Roman Empire. Now, the once-mighty metropolis is broken down, with its defensive walls in shambles. Long have the neighboring Turks wanted to claim the city, and Mehmet the impetuous new Turkish sultan thinks he and his legions might finally have their chance. In defiance of his late father s advisors, Mehmet vows to be the first...