28 Best books about the "city on two continents" - Istanbul

Freepik

Istanbul is my favourite city at the moment. I've visited it 4 times and every time, when planning a new trip even for a day or two, I like to look for new place to add to my to-see list. And for a deeper immersion into the city's culture, I love to go through old pages of memoires and guides written years ago. This is my list of the best books about city's glorious architecture and spirit. 

Barrie Kerper - Istanbul: The Collected Traveler

This unique guide to one of today's hottest tourist destinations combines fascinating articles by a wide variety of writers, woven throughout with the editor's own indispensable advice and opinions-providing in one package an unparalleled experience of an extraordinary place.

Bettany Hughes - Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities

Istanbul has undergone great structural change, and in the 1970s the population of the city rocketed as people moved to the city to find work, turning Istanbul into the cultural, economic and financial centre of Turkey. Events there recently have again brought Istanbul to the forefront of global attention.

Charles King - Midnight at the Pera Palace: The birth of modern Istanbul 

In beguiling prose and rich character portraits, Charles King brings to life a remarkable era when a storied city stumbled into the modern world and reshaped the meaning of cosmopolitanism.

Chris Hellier - Splendors of Istanbul:Houses and Palaces Along the Bosporus

The book shows and describes the history of Istanbul palaces, some of which date back to the fifteenth century.

Dorling Kindersley – Istanbul: Eyewitness travel guide

This guidebook to Istanbul contains specially commissioned maps to show every significant sight, location, building, museum and gallery as well as major shops, hotels and restaurants

Edmondode Amicis - Constantinople 

Hilary Sumner-Boyd & John Freely - Strolling Through Istanbul: The classic guide to the city

The authors describe the historic monuments and sites of what was once Constantinople and the capital, in turn, of the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires, in the context of the great living city. Woven throughout are anecdotes, secret histories, hidden gems, and every major place of interest the traveler will want to see. 

Jak Deleon - Ancient Districts on the Golden Horn: Balat, Haskoy, Fener, Ayvansaray

It provides historical information about the ancient districts on the Golden Horn.

Jak Deleon - The Bosphorus: A Historical Guide

From Byzantium to Constantinople and from then to Istanbul, this fabled city, divided by the Bosphorus strait, lies in both Europe and Asia. 

Jim Hinks & Gul Turner - The Book of Istanbul: A City in Short Fiction

Providing an enriched experience and taste of modern urban Turkey, these short stories paint Istanbul with many colors, shades, and tones with a luxury that cannot always be afforded by the novel.

John Freely & Brendan Freely – Galata, Pera, Beyoglu: a biography

Avenues, neighborhoods, hans, and passages that have been embracing various cultures and identities for centuries, changing day by day but never losing their unique characters.

John Freely - Istanbul: The Imperial City

An in-depth study of this legendary city through its many different ages from its earliest foundation to the present day - the perfect traveler's companion and guide.

John Freely - Stamboul Sketches: Encounters in Old Istanbul 

Stamboul Sketches is a slim book compiled from these editorial floor off-cuts. Inspired by traveling in the footsteps of Evliya Celebi, the Puck-like Pepys who wrote about 17th century Istanbul, Stamboul Sketches is a beautiful, quirky portrait of a city caught like a bird on the wing, so much changed but so much the same.

John Julius Norwich - A Short History of Byzantium

Beginning with Constantine the Great, who in a.d. 330 made Christianity the religion of his realm and then transferred its capital to the city that would bear his name, and following the course of eleven centuries of Byzantine statecraft and warfare, politics and theology, manners and art.

Isabel Bocking & Laura Salm-Reifferscheidt - The Bazaars of Istanbul

Spacious stores with brightly lit window displays compete with tiny cluttered shops in dark alleys. This is a place where the Thousand and One Nights and global chic come together, a meeting place of opposites.

Kaya Genç - An Istanbul Anthology: Travel Writing Through the Centuries

A nostalgic journey through the city with travelers' accounts of the sights, smells, and sounds of Istanbul's bazaars and coffeehouses, its grand palaces and gardens, crumbling buildings, and ancient churches and mosques, and the waters that so haunt and define it.

M. A. Whitten - An Island in Istanbul: At Home on Heybeliada

An American couple's impulsive decision to buy a house on one of Istanbul's Princes' Islands leads first to a series of encounters with architects, bureaucrats, workmen, and disapproving friends and family...but finally to a new life infused with the sense of joy and contentment known as KEYIF.

Murat Gül - The emergence of modern Istanbul

It depicts the urban transformation of Istanbul during the late Ottoman, early Republican, and the Democrat Party periods of Turkish history. Istanbul became a forum for the different regimes to display their political, ideological, and social policies in the context of the built environment.

Murat Gül & Trevor Howells - Istanbul Architecture and the Turkish city

Looking beyond pure architectural styles or the physical manifestations of Istanbul’s cultural landscape, the author offers critical insight into how Turkish attempts to modernize have affected both the city and its population.

Orhan Pamuk - Istanbul: Memories and the City

Orhan Pamuk's portrait of his city is thus also a self-portrait, refracted by memory and the melancholy–or–hüzün–that all Istanbullus share: the sadness that comes of living amid the ruins of a lost empire.

Pat Yale - Istanbul Select

"Istanbul Select" is filled with enough variety to plan a perfect day. The heart of the guide offers a collection of 100 inspiring ideas for a memorable stay in the city, with plenty of secret gems and offbeat haunts.

Philip Mansel - Constantinople: City of the World’s Desire

The book tells of the last five centuries of Constantinople reinterprets the history of the Ottoman Empire and provides an enthralling biography of "the city of the world's desire

Richard Tillinghast - An Armchair Traveller’s History of Istanbul

Standing at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, Istanbul is a tapestry of the different cultures and ideas that have shaped it over time. It has seen merchants, travelers, different religions, and politics all stamp their mark. 

Saffet Emre Tonguç & Pat Yale - Istanbul: the Ultimate Guide

A complete guide to Istanbul to the sites that are known and unknown. 

Serdar Gülgün - The Grand Bazaar Istanbul

A look at the world's most vibrant marketplace, with hundreds of dazzling original photographs by Laziz Hamani and narrative by an Istanbul born Ottoman art expert and collector. Discover jewelry, furniture, silver, spices, collectibles, and much more

Shirin Devrim - A Turkish Tapestry: The Shakirs of Istanbul

It tells the story of the Shakir Pasha family of Istanbul in the years before the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and of their achievements since in the new Turkey. In Ottoman times they were scholars, soldiers, and loyal servants of the Sultan. 

Thomas F. Madden - Istanbul: City of Majesty at the Crossroads of the World

The biography of the city at the center of civilizations past and present. For more than two millennia Istanbul has stood at the crossroads of the world, perched at the very tip of Europe, gazing across the shores of Asia. The history of this city--known as Byzantium, then Constantinople, now Istanbul--is at once glorious, outsized, and astounding.