Midnight at the Pera Palace

The Birth of Modern Istanbul

De: Charles King

Narrado por: Grover Gardner

At midnight, December 31, 1925, citizens of the newly proclaimed Turkish Republic celebrated the New Year. For the first time ever, they had agreed to use a nationally unified calendar and clock.

Yet in Istanbul - an ancient crossroads and Turkey's largest city - people were looking toward an uncertain future. Never purely Turkish, Istanbul was home to generations of Greeks, Armenians, and Jews, as well as Muslims. It welcomed White Russian nobles ousted by the Russian Revolution, Bolshevik assassins on the trail of the exiled Leon Trotsky, German professors, British diplomats, and American entrepreneurs - a multicultural panoply of performers and poets, do-gooders and ne'er-do-wells. During the Second World War, thousands of Jews fleeing occupied Europe found passage through Istanbul, some with the help of the future Pope John XXIII. At the Pera Palace, Istanbul's most luxurious hotel, so many spies mingled in the lobby that the manager posted a sign asking them to relinquish their seats to paying guests.

With 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.

©2014 Charles King (P)2014 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

A wide-ranging exploration of a fascinating city

This is an incredibly interesting and entertaining book. You can almost listen to it like it were a podcast, as every chapter is standalone..

Interesting story of Istanbul in 20th century

Fond of these byways in history and loved hearing about so many aspects that I was unaware. A perfect book for my 90 minute morning walks. Thank you.

Rambling narratives

Really a collection interesting rambling anecdotes barely forming a coherent whole. Interesting but not that captivating.

good book dBm 9 smothers sign up for

I am in the hospital in Poland flat on my back I did not speak Polish I do not understand police TV this is been a wonderful movie for a person in my condition are not moving book and I can recommend it for anyone in a similar circumstance

The birth of modern-day Istanbul

This book centers on a great hotel (which still exists to this day) in Istanbul (Constantinople of old). Although it focuses on this hotel throughout the years, it goes off on a number of tangents. The most notable is near the end as it follows the plight of jews during WWII, not sure how that ties in with the hotel but it does center the focus on Istanbul. The narrator is wonderful and this was an enjoyable read about a city I love.

Probably Better in Hard Copy

I really wish that the narrator had some command of the Turkish language. The many mispronunciations really detracted from the listening experience.

birth of a nation-state

A fascinating read that shows some of the byways of the breakup of an empire (Austro-Hungarian Empire was another) into smaller nation-states. King comments on the Greeks and Armenians (and the stateless Jews) inhabiting the same environs, only for the end of WW I to make each group try to stake out its own territory. (King shows the same thing happening in Eastern Europe in the immediate post WW I years - with the same internecine conflicts - in his book "The Vanquished.") Cities such as Istanbul, Salonika, and Smyrna soon became more of a mono-culture as the other 'foreign' residents are driven out. King mentions the great transfer of Greek and Turkish peoples from Asia Minor to Europe and vice versa.
Perhaps the book would be more accurately described by using its subtitle "The Birth of Modern Istanbul" as the Pera Palace disappears from large parts of the book. But King gave me an understanding of the change of the Turks primary definition of themselves from a religious (Muslim) culture to a national culture.
I also learned about the movement of White Russians to Istanbul and the efforts of some (including Angelo Roncalli, later to be Pope John XXIII) to allow the Jews to escape the Holocaust, and other things.This book expanded my comprehension of this time and this place

A long read

The performance was great as usual. However, the story rolled on and on using names and places difficult to follow.

Excellent

Excellent history of Turkey and Istanbul, with lots of information and stories. A very engaging and enjoyable listening experience.

Outstanding glimse into istanbul n modern turkey

Its the best intro to the city of istanbul, and great for fan of agatha christie