Discover Well-Read Black Girl Books and the projects reshaping publishing →

Handpicked recommendations to other books that have a similar writing style or theme to The Bastard of Istanbul

The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak

The Bastard of Istanbul

by Elif Shafak
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus (12):
  • Readers' Rating (10):
  • First Published:
  • Jan 18, 2007, 368 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Feb 2008, 368 pages
  • Rate this book

About This Book

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full read-alike results are for members only

If you liked The Bastard of Istanbul, try these:

  • The Islamic Enlightenment jacket

    The Islamic Enlightenment

    by Christopher de Bellaigue

    Published Aug 2018

    More about this book

    Read Reviews

    A revelatory and game-changing narrative that rewrites everything we thought we knew about the modern history of the Islamic world.

  • The Confusion of Languages jacket

    The Confusion of Languages

    by Siobhan Fallon

    Published Jun 2018

    More about this book

    Read Reviews

    A searing debut novel from the award-winning author of You Know When the Men are Gone, about jealousy, the unpredictable path of friendship, and the secrets kept in marriage, all set within the U.S. expat community of the Middle East during the rise of the Arab Spring.

  • The Hundred-Year Walk jacket

    The Hundred-Year Walk

    by Dawn Anahid MacKeen

    Published Jan 2017

    More about this book

    Read Reviews

    An epic tale of one man's courage in the face of genocide and his granddaughter's quest to tell his story.

  • Orhan's Inheritance jacket

    Orhan's Inheritance

    by Aline Ohanesian

    Published Jan 2016

    More about this book

    Read Reviews

    Moving between the last years of the Ottoman Empire and the 1990s, a story of passionate love, unspeakable horrors, incredible resilience, and the hidden stories that haunt a family.

  • Children of the Jacaranda Tree jacket

    Children of the Jacaranda Tree

    by Sahar Delijani

    Published Jun 2014

    More about this book

    Read Reviews

    A stunning debut novel set in post-Revolutionary Iran that gives voice to the men, women, and children who won a war only to find their lives–and those of their descendants - imperiled by its aftermath

  • Calling Me Home jacket

    Calling Me Home

    by Julie Kibler

    Published Jan 2014

    More about this book

    Read Reviews

    Calling Me Home by Julie Kibler is a soaring debut interweaving the story of a heartbreaking, forbidden love in 1930s Kentucky with an unlikely modern-day friendship.

  • The Sandcastle Girls jacket

    The Sandcastle Girls

    by Chris Bohjalian

    Published Apr 2013

    More about this book

    Read Reviews

    The Sandcastle Girls is a sweeping historical love story steeped in Chris Bohjalian's Armenian heritage.

  • Map of the Invisible World jacket

    Map of the Invisible World

    by Tash Aw

    Published Dec 2010

    More about this book

    Read Reviews

    From the author of the internationally acclaimed, award-winning The Harmony Silk Factory comes an enthralling new novel that evokes an exotic yet turbulent and often frightening time and place. Map of the Invisible World is the masterly, psychologically rich tale of three lives indelibly marked by the past—their own and Indonesia's.

  • Sea of Poppies jacket

    Sea of Poppies

    by Amitav Ghosh

    Published Sep 2009

    More about this book

    Read Reviews

    A motley array of sailors and stowaways, coolies and convicts embark on a voyage across the Indian Ocean in the midst of the Opium Wars between Britain and China.

  • Burnt Shadows jacket

    Burnt Shadows

    by Kamila Shamsie

    Published Apr 2009

    More about this book

    Read Reviews

    Beginning on August 9, 1945, in Nagasaki, and ending in a prison cell in the US in 2002, as a man is waiting to be sent to Guantanamo Bay, Burnt Shadows is an epic narrative of love and betrayal.

  • The Reluctant Fundamentalist jacket

    The Reluctant Fundamentalist

    by Mohsin Hamid

    Published Apr 2008

    More about this book

    Read Reviews

    Changez is at the top of his class at Princeton, and is snapped up by the elite "valuation" firm of Underwood Samson. He thrives on the energy of New York, and his infatuation with elegant, beautiful Erica. But in the wake of September 11, Changez finds his position in his adopted city suddenly overturned, and his budding relationship with Erica ...

  • Birds Without Wings jacket

    Birds Without Wings

    by Louis de Bernieres

    Published Jun 2005

    More about this book

    Read Reviews

    Epic in its narrative sweep, steeped in historical fact yet profoundly humane, and dazzlingly evocative in its emotional and sensual detail. This is de Bernières' first book since Captain Corelli's Mandolin.

  • Snow jacket

    Snow

    by Orhan Pamuk

    Published Apr 2005

    More about this book

    Read Reviews

    A spellbinding tale of disparate yearnings – for love, art, power, and God – set in a remote Turkish town, where stirrings of political Islamism threaten to unravel the secular order; by the winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize for Literature.

  • The Seduction of Silence jacket

    The Seduction of Silence

    by Bem Le Hunte

    Published Mar 2004

    More about this book

    Read Reviews

    Both magical and utterly compelling, this spellbinding novel interweaves family sagas with the richness of Indian mysticism, creating an intimate portrait of an unforgettable family.

  • Ignorance jacket

    Ignorance

    by Milan Kundera

    Published Oct 2003

    More about this book

    Read Reviews

    "Kundera is so bounteously gifted with insight that even a slender story like that of Ignorance is edifying, filled with intellectual surprises and flashes of the imagination."

  • The Bonesetter's Daughter jacket

    The Bonesetter's Daughter

    by Amy Tan

    Published Jan 2002

    More about this book

    Read Reviews

    Tan's newest novel mixes pure fiction with elements of autobiography. In the acknowledgements she writes, "The heart of this story belongs to my grandmother, its voice to my mother".

  • Breath, Eyes, Memory jacket

    Breath, Eyes, Memory

    by Edwidge Danticat

    Published May 1998

    More about this book

    Read Reviews

    A passionate journey through a landscape charged with the supernatural and scarred by political violence, in a novel that bears witness to the traditions, suffering, and wisdom of an entire people.

Join free to see the complete list of recommendations.
How we choose read-alikes

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

BookBrowse Book Club

  • Book Jacket
    When No One Else Will
    by Amanda Skenandore
    1940s Chicago nurse risks everything at an illegal women’s clinic during a high-profile trial of courage and sisterhood.
  • Book Jacket
    A Pair of Aces
    by Marie Benedict, Victoria Christopher Murray
    Two women on opposite sides of the law team up to bring down gangster Lucky Luciano in this gripping novel.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket
    The Reimagining of Thornwood House
    by Jaleigh Johnson
    A witch and her ward discover a magical walking house and find the true meaning of home.
  • Book Jacket
    Summer's Never Over
    by Darby Bozeman
    A woman revisits a Southern summer camp where a counselor's death may not have been an accident.
  • Book Jacket
    Feast
    by Catherine Kurtz
    In 19th-century France, a girl with a magical taste becomes a duc’s poison taster amid nobility and danger.
  • Book Jacket
    The Jellyfish Problem
    by Tessa Yang
    A marine biologist rescues a Maine island menaced by a giant glowing jellyfish in this inventive debut.
Who Said...

Experience is not what happens to you; it's what you do with what happens to you

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Book
Trivia
  • Book Trivia

    Can you name the title?

    Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

Q S, S

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.