Rosie Reflecting

Whatever you call them they are fascinating large birds to those of us who don't normally see them. Storks are a common sight across Turkey between April and September. turkey is a stopover point between the birds’ winter quarters in Africa (we have seen them in December on the city walls of Morocco where they return from the Atlas Mountains to their nests around 6 pm local time each night. Curiously some information sites say that storks mate of life others say this is not so, but they are monogamous. Around thirty thousand breeding pairs are believed to visit Turkey, often returning to the same nest year after year to raise new chicks. Both Christian and Islamic beliefs consider storks lucky, in Turkish they are known as “pilgrim birds” in Turkish, they are rarely harmed. In some areas of Turkey special platforms are built I additions to the storks’ favorite nesting perches, which range from chimneys and minarets to utility poles. Locally we have storks not too far away an...

The first four of these books are fictional and all set in Turkey, yet as all fiction have somewhere some grains of truth. the last three are factual books. The Architect’s Apprentice - Elif Shafak I've struggled to read two of Shafak's books before, in fact never finished them. My daughter mentioned this one and I read about it and decided to read it. This one I loved and  finished it. The descriptions of Ottoman life in 16 th Century Istanbul and the intrigues and the beautiful descriptive language she uses fill this book with color. Jahan by default arrives at the Sultan’s palace with Chota the elephant, about whom he knows nothing, yet manages to become his keeper. He meets many colorful characters along the way, some who will defraud him and others who will help him in unexpected ways.     Jahan manages to catch the eye of Sinan (who was in fact a real architect) and works together with him, never quite achieving the fame and fortune he might have deserved...