Elif Shafak: Ten Books that Inspired There Are Rivers in the Sky
By Viking Books UK
Elif Shafak: Ten Books that Inspired There Are Rivers in the Sky
By Viking Books UK
To celebrate the imminent publication of Elif Shafak's brand new novel, There Are Rivers In the Sky - Shafak has selected ten books that inspired her writing.
There are Rivers in the Sky is the Bookshop.org Book of the Month for August, and is available to pre-order now. Save an extra 10% with code: SKY
Underland: A Deep Time Journey
Robert MacFarlane
£12.99 £12.34I had read this wonderful book before but I cannot help mentioning it again here as I find it so inspiring. Anything that Macfarlane touches turns into gold.
Otherlands: A World in the Making
Thomas Halliday
£10.99 £10.44Landscapes are very important in my fiction and this compelling book by the palaeobiologist and evolutionary biologist Thomas Halliday immerses its readers in various unforgettable and ancient landscapes with immense skill, knowledge and beauty. Its scope is dazzling and its imaginative feat, simply breathtaking.
Blue Machine: How the Ocean Shapes Our World
Helen Czerski
£10.99 £10.44What a beautiful and important book this is by the British physicist and oceanographer Helen Czerski. We are all citizens of humanity and citizens of a planet shaped by oceans, and if anyone is ever in doubt as to how interconnected we are, I would encourage them to read this fabulous work. We should never take our oceans for granted. Not even a single drop of water.
Sweet Thames
Matthew Kneale
£8.99 £8.54In the past years, once again, we witnessed sewage being pumped into our waterways. It is as if we have learned nothing from history. This dazzling book is a great reminder as to how throughout history the Thames almost ‘died’ in the hands of humans, and how it was saved, and how crucial rivers are in our lives. Brilliantly researched, vividly told, it takes us to London in the 19th century, especially in the summer of 1849 when a deadly cholera epidemic broke out. I loved reading it.
Women & Power: A Manifesto
Professor Mary Beard
£7.99 £7.59In this book the wonderful Mary Beard explores the cultural assumptions about women and power, deftly dismantling both the structures and the narratives of misogyny and sexism. I like her tone with all its calmness, wisdom and nuance. Women and Power is adapted from the lectures Beard has given at the British Museum and I think it is a must-read for anyone who cares about culture, equality and a more inclusive society.
Femina: A New History of the Middle Ages, Through the Women Written Out of It
Janina Ramirez
£12.99 £12.34This is a beautifully written book that focuses on medieval heroines. As a writer I am not only drawn to stories, but also to silences and the silenced. I care about the stories of women and the stories of minorities. These have been continually erased, forgotten, left out of history, which for the most part, has been narrated, recorded and archived as “his-story”. In that sense, I believe novelists need to be linguistic and cultural archaeologists. We need to excavate through layers of time, layers of silences.
Burning the Books: RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK: A History of Knowledge Under Attack
Richard Ovenden
£10.99 £10.44I honestly think everyone should read this important book by the Bodley’s Librarian Richard Ovenden. It is such an important, at times chilling account on the destruction of books, libraries and knowledge throughout history. Sadly, this powerful book is all the more relevant in today’s fractured world with ongoing book removals and books bans, as well attacks against libraries during times of war and conflict. The destruction of books is inseparable from the destruction of collective memory and heritage.
London Under
Peter Ackroyd
£10.99 £10.44Biographer, novelist and critic Peter Ackroyd has written numerous books connecting history, society and literature, but this one has been especially illuminating for me. From buried and hidden rivers to Victorian sewage systems, I loved reading and thinking about the underworld and the “underbelly” of our great city, London. If I can squeeze in another book by Ackroyd, I would also mention Thames: Sacred River, which is fabulous.
The Ark Before Noah: Decoding the Story of the Flood
Irving Finkel
£10.99 £10.44Before I started writing my novel I read extensively about ancient Mesopotamian myths, legends and rituals, and I also researched flood narratives from all around the world, and this book stood out for me with its depth and breadth. Irving Finkel’s knowledge on ancient civilisations, languages, scripts and cultures is truly fascinating and alongside his other books, this one, in particular, has been very valuable.
The Epic of Gilgamesh
Anonymous Anonymous
£9.99 £9.49The Epic of Gilgamesh— the oldest surviving recorded story in human history— is a remarkable narrative which does not have a hero in the conventional sense of the term. The story is powerful, moving, haunting. Transmitted orally for many centuries, and then recorded by scribes on clay tablets, it is more than 3000 years old. But it is strikingly relevant to our times— from the search for immortality to the obsession with power to environmental crisis and climate destruction. I love this ancient epic and Andrew George’s translation is just fabulous.