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10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World - (Mass-Market)-(Budget-Print)

Name: 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World - (Mass-Market)-(Budget-Print)
Brand: Local Books
SKU: LBDHA336
Price: 2.0 GBP
Availability: OutOfStock
Rating: 4.4 (20 reviews)

20 reviews

£2.00 GBP

Author :Elif Shafak

Condition : New digital printed

Binding : Paper Back

Pages : 320

Publisher : Local Books

Language : English

Publication Year : 2021

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2019

'Expect vibrant, vivid and eye-opening descriptions of Middle Eastern life propelled by a tender storyline, all in Shafak's haunting, beautiful and considered prose' Vanity Fair

'Incredibly sensuous and poetic and evocative' Pandora Sykes

'Richly uplifting... truly beautiful writing' Nicola Sturgeon

'In the first minute following her death, Tequila Leila's consciousness began to ebb, slowly and steadily, like a tide receding from the shore...'

For Leila, each minute after her death recalls a sensuous memory: spiced goat stew, sacrificed by her father to celebrate the birth of a yearned-for son; bubbling vats of lemon and sugar to wax women's legs while men are at prayer; the cardamom coffee she shares with a handsome student in the brothel where she works. Each fading memory brings back the friends she made in her bittersweet life - friends who are now desperately trying to find her . . .

'Simply magnificent, a truly captivating work of immense power and beauty, on the essence of life and its end' Philippe Sands

'Elif Shafak brings into the written realm what so many others want to leave outside. Spend more than ten minutes and 38 seconds in this world of the estranged. Shafak makes a new home for us in words' Colum McCann

'Elif Shafak's extraordinary 10 Minutes, 38 Seconds in this Strange World is a work of brutal beauty and consummate tenderness' Simon Schama

'A rich, sensual novel... This is a novel that gives voice to the invisible, the untouchable, the abused, and the damaged, weaving their painful songs into a thing of beauty.' Financial Times

'One of the best writers in the world today Hanif Kureishi

'Haunting, moving, beautifully written. A masterpiece' Peter Frankopan

'Extraordinary' Guardian

'Life-affirming' Stylist

*Elif Shafak's latest novel The Island of Missing Trees is available now*

SKU: LBDHA336

Barcode: 9357447904803

Availability : In Stock In Stock Out of stock

Categories: Budget Print Fiction, Local books (budget Prints)

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Description

Author :Elif Shafak

Condition : New digital printed

Binding : Paper Back

Pages : 320

Publisher : Local Books

Language : English

Publication Year : 2021

Customer Reviews

4.4

Based on 20 reviews

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Katie

Oct 14, 2022

This book is all about the characters, and alongside Tequila Leila, Istanbul is the protagonist.Heartbreaking, life-affirming, stunning writing. Tequila Leila and her band of friends paint an amazing picture of Istanbul from the ‘70s to the ‘90s, through national political and social unrest, to the stunning geography portrayed.The book is very unusual, in the fact that first of all, the main protagonist is dead.Tequila Leila has just been murdered and dumped unceremoniously in a dustbin and waits for someone to find her body. Because, while dying, her consciousness is still very active, and for 10 minutes and 38 seconds she is able to look back on her short but eventful life. With her we live her childhood, and later those of The Five, her quintet of comrades who later have to face life without her. The second half of the book focuses on them, and we see how Leila brought them all together.From her strained relationship with her family to her escape to the city and her career in prostitution, her life is accounted in stunning detail and we get to know her so well.Alongside The Five’s attempts to deal with their loss, we glimpse vignettes of Istanbul life that give clues to the circumstances around Leila’s death.A stunning book, heart wrenching but strangely comforting, that I won’t forget in a hurry, this is one of my top reads of the year.

Bukola Akinyemi

Mar 25, 2022

They say a person’s life flashes through their mind just before death.Researchers at various world-renowned institutions had observed persistent brain activity in people who had just died; in some cases this has lasted for only a few minutes. In others, for as much as ten minutes and thirty eight seconds.In this book, in the ten minutes and thirty eight seconds after Laila died, we go through every part of her life. From her much anticipated birth and near death soon after, to her demise with no family to call her own.There are flash backs to sexual abuse as a child, love and loss, family problems, great friendships, marriage, survival and death.Laila had five great friends in life and in death, each of them is special and we get to read about each one’s interesting story.Set in Instanbul, this book features many real life historical events. The writing is very accessible and interesting.The pace of this story was fast, I wanted to know what would happen at each point and found it hard to put the book down.It is a sad book because it reflects on all the terrible things Leila had been through, the story starts off with her being dead in a rubbish bin so it’s not rosy but it is beautifully written.I enjoyed discovering each one of her five friends and how united they were in loving Laila even though they were so different.Quote:“Religion for her had always been a source of hope, resilience and love - a lift that carried her up from the basement of darkness into a spiritual light. It pained her that the same lift could just as easily take others all the way down.”“While it is true that nothing could take the place of a loving, happy blood family, in the absence of one, a good water family could wash away the hurt and pain collected inside like black soot

kate tutty

Oct 23, 2022

A really unusual and gripping tale.

Patsy

Oct 8, 2022

I liked this book because it threw into this woman’s world a mixed and wonderful bag of traumatised but ultimately beautiful souls who experienced love in its truest form. A thoughtful gathering of friends who were each both different and the same, human beings trying to get through, despite huge difficulties. The message is that we are all one and the only real thing we need is true friendship ie love.❣️

shopper801

Sep 11, 2022

This novel claims to incorporate real-life events and locations, including the 1977 demonstration at the 'Intercontinental' hotel. But there are several factual errors within the text, not least the name of the featured hotel, which was actually known as the Sheraton during the time frame of the book (it did not become the Intercontinental until 1996). Such inaccuracies reveal a lack of rigorous research. They also totally undermine the credibility of the narrative.

Jul 31, 2022

I loved how the concept and idea of this book was written. 80 of this book was written with great depth and I couldn’t put it down. However, the ending was very weak and I didn’t believe what was happening- I didn’t get the dolphins!

Amazon Customer

Jul 29, 2022

Wow wow wow, what an amazing story. I loved this story from the first page. The characters are beautifully written and you become involved in each characters life. The descriptions of Istanbul are beautiful and really help bring the story to life.Thank you for such a delightful story

Nadia in Northumberland

Jul 26, 2022

A worthy Booker prize shortlist title. Through the stories of the main character's friends, and of course Leila herself, you are transported into their worlds and their lives. I enjoyed the vivid language, the smells and tastes that are woven into the descriptions of the characters' experiences, but also the astute sense of time and place.

Kindle Customer

Jul 23, 2022

An extraordinary book, addressing a singular moment in life: death. Elif Shafak achieves such a sensitive moment with delicacy and dare I say it, humour. A moment seldom touched. And herein lies the key... I have noticed, also with the only other Turkish writer I have read, Orhan Pamuk, something in Turkish culture endows its writers with the ability to open the cracks in everything, which, as Leonard Cohen points out, is where the light gets in. A marvellous book.

Happy shopper

Jun 20, 2022

Te book was easy to read and worthwhile reading

Sophie28

Jun 7, 2022

Such a beautiful story of love, friendship and acceptance in their many forms. Can’t recommend it enough.

sheila

May 21, 2022

Imaginative, poetic, insightful- I highly recommend this book for a journey into the secret lives of so-called respectable people, and through the backstreets of Istanbul. Hypocrisy is there…ignorance…humanity and love.I did find the second two parts of the book rather less engaging as the ‘present’ is encountered.