The enchantress of Florence - Salman Rushdie

This is not the first book by Salman Rushdie that I read. He somehow reminds me of Umberto Eco: impressive historical references, wonderful command of the language and astonishing creativity.
The main locations of the novel are Mughal Hindustan and Florence, Italy; many chapters, though, are based in between those two places: Uzbekistan, Persia and the Ottoman Empire above all.

Jerusalem: the biography - Simon Sebag Montefiore

The history of the holy and mystical city par excellence from King’s David reign to the intifadas.
This is a marvelous work by a famous historian who manages to tell the history of the city basing it on written, oral and archeological sources, stating merits and faults of all the people, civilizations and religions that had a part in it.

1914 - Luciano Canfora

This is a brief essay about the sequence of events that, over the course of a few weeks, triggered what has come to be known as The Great War or World War I. The year is 1914. Europe has enjoyed almost fifty year of peace, marked by economic growth, scientific and technological progress and social reforms. There still are some unresolved issues, neglected tensions and unsatiated appetites in the air though, and the situation will come to a critical point in the summer of that year.

Istanbul: memories and the city - Orhan Pamuk

I’ve seen this book on the same shelf of my parent’s house bookcase for a few years. I thought it was a novel, I don’t know why. When I finally picked it up I found out that it is actually a collection of memoirs. Every chapter deals with a different topic. Sometimes it’s an area of the city, sometimes a person, a building, a situation, a life phase. This work doesn’t feature a proper narrative thread. It is rather a set of recurring themes - mostly sensations - that keeps together not only the pages of the book, but - the author feels - also the city and the people who live in it.
Istanbul - aka Byzantium or Constantinople - and its inhabitants are torn between the desire for modernization and westernization on one hand, and the melancholy and longing for a glorious past which is no more on the other: poverty, mess and filth are always there to remind one of the reality of that loss.