Gunpowder

Travel

Goodwin, Jason

Asia

RANDOM HOUSE UK

This is the story of Jason Goodwin's trek through Eastern Europe, from the dykes and marshes of Poland's Baltic coast across to the Golden Horn in Istanbul. In the company of two friends he traversed some of the most beautiful and tragic places in the world - this book tells of them and of the varied characters to be met there.

On Foot to the Golden Horn : A Walk to Istanbul

Penguin??Books

Lords of the Horizons: A History of the Ottoman Empire

For six hundred years, the Ottoman Empire swelled and declined. Islamic, martial, civilized, and tolerant, it advanced in three centuries from the dusty foothills of Anatolia to rule on the Danube and the Nile; at its height, Indian rajahs and the kings of France beseeched the empire's aid. In its last three hundred years the empire seemed ready to collapse, a prodigy of survival and decay. In this striking evocation of the empire's power, Jason Goodwin explores how the Ottomans rose and how, against all odds, they lingered on. In doing so, he also offers a long look back to the origins of problems that plague present-day Kosovars and Serbs.

History

Europe

Picador

On Foot to the Golden Horn recounts Jason Goodwin’s breathtaking journey with two companions through Eastern Europe from the dikes and marshes of Poland’s Baltic coast across to the Golden Horn in Istanbul. Along the way, they sleep in haystacks, drink with Gypsies, and play with Ceaucescu’s orphans, meeting with blatant hostility and overwhelming hospitality as an older Europe tries to settle with itself, and a new one struggles to be born. It is the story of three friends’ walk through some of the world’s most beautiful and tragic places, and of their encounters with a varied and vivid cast of characters.

On Foot to the Golden Horn: A Walk to Istanbul

Middle East

With the wry and admiring eye of a modern Tocqueville, Jason Goodwin gives us a biography of the dollar and the story of its astonishing career through the wilds of American history. Looking at the dollar over the years as a form of art, a kind of advertising, and a reflection of American attitudes, Goodwin delves into folklore and the development of printing, investigates wildcats and counterfeiters, explains why a buck is a buck and how Dixie got its name. Bringing together an array of quirky detail and often hilarious anecdote, Goodwin tells the story of America through its most beloved product.

Greenback: The Almighty Dollar and the Invention of America

Americas

WINNER OF THE EDGAR AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL This first book in the Investigator Yashim series is a richly entertaining tale, full of exotic history and intrigue, introduces Investigator Yashim: In 1830s Istanbul, an extra-ordinary hero tackles an extraordinary plot that threatens to topple the Ottoman Empire
It is 1836. Europe is modernizing, and the Ottoman Empire must follow suit. But just before the Sultan announces sweeping changes, a wave of murders threatens the fragile balance of power in his court. Who is behind them? Only one intelligence agent can be trusted to find out: Yashim Lastname, a man both brilliant and near-invisible in this world. You see, Yashim is a eunuch. 
He leads us into the palace's luxurious seraglios and Istanbul's teeming streets, and leans on the wisdom of a dyspeptic Polish ambassador, a transsexual dancer, and a Creole-born queen mother. And he introduces us to the Janissaries. For 400 years, they were the empire's elite soldiers, but they grew too powerful, and ten years ago, the Sultan had them crushed. Are the Janissaries staging a brutal comeback?

The Janissary Tree: A Novel (Investigator Yashim, 1)

Literature & Fiction

United States

Detective, polyglot, chef, eunuch--Investigator Yashim returns in this evocative Edgar® Award–winning series set in Istanbul at the end of the Ottoman Empire Istanbul, 1838. In his palace on the Bosphorus, Sultan Mahmud II is dying and the city swirls with rumors and alarms. The unexpected arrival of a French archaeologist determined to track down lost Byzantine treasures throws the Greek community into confusion. Yashim Togalu is once again enlisted to investigate. But when the archaeologist's mutilated body is discovered outside the French embassy, it turns out there is only one suspect: Yashim himself. As the body count starts to rise, Yashim must uncover the startling truth behind a shadowy society dedicated to the revival of the Byzantine Empire, encountering along the way such vibrant characters as Lord Byron's doctor and the Sultan's West Indies–born mother, the Valide. With striking wit and irresistible flair, Jason Goodwin takes us into a world where the stakes are high, betrayal is death--and the pleasure to the reader is immense.

The Snake Stone: A Novel (Investigator Yashim, 2)

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Mystery

Investigator Yashim travels to Venice in the latest installment of the Edgar® Award–winning author Jason Goodwin's captivating historical mystery series
Jason Goodwin's first Yashim mystery, The Janissary Tree, brought home the Edgar® Award for Best Novel. His follow-up, The Snake Stone, more than lived up to expectations and was hailed by Marilyn Stasio in The New York Times Book Review as "a magic carpet ride to the most exotic place on earth." Now, in The Bellini Card, Jason Goodwin takes us back into his "intelligent, gorgeous and evocative" (The Independent on Sunday) world, as dazzling as a hall of mirrors and utterly compelling.
Istanbul, 1840: the new sultan, Abdülmecid, has heard a rumor that Bellini's vanished masterpiece, a portrait of Mehmet the Conqueror, may have resurfaced in Venice. Yashim, our eunuch detective, is promptly asked to investigate, but -- aware that the sultan's advisers are against any extravagant repurchase of the painting -- decides to deploy his disempowered Polish ambassador friend, Palewski, to visit Venice in his stead. Palewski arrives in disguise in down-and-out Venice, where a killer is at large as dealers, faded aristocrats, and other unknown factions seek to uncover the whereabouts of the missing Bellini.
But is it the Bellini itself that endangers all, or something associated with its original loss? And why is it that all the killer's victims are somehow tied to the alluring Contessa d'Aspi d'Istria? Will the Austrians unmask Palewski, or will the killer find him first? Only Yashim can uncover the truth behind the manifold mysteries.
The Paperback Edition Includes an Author Interview, Bonus Inspector Yashim Recipe, and an Excerpt from the Next Inspector Yashim Mystery, An Evil Eye

The Bellini Card (Investigator Yashim)

Genre Fiction

Investigator Yashim travels to Venice in the latest installment of the Edgar Awardwinning author Jason Goodwins captivating series Jason Goodwins first Yashim mystery, The Janissary Tree, brought home the Edgar Award for Best Novel. His follow-up, The Snake Stone, more than lived up to expectations and was hailed by Marilyn Stasio in The New York Times Book Review as a magic carpet ride to the most exotic place on earth. Now, in The Bellini Card, Jason Goodwin takes us back into his intelligent, gorgeous and evocative (The Independent on Sunday) world, as dazzling as a hall of mirrors and utterly compelling. Istanbul, 1840: the new sultan, Abdülmecid, has heard a rumor that Bellinis vanished masterpiece, a portrait of Mehmet the Conqueror, may have resurfaced in Venice. Yashim, our eunuch detective, is promptly asked to investigate

The Bellini Card

Farrar. Straus and Giroux

From the Edgar® Award–winning author of The Janissary Tree comes the fourth and most captivating Investigator Yashim mystery yet! It takes a writer of prodigious talents to conjure the Istanbul of the Ottoman Empire in all its majesty. In three previous novels, Jason Goodwin has taken us on stylish, suspenseful, and vibrant excursions into its exotic territory. Now, in An Evil Eye, the mystery of Istanbul runs deeper than ever before. It’s 1839, and the admiral of the Ottoman fleet has defected to the Egyptians. It’s up to the intrepid Investigator Yashim to uncover the man’s motives. Of course, Fevzi Ahmet is no stranger to Yashim—it was Fevzi who taught the investigator his craft years ago. He’s the only man whom Yashim has ever truly feared: ruthless, cruel, and unswervingly loyal to the sultan. So what could have led Yashim’s former mentor to betray the Ottoman Empire? Yashim’s search draws him into the sultan’s seraglio, a well-appointed world with an undercurrent of fear, ambition, and deep-seated superstition. When the women of the sultan’s orchestra begin inexplicably to grow ill and die, Yashim discovers that the admiral’s defection may be rooted somewhere in the torturous strictures of the sultan’s harem. No one knows more about the Ottoman Empire and Istanbul than Jason Goodwin, of whom Janet Maslin wrote in The New York Times: “Mr. Goodwin uses rich historical detail to elevate the books in this series . . . far above the realm of everyday sleuthing.”

An Evil Eye: A Novel (Investigator Yashim)

Sarah Crichton Books

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Goodwin, Jason. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Goodwin, Jason