A review by marilynsaul
Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernières

5.0

This is the best book I have read in ages. deBernieres takes you into a village in Turkey and one soon becomes enamored of its residents. Unlike many authors who would just lay the characters out in a chapter or so, you slowly learn about them at varying points in the book, making a weaving much like what one would find in a village or small community. Best of all, I learned about Turkey during WWI, WWII, and the war for independence. I'm not much for war books, but what kept me involved were the consequences to the people in the village, the complicated political finagling that changes peoples' lives forever. It was very apropos to understanding what is going on in the middle east and eastern Europe today, and it led me to delve into Ataturk's history. This was an absolutely AMAZING book; well-researched, well-written, and leaving one for more. As an afterword, I then read Corelli's Mandolin, which was a huge disappointment. There was still the wonderful lyrical writing, but no weaving and a terribly unsatisfactory ending. It appears the deBernieres' publishers won the day by forcing him to write a hurried, trite novel. So if you're going to start reading deBernieres, start with Birds!!!