The present is confounded by the future, the future is confounded by the future beyond it, and the memories bubble up in disorder, and the heart is unpredictable.

Because we cannot fly, we are condemned to do things that do not agree with us. Because we have no wings we are pushed into struggles and abominations that we did not seek, and then, after all that, the years go by, the mountains are levelled, the valleys rise, the rivers blocked by sand and the cliffs fall into the sea.

It tells the story of a small town in southern Anatolia and how it fits in to the great upheavals of war, religion and nationalism in the early 1900s.

“Man is a bird without wings and a bird is a man without sorrows.”

It is a beautifully written, historical war story – detailing the cost of History lessons.

The same author as Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (another “you should read”)

Birds without Wings, Louise de Bernieres, 2004