The Smyrna Corner: An Epic Tale of Money, Love & Politics Set in the Crumbling Ottoman Empire on the Eve of World War I Paperback – March 29, 2011

I was not sure what to expect when I first opened the book, but was very quickly mesmerized by the story and eager to learn how it would unravel. The author has done a very clever job in combining current events that most people have become familiar with in the recent years (such as economic crisis, distressed companies, politics and exploitative investment mentality) in the context of actual events that occurred 100 years ago. The whole situation is brought alive with lively characters and series of events where we follow an ambitious young man that is sent to Turkey to save the distressed family business in Hungary. Local events in Turkey as well as significant geopolitical events in Europe affect how these matters eventually develop. The way the author conveys the story, allows you to experience the emotional "roller coaster" ride that the main character in particular goes through during a period of several years. I actually wanted the story to continue after I finished and look forward reading more from the author, Charles Thoma. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in world affairs, entrepreneurship, history and WWI.

Like Denise, I was looking forward to the book, then found every page printed with the large watermark "Authorhouse". Since I'm going to be spending next week studying Turkey - which is why I thought an historical novel would be good to read this week - I'm going to try to get through it, but it is irritating. Unfortunately, I hadn't read down to her review when I ordered it. The first few reviews sounded fine. Sounds like there are some copies that are clean and some with this dumb watermark.

I've just closed the book, and can't describe how much I enjoyed the couple of weeks I spent reading it. I am from Smryna, and I like reading about the history of the city/region a lot. Though fiction, this in particular was one of those most informative and equally 'entertaining' books I've ever read, although the content is far from being... entertaining. Buy it if you're into late Ottoman - early modern Turkish history, European political history circa World War I, and if you like thinking about emerging nation-states, dissolving empires, cosmopolitanism, modernity and even gender equality (and of course literature!)

I was looking so forward to this book but, on it's arrival found every page (front and back) was over printed with a logo and the words 'authorhouse' in a dark enough grey to make it difficult to read some letters beneath it. I tried reading a few pages, then gave up as the enjoyable flow of reading was lost. A faint watermark may have been more acceptable but why, I ask, is the annoying overprint necessary at all? Very, very disappointing. The book was well bound and, overall, of good quality but will remain unread.

Really enjoyed this book -excellent tale of political manoeuvring and romance set in a rich canvas of Ottoman life. Great to see the main female character is a strong, independent and an intelligent woman.

Well, I enjoyed every bit, the writer captures perfectly the atmosphere of those days before WWI. It is fun to read but it has a serious historical approach...and a question for future readers, aren't so many of the things that happen in the book so familiar in today's business world?

I was intrigued by the title of this book since in the early 1960's, as an American, I lived for many years in various parts of Turkey and would spend the summers in Izmir with my wife's family. The family was unusual, of mixed Levantine and Cretan Muslim background, and my mother-in-law still had vivid and first hand memories of the events of events that occurred at the time of the First World War and its aftermath. The family was definitely not wealthy, as were the great Levantine families--the so-called Bornova English--of Bornova, Buca, Cordelio and the like. Cosmopolitan, multi-lingual (they spoke and mixed in the same sentence Greek, French, Italian, Turkish and Arabic in such a way that I had many times to beg them just to speak in Turkish simply so I could be part of the conversation), they were, in fact, the remnants of the once thriving world of Gavur Izmir that had existed until 1922. And indeed, they were shaped by those events, as minorities always are, careful to blend in as much as possible with the majority Muslim Turkish community in the new Izmir.The tales they told of that lost world as it existed before the First World War introduced me a past that remains vivid to me fifty years later. And it is for that reason that I so enjoyed this book. The author (I would like to know more about his background) clearly has his facts straight. He knows the locations and the great but now no longer extant cosmopolitan gathering places of pre-war Istanbul and Izmir. (Indeed, my wife's great grandmother was a violinist in the Grand Hotel Kramer on the Izmir Kordon, a location that figures importantly in the book.) In many ways I think the author has caught both the physical setting and the atmosphere of that lost world, and I found the book both a good read and the product of careful research and close knowledge. Definitely recommended.One personal note I would like to add: the events of the early decades of the 20th century were in many ways horrendous for all communities--Turkish, Greek, Armenian, Jewish--in the dying Ottoman State. My mother-in-law, who lived through them and experienced so much, however, never, even in her most private moments, harbored animosities about the past. She often said that we (meaning Muslim and Christians) all suffered so much. But she also recounted stories about how Muslim Turkish watchmen hid her and her mother in the cemeteries of Izmir during those terrible days and protected them from harm so that ultimately the family survived.

Great book for anyone who wants to expand their horizons, appreciate the years before World War I in the Ottoman Empire, build vocabulary, and, as I, relive moments traveling in Turkey. It is a political page turner! A page-turner with accurate and interesting descriptions of Turkey, the Ottoman empire, the wheeling/dealing/conniving of big business and politicians (still true today), the cultural mores of the time - and a love story....

This product for some unknown reason has the publishers logo as a large watermark on ever page making reading difficult