From Morocco, Malta, and Andalusia in the West, to Turkey, Lebanon, and Iran in the East, the food and flavors of the Middle East permeate almost every aspect of daily life.

Orange blossom and rose petals, spice-encrusted slow-cooked meats, fermented yogurts, dates, and olives- these are the flavors that have entranced visitors for centuries and that have recently experienced a surge in popularity in Western kitchens. Award-winning Maltese-Australian chef Shane Delia journeys to both the well-trodden souks and private dining rooms of locals across six countries, in search of the most exciting local flavors to bring back to his kitchen.

East/West offers 80 recipes, distilled for the home cook. Accompanied by hundreds of stunning images shot on location, this is a book for foodies and anyone who has ever dreamed of taking their own culinary journey.

Nicholas Dylan Ray grew up next to a US national park, whose mountains and forests he explored to escape his troubled home. As a young man, he left the United States, and aged twenty-two set out on a six-month journey from France to Tibet, traveling through Turkey. That journey forms the first chapter of this book, and led to a career working with the Middle East. In middle age, the author returned to the road, traveling throughout Turkey. In the six subsequent chapters, one for each journey, he recounts his adventures, discusses the archaeology and history of the places visited, and the people met along the way.

In Konya he is transported by the beauty of an Arabic quotation from the Qur'an inscribed on Rumi's tomb. In Istanbul, among Syrian refugees, he considers the concept of charity in Islam. In Antalya, just after the ISIS terrorist attack in his adopted country of France, he analyses the textual foundations of jihadism in Islamic law. Within earshot of the shelling in Syria, he contemplates genocide, and climbs Musa Dagh mountain, the last redoubt of the Armenians who fought the Ottoman troops in 1915. In the coastal region of the Black Sea, he examines the monastic urge in religion and experiments with fasting during Ramadan. And finally, on the northwestern Mediterranean coast, he visits two battlefields, Troy and Gallipoli, before returning to Istanbul for a last visit to Sultanahmet, the center of the Islamic world for five centuries.

During these wanderings Nicholas Dylan Ray shares with the reader his deep knowledge of Islamic religion, culture, and history, discussing the foundational texts and their role in current events in the Middle East. He also takes note of those who have traveled these lands before him and reflects on the mixed experience of travel itself.

Throughout the millennia Turkey formed the core of several Empires- Persia, Rome, Byzantium- before becoming the center of the Ottoman Empire. All these civilizations have left their marks on the landscape, architecture and art of Turkey- a place of fascinating overlapping cultures.

A Traveller's History of Turkey offers a concise and readable account of the region from prehistory right up to the present day. It covers everything from the legendary Flood of Noah, the early civilization of Catal Huyuk seven thousand years before Christ, through the treasures of Troy, Alexander the Great, the Romans, Seljuks, Byzantines and the Golden Age of the Sultans, to the twentieth century's great changes wrought by Kemal Ataturk and the strong position Turkey now holds in the world community.

The Ottoman Turks, rulers of what was one of the world's greatest empires, had a passion for decoration that manifested itself in every aspect of their lives, not least in the textiles with which they adorned themselves, their homes, and palaces.

Ottoman Embroidery is the first book ever to look at the whole range of embroidered textiles produced within this important and highly influential culture, from the commonest leggings and handkerchiefs to the costliest robes and decorated tents. It draws widely on textiles from both private and museum collections in Europe, Turkey and the United States of America. Throughout the main period of the Ottoman Empire-from the capture of Istanbul in 1453 to the creation of the Turkish Republic in 1923-textiles were the most important and valuable element in international trade. Embroidery by hand was the usual form of textile decoration, and this persisted alongside machine embroidery into the early years of the 20th century.

Ottoman embroidery is distinguished by the boldness and richness of both pattern and color, always handled with great assurance and an innate design sense, especially when combined, as it invariably is, with great technical skill. What adds to its fascination is the fact that historical changes in society and the mixture of cultural influences are so often reflected in the textiles. The sumptuous and confident use of shapes and colors is beautifully borne out in the 140 color photographs that bring alive the lucid and well informed text.

The book's chief focus is the various forms of embroidered domestic textiles, although it also looks at larger, more public textiles made for the palaces and the civil services. Geographically, the focus is on the embroideries made in the Turkish mainland in Asia and Europe, but some work produced further afield in the Empire showing influences of the Ottoman styles is also included.

The history of the city where East meets West spans 28 centuries. Istanbul, the ancient and timeless heart of modern Turkey, is a city with its mythological origins in the seventh century BC. Founded as Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire by Constantine the Great, during the 1000-year Byzantine Empire that followed it was a city of fabled riches. After its fall to the Turks in 1453, the splendors of the Ottoman Empire kept it glorious.

Drawing on diaries, letters, memoirs, histories and novels from the sixth-century AD onwards, this inspiring anthology recreates the vanished glories of the city, and includes: coronation of a Byzantine emperor; funeral of a sultan; triumphal entry of Mehmet the Conqueror; building of the Süleymaniye, the most magnificent of the city's mosques; harems in the sixteenth century; death of Atatürk in 1938; Byzantine holy relics; Turkish baths and coffee-houses. All this and much more is vividly described in the words of those who were actually there, to offer an original and indispensable companion for the discriminating traveller.

Byzantium, Constantinople, Istanbul: these are only three names that have been given to the city that straddles two continents, was the capital of two multinational empires and is today a vibrant commercial and artistic city, the largest in Turkey and, after Moscow, the largest in Europe.

With its location as a port, Istanbul has always absorbed ideas, people and styles from north, south, east and west. Its multiculturalism is a microcosm of the world's. Neither standard guide nor conventional history, this is rather a celebration of an extraordinary city, reviewing its imperial histories and exploring some of its lesser known corners.