Anjuli Pandavar Picks "A Strangeness in My Mind"

Pamuk is one of my all-time favourite authors. His Nobel Prize-winning My Name is Red, my all-time favourite book, helped propel me into historical fiction in general and the Eastern mediaeval world in particular. But why do I think it'd be of interest to Shanghai-based globalists? Because, "his new novel describes the dizzying period when Istanbul’s population increased from three to 13 million. Weaving his way through this mutating landscape, where old meets new and east meets west, is Mevlut Karata, who, aged 12, migrates with his father from rural Anatolia." Knowing Shanghai, is it possible to read this book without experiencing double-exposure? I'm sure that a reader who has experienced Shanghai cannot read this book in the same way as a reader who has not experienced Shanghai. Is the double exposure necessarily a bad thing, an interference with what Pamuk intended? I don't think so. I would guess that A Strangeness in my Mind is about being a consciously urban person. Of course I would say that — I teach Cities and Urban Consciousness.