The New Life — Orhan Pamuk

I read a book one day and my whole life was changed So begins The New Life Orhan Pamuk s fabulous road novel about a young student who yearns for the life promised by a dangerously magical book He falls in love abandons his studies turns his back on home and family and embarks on restless bus trips through the provinces in pursuit of an elusive vision This is a wondrous odyssey laying bare the rage of an arid heartland In coffee houses with black and white TV sets on buses where passengers ride watching B movies on flickering screens in wrecks along the highway in paranoid fictions with spies as punctual as watches the magic of Pamuk s creation comes alive