There are Rivers in the Sky Paperback – 8 August 2024

Excellent as expected

Some books tell stories and some books become experiences—There Are Rivers in the Sky is the latter. It doesn’t just unfold in time; it moves like a river, bending, circling back, carrying fragments of history, memory and melancholy in its current. From the very first page, I found myself immersed in a world where history isn’t just something that happened—it lingers, shifts, and seeps into the present like water through cracks in ancient stone. The novel follows Arthur, a man whose life is shaped by absence, loss and a relentless pursuit of the forgotten. His story is intertwined with lost civilizations, fragile memories and people who exist in the liminal space between belonging and exile.What truly makes this book remarkable is its emotional undercurrent. It doesn’t just describe sorrow—it lets you feel the weight of histories erased, cultures displaced and identities fractured. And yet, it never feels overwhelming. Like a river, the novel carries its melancholy gently, making it something beautiful rather than burdensome. Few books use water as a narrative device as powerfully as this one. Water preserves, erases, heals and destroys. It is a metaphor for time itself, a force that both remembers and forgets.The novel’s nonlinear structure mirrors how memory actually works—it drifts, loops and resurfaces, never truly leaving us. Its characters feel like echoes of lost civilizations, people caught in history’s tide, never fully anchored and always searching. One of the thing which resonated with me very much is how this book treats melancholy—not as something to escape, but as something that connects us—to history, to memory and to one another. It soothed me in ways I didn’t expect and it lingers in my mind like the remnants of a dream.Some books are written in ink—this one feels written in water, flowing through you long after you’ve finished reading. If you are drawn to stories about lost knowledge, human fragility and the way time shapes us, then There Are Rivers in the Sky will stay with you long after you’ve closed its pages.

Elif Shafak takes you from the source to the delta of two magnificent rivers interwining a tale of three water-bound characters.The book bounces from London to Mesopotamia, from the 19th century to the 21st.There was a pang of sadness when the book ended, would have loved to learn what happened to Narin as an adult, would Arthur ever find his convictions again and whether in the future the Thames and the Tigris would flow again, fresh as a spring, undammed and mystical.

Though “not happy” ends do not suit me….for this book…i just wanted it to end somehow. Of all suffering and sadness in this masterpiece of a book….Narin’s welled up eyes at the end will haunt me for days.

"Water remembers. It is humans who forget."Even a single raindrop.Thus begins the master storyteller, Elif Shafak's , "There are Rivers in the Sky".When one writes about history, it's a narration of what has been told many times over. The approach of a writer, is what, sets it apart. Here, Elif deploys the journey of a drop of water, to illustrate the times, from the ancient ruins of Nineveh in Mesopotamia to the birth and life of Arthur in Victorian London, to Narin of the Yezdi community, by the river Tigris in Turkey, to Zaleekhah, a hydrologist in London, in 2018.The extensively researched account of each period is an attention holder. The Epic of Gilgamesh, an iconic poem in the Cuneiform script holds centrestage.Woven around them are stories of antiquities, mysticism, cultural appropriation, war, immigration, race conflicts and genocide.Elif Shafak holds one spellbound with her expertise - interspersed are lyrical quotes and elaborate, vivid descriptions of the prevailing atmosphere and settings. A departure from her previous books, this acclaimed top lister, reinforces her stature as a commanding writer.A life philosophy embedded, in her lines from the book -"Go like water, come back like water-freely and easily."Highly recommended.

What an amazing book. Parallel stories running together but all integrated in a common theme. Elifs books are magical, and I am unashamedly a big fan.

The story begins in ancient Nineveh, where King Ashurbanipal builds a great library that would eventually crumble. But from its ruins emerges a poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh, that would go on to inspire and connect the lives of three individuals: Arthur, a young boy growing up in 19th-century London; Narin, a 10-year-old Yazidi girl living in modern-day Turkey; and Zaleekah, a hydrologist who has just moved into a houseboat on the Thames.What we loved about this book is the way the author brings these characters to life. Each of their stories is unique and compelling, and yet they are all connected by a single thread: the power of rivers to transcend time and fate. The Tigris and the Thames become characters in their own right, symbolizing both life and death.