2006 Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk delivers a new novel filled with headlong intensity and mesmerizing prose. Narrator Osman, a university student in Istanbul, lays a spell on the reader with the opening words: ?I read a book one day and my whole life was changed.? This book, which opens the door to the promise of a new life, affects Osman to the point that he abandons his studies, turns his back on home and family and embarks on a wondrous odyssey.