Where to even start!? I loved this book so incredibly much that I’m almost at a loss for words. I truly wish I could read it for the first time all over again. Elif Shafak is a beautiful writer, and she could not have created a more compelling story. This story was a simply a masterpiece, and I cannot recommend it enough! Please do yourself a favor and read this!!

Thank you @netgalley and Knopf for this advanced readers copy!

This was a very interesting book.I'd like how to start it in old times then went to the eighteen hundreds To present times. It starts out in Ancient Times with king who resided in the middle east. He was a very powerful king.And he liked to Read on tablets. And it always started with the drop of water. Things went crazy and then the story jumped to eighteen forties in london when arthur was born on the T h a n e s River. He had a hard life but he made something himself. Loved the Middle East with the British Museum. Bring artifacts back. From.
The middle east. He Add a drop of water on him when he was born. We follow author through the times. Then J a n p s 22 thousand fourteen. N a r I n was a girl who grew up in turkey but her family was from the middle east. Her grandmother had stories about this From the past. Things do not go well for this family. They went back. T o homeland which was in iraq. Things Do not go well in there.They had a terrible M ASS AC. R.. They explain how they How to move in?The old days too because of the same problem. Then it jumped back to.
Arthur going there for the first time the cousin of the Blue tablet which he deciphered. He was a hero.
Because of this. Then JANP2 2018 with this woman names Z.A.L e k h a n. She was studying water and was going through a divorce. Her uncle loved the Middle East.He was from there. There was a book. Called NI NE CE HRE M.A t a s.. The book really fascinated when they talked about these different rivers being covered up. You're talking about a drop of water and how you're tired everything together in this book.

One of the most beautifully written books I have read this year, There Are Rivers in the Sky uses the imagery of water to weave together the stories of an apprentice at a printing press in Victorian London, a young Yazidi girl living by the River Tigris in 2014 and a hydrologist newly separated from her husband and living in a houseboat on the Thames in 2018.

We start off in the ancient Mesopotamian city of Nineveh during the reign of Ashurbanipal, known as an erudite ruler and curator of an extensive library. His most prized possession? A section from one of the oldest poems in the world, the Epic of Gilgamesh.

This poem and the imagery of water connects the three timelines so they collectively tell a larger story about the interconnectivity of life and its circular nature.
I adored all the references to rivers and bodies of water, especially the sections that discussed the hidden rivers that still flow beneath many major cities in the world. It’s a beautiful metaphor of how what once brought life and substance can be pushed aside and hidden and yet can never truly be forgotten. How a single drop of rain can change its form and shape but never truly disappears.

Although I connected with all three characters, Arthur’s story especially pulled at my heart. Following his journey from being born at the muddy edge of a foul river to overcoming poverty, abuse and neglect, he never loses his innate curiosity about the world and his love of reading and learning. He’s awkward and unsociable, but his excitement for discovering ancient languages and yearning for travel and discovery made me adore him as a character.

Be warned though. There are many highly intense scenes and descriptions of torture, abuse, and genocide. It was an extremely emotion read for me, leaving me repeatedly putting the book down to calm down. But the author brings light an atrocity that I’m sure many people have not heard about, or if they have, it’s not discussed nearly enough. I’m so glad I read this book, even though it’s been my most emotional read of the year.

If you enjoy beautifully written prose, interconnected timelines, and love stories that focus on themes of rising above adversity, generational memory, and who controls the past, I highly recommend reading There Are Rivers in the Sky.

*Thanks to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage and Anchor, and to NetGalley for the digital arc. All opinions are my own.

Thanks, @aaknopf, for the review copy via NetGalley and @PRHAudio for the #gifted audiobook. #PRHAudioPartner #sponsored (Available now)

This epic tale (464 pages that felt like 664) follows a single drop of water as it falls, evaporates, and transforms repeatedly and how it interacts with people across centuries. “Water is the consummate immigrant, trapped in transit, never able to settle.”

Though the story begins in the ancient city of Nineveh, the rest focuses on three characters: Arthur (mid-1800s), a child who remembers everything down to a snowflake that landed on his face immediately following his birth; Narin (2014), a Yazidi girl learning about her grandmother’s history under the looming threat of ISIS; and Zaleekah (2018), a recently divorced and suicidal hydrologist.

I’m grateful for the audiobook (Olivia Vinall’s narration was lyrical and lovely) and that @rachellelovesbooks wanted to buddy-read this because I needed the motivation and discussion. I thought the research was impressive (I enjoyed the backstory in the author’s note) and the writing exceptional, especially how the author wove her themes deliberately through the text.

Ultimately, I agree with Rachelle: this was a book I appreciated rather than enjoyed.

Historical novels come in different shapes and sizes. By definition, all of them cover at least one prior century or decade; many portray past and present side by side. I can’t remember any other book, though, that stretches from ancient Nineveh to London in 2018, with stops in Victorian England and the post-Arab-Spring Middle East along the way. Yet Elif Shafak pulls off such a feat, intertwining the lives of her three main characters—Arthur (1840s–1870s), Narin (2014), and Zaleekhah (2018)—with aplomb.

What ties these disparate times and people together is the metaphor of water: water in the sense of the “Epic of Gilgamesh” (essential to the Nineveh portion and the world’s oldest description of a mighty flood, which morphed over time into Noah and his Ark), but also water in the depiction of the characters. Arthur is the oxygen atom, the center. Narin is the left hydrogen atom and Zaleekhah the right, and as in the water molecule itself, the two women bend together over the course of the story while retaining their loose connection to the oxygen that binds them. Water also exists in the ancient cuneiform for that substance, which again appears in different contexts as the novel unfolds.

In a “New York Times” book review that appeared in print this past week, the reviewer expressed his preference for Arthur’s story, a tale of a poor boy dragging himself out of the slums by his proverbial bootstraps and attracting popular acclaim for his scholarly investigation of Nineveh and its celebrated epic. It’s true: Arthur’s story is compelling, with strong action, an appealingly flawed hero, and rich description. But the two women, although quieter and more introspective, illuminate a deeper motif of “There Are Rivers in the Sky”: the ongoing mistreatment of women and girls.

Evidence of this theme appears early, with the patriarchal shift of writing from the goddess Nisaba to the god Nabu. It is expressed most strongly by Narin, a Yazidi girl whose people have often been misunderstood and at times massacred. Their largely unknown culture is lovingly explored here in a series of discussions between granddaughter and grandmother that end with ISIS’s vicious attack on the Yazidi in 2014. Zaleekhah bridges the gap: more economically privileged than Arthur and more culturally privileged than Narin, Zaleekhah nonetheless struggles to come to terms with her own history. She is also a hydrologist, professionally driven to track human-made natural disasters on our rivers and waterways.

“Water,” Elif Shafak declares, “has memory.” A single raindrop, perpetually ascending to the clouds and descending as rain or snow, ties her disparate threads together and, in doing so, reminds us that water gives life but can also destroy it. As this engrossing tale illustrates so beautifully, water deserves our respect and—in terms of our own self-interest, if nothing else—our support.

I plan to interview this author for the New Books Network (link below) in February 2025.

Elif Shafak is a born storyteller and this is further evidence. A drop of water travels from ancient Mesopotamia to 1840 London to 2014 Turkey to 2018 London. Reborn and endlessly recycled as it witnesses important moments in the lives of the characters that make up this ambitious multi-layered narrative that at times falters but at others soars and sparkles. This is a story of rivers and memories and the world's oldest epic poem, and how "Water remembers. It is humans who forget".

There are Rivers in the Sky follows a single drop of water thousands of years from King Ashurbanipal of Mesopotamia to a young man living in poverty in London in the 1840s who develops an interest in Ninevah to a young Yazidi girl in 2014 living along the Tigris to a hydrologist living in a riverboat on the Thames in 2018. The interwoven story is epic and beautiful, the details not becoming fully evident until the last page.

Connected narratives like There are Rivers in the Sky are one of my favorite kinds of stories, and connecting the characters through water was unique. Three of the four storylines were heartbreaking. I learned so much about Ninevah, Gilgamesh, Yazidi culture and genocide, theft of cultural artifacts by Britain and other countries, and re-routing of water in Mesopotamia.

Shafak's writing could have been more subtle. There was factual information inserted throughout the story; while the information was necessary for the story, it sometimes felt like it was forced into the narrative, reading as pushy or preachy. Further, I used the dictionary on my Kindle often; Shafak's word choice was unique and specific, again sometimes feeling unnatural.

I'd recommend There are Rivers in the Sky to readers who are looking for a complex and detailed narrative that also teaches.

There are Rivers in the Sky is an important, beautifully told, epic tale of a small subset of Middle Eastern history (Nineveh, and the Yazidi people), starting in Mesopotamian times, and moving forward to near modern day. The story fluctuates between: a woman with Mesopotamian roots, in London in 2018; a Yazidi grandmother and granddaughter stuck in what becomes an ethnic cleansing of Yazidis by the Islamic State in 2014; and a young British man in the 1870s, who is moved to obsession by histories of Nineveh, cuneiform, and the Epic of Gilgamesh.

All of these parties have special, magical traits. They are all, also, singularly moved by water, as a concept of life united beyond time or, truly, any divide. Yet they all live among stories of division - brutal poverty, religious discrimination, and more.

The reader is first guided through the special historical roots of Nineveh and the river Tigris, an area of biblical roots and early civilization. We are then brought to an understanding of the distinctions between subsequent belief systems, and the manners in which various historical groups attempt to assert their righteousness over others. Gilgamesh becomes relevant in its portrayal of the relationship between beauty and brutality, as the beginning of modern world.

Anyone with a literary background, or who is interested in, or a fan of the Epic of Gilgamesh, will find this fascinating. Beyond that, it offered me a history I did not previously know, all under an umbrella of magical unity of all.

One recurring totem is the Mesopotamian Forgotten Goddess (of storytellers):

“Nisaba is born of the union of heaven and earth, realms that seem so different and distant that it may not be clear what they have in common, and thus her gift – the art of writing – will always represent desire to a efface dualities, dissolve, hierarchies, and transcend boundaries.”

In Shafak’s book, water also serves this purpose, both literally by creating the clay that becomes written tablets, and metaphorically, in the forever reincarnated droplets of our existence.

Thank you, Knopf, and Net Galley, for this beautiful Arc.

I love how a book can transport you to another place and time, with details so vivid and alive, it feels like you are truly there. From ancient Mesopotamia on the River Tigris to modern day London on the River Thames, various characters with stories that build upon and intertwine with each other show just how connected we all are, and how small the world truly is.
Told from various points of view, the characters’ unknowing relationship with each other and their relationship with the earth and its water was especially interesting. Shafak’’s story is Intelligently and lyrically written and reminds me somewhat of Picoult ‘s style, which further drew me in. This is not the last I’ll be reading from this author.

Where to start?!

I loved this book so much more than I could have imagined. After The Island of Missing Trees I didn’t think I could live another book more. I wish I could give this one more than 5 stars.

Elif Shafak is a beautiful writer and perfectly captures the personal tales of peoples lives and how they intertwine.i loved it!

Thank you Netgalley for the early copy.

I read this book while reading a history of Iraq. That experience, paired with Shafak’s as always lyrical writing, made for an immersive experience. This is a superb multi-timeline novel that IMO is the best work from a supremely talented and beloved author. I was a little worried that Shafak writing books set in countries other than her native Turkey would lose some of its resonance but that’s definitely not the case. Her last two works have been my favorites.

Elif Shafak’s "There Are Rivers in the Sky" is a captivating novel that intertwines history, memory, and magical realism.

Spanning continents and centuries, the narrative explores the fluidity of identity and the interconnectedness of human experiences. Shafak’s poetic and emotionally rich storytelling blurs the lines between reality and imagination, creating a tapestry of voices that reflect both personal and collective histories. The novel features richly layered characters who navigate personal challenges while contending with broader social and political forces. From a scholar uncovering lost histories to a modern-day activist fighting for justice, each character’s journey is profoundly moving and relevant. Shafak’s deep understanding of human nature and empathy for her characters make this an emotionally engaging read.

Rich in philosophical reflections, the novel ponders the nature of time, memory, and storytelling. Shafak’s luminous prose and ability to weave complex ideas into a compelling narrative highlight her literary prowess.

"There Are Rivers in the Sky" is a testament to Shafak’s literary prowess, and invites readers to question the narratives they’ve been told and the histories they’ve inherited, offering a profound meditation on identity, heritage, and the power of stories.

There Are Rivers in the Sky is a breathtaking masterpiece by Elif Shafak that expertly intertwines three poignant stories, all anchored in the ancient city of Nineveh and bound by the theme of water. Shafak’s ability to merge historical fiction with deep emotional currents is simply unparalleled. From the brilliant mind of Arthur Smith, inspired by real-life Assyriologist George Smith, to Zaleekah’s introspective journey into the mysteries of rainfall, and Narin’s Yazidi heritage tied to the Tigris, each narrative thread is woven together beautifully. The novel transcends time and geography, offering readers a rich tapestry of history, memory, and human resilience. A must-read for lovers of thought-provoking, epic storytelling.

There was a lot going on in this book, a lot to track/follow. I want to re-visit it at another time when I can have a notepad in hand to try to track it--which makes it hard with fiction reading at times.

This enchanting story that crosses centuries to deliver multiple plot strings interconnected with a drop of water that is both conscious and transformative. Social and political themes and ideas surrounding humanity/the human experience tie together nicely – a credit to this heavily accomplished author’s expertise in storytelling, character development, and scene-setting. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and learned a great deal about ancient cultures and traditions - a wonderful reading journey!

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an opportunity to review.

Thank you @netgalley for the eARC of There Are Rivers in the Sky by @shafakelif

I think it’s officially official: historical fiction is my favorite genre. I went into this book blind, thinking it was a fantasy. But I was surprised that it was actually historical fiction told from the perspective of a drop of water. I learned so much from this book about subjects I had never even heard of before, so I had to write them all down. Those things included the theory of water memory, ancient libraries, ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia, the Victorian era in England, hidden rivers, the Yazidi people, cuneiform (which are symbols that are not an actual alphabet but instead syllables that are combined to create words), Lamassu gods and different ways that myths and stories are passed down through centuries. I can’t explain how much I enjoyed reading this book. It takes you from the reign of Ashurbanipal in 600 BC all the way to “present day” 2018. It’s a well developed and well researched story of intertwining characters, connected through a drop of water. It is a heavy book, each character’s story is tragic in many ways, but it’s also strangely hopeful and healing like the water that is intrinsic to each of their stories. If you are looking for a great historical fiction that covers a vast array of subjects and cultures, There Are Rivers in the Sky is a perfect one to add to your TBR. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

#thereareriversinthesky #bookreview #netgalley

I read somewhere that “beautifully written” is code for slow. Yes, I’m not going to lie, this is a slow book. It took me awhile to get through it. I even had to put it aside for a while. But it was absolutely beautiful. This is a story of an Assyrian King, an Epic Poem, a poor boy who can read cuneiform, a young Yazidi girl, and a hydrologist all connected over thousands of years by a single drop of water.

This is a masterfully crafted, intensely researched book that explores the human condition and a homeland, passion and persecution, an ancient language, the memory of water, and the birth of civilization. This took me down a hundred Google rabbit holes and made me exclaim “huh” out loud more than once. It taught me things and left me pondering about others. While this book made me work for it, I will most likely be thinking about this for awhile. If you like deeper, slower books that really dive deep into history, teach you something you might not have known before, and makes you think a little harder, I highly recommend this one.

Some books are character driven: they feel as though the author sets a group of people loose on the page and follows their story. Some books are plot driven: the characters feel like chess pieces being moved around the board to satisfy the needs of the story. And some books are idea driven: the characters and plot exist to help the author explicate concepts and ideas. Most books are some combination of these categories, and great books blend character, plot, and ideas together so perfectly that you never sense the author behind the curtain.

"There Are Rivers in the Sky" is mainly an idea book - big ideas about water, especially rivers, and its centrality to humans; about Middle Eastern history; about European colonialism; about religious intolerance. The characters are not terribly convincing. Shafak mostly tells us what her characters are thinking and feeling, rather than showing us, and archetypical secondary characters pop up when needed to explain a Big Idea or provide history or science explication. Even Charles Dickens makes a cameo appearance as a fairy godfather.

The writing is often lovely, and the Ideas the book is organized around are genuinely Big Ones, but at the end I felt slightly cheated.

There Are Rivers in the Sky is a gift to historical fiction fans. The focus is the Thames and the Tigris rivers and how the water in those two disparate waterways meet and meld and wrap around time. I loved each protagonist - their stories were nuanced and complex, with meaningful growth arcs. What absolutely blew me away, though, was all the Mesopotamian history, especially that of the Yazidi people. Few books have driven me down Google rabbit holes like this book did. It's always a plus when historical fiction pushes me to dive deeper. I did not want this book to end.

Many thanks to the author for sharing this extraordinary story. And thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an eBook version in exchange for a review.

Booker Prize finalist Elif Shafak's mesmerizing novel explores centuries and cultures through the lives of three remarkable characters — and a single drop of water.
Elif Shafak's novel There Are Rivers in the Sky follows three disparate individuals separated by time and location. Arthur Smyth (whose full name is "King Arthur of the Sewers and Slums") is born in the stinking muck along the Thames River in 1840. Narin is a nine-year-old Yazidi girl growing up on the banks of the Tigris River in 2014, shepherded by her grandmother. And thirty-year-old Zaleekah Clarke is a hydrologist living on a houseboat in London in 2018, trying to move beyond her failed marriage. As the characters' lives unfold on the pages of this remarkable book, readers gradually learn how they're tied together, with the last pieces falling into place at the very end of the story.

Shafak begins her tale with a sentient drop of water falling on King Ashurbanipal of Ninevah (reigned 669–631 BCE):

"Dangling from the edge of the storm cloud is a single drop of rain — no bigger than a bean and lighter than a chickpea. For a while it quivers precariously — small, spherical and scared. How frightening it is to observe the earth below opening like a lonely lotus flower. Not that this will be the first time: it has made the journey before — ascending to the sky, descending to terra firma and rising heavenwards again — and yet it still finds the fall terrifying."

This tiny observer appears throughout the novel, present at various times in history (the same drop appears at Arthur's birth, and later makes up one of Zaleekah's tears). Indeed, the variability yet permanence of water is a major theme. "While it is true that the body is mortal," the author writes, "the soul is a perennial traveler — not unlike a drop of water." Later, "Many kings have come and many kings have gone…never forget the only true ruler is water," and, "Women are expected to be like rivers — readjusting, shapeshifting." Shafak's writing is lyrical, bordering on poetic, as she weaves this theme into her narrative.

The author's focus varies between her characters, making the experience of reading about each almost like reading three different books. By far the most detailed and appealing story is Arthur's; it fits squarely in the realm of historical fiction as Shafak takes a deep dive into life for the lower classes in Victorian London. Based on George Smith — a self-taught Assyriologist who was the first to translate the Epic of Gilgamesh into modern language — this remarkable man rises from tosher (someone who scavenges in the sewers) to expert on cuneiform (see Beyond the Book). The section is crammed with tiny details that bring the period to life. For example, Arthur buys eel pies as a treat for his brothers and reads by the light of the moon because his family has no money for lamps or candles.

Narin's role in the story allows the author to portray the Yazidis, a Kurdish religious minority whose beliefs include elements of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Often persecuted throughout history, people from this sect were victims of genocide by the Islamic State from 2014-2017. Yazidi experiences, wisdom, and values are depicted through the character of Narin's grandmother. While this part of the novel is set in more recent times, some of the concepts it contains are ancient.

And finally, Zaleekah epitomizes the struggles of many modern women still trying to establish a place for themselves in the world. She's at a crossroads in her life, wrestling with depression and unable to move forward. Her story might be the least interesting simply because it's so familiar to many of us; she's a typical woman on a voyage of self-discovery. This part of the novel is primarily bildungsroman. Zaleekah's overbearing uncle and a tattoo artist who only works in cuneiform add color.

One of the brilliant aspects of the novel is the author's ability to merge these three completely different storylines into a compelling whole.

I truly enjoyed Shafak's writing, but periodically she itemizes rather than describes:

"Whatever is unwanted is discarded into the river. Spent grain from breweries, pulp from paper mills, offal from slaughterhouses, shavings from tanneries, effluent from distilleries, off-cuts from dye-houses, night-soil from cesspools and discharge from flush toilets…all empty into the Thames, killing the fish, killing the aquatic plants, killing the water."

These lists are unnecessarily exhaustive; they're included with enough frequency that the technique starts to grate. And while I was enthralled by each character's story, I became impatient waiting for the threads to start coming together. The tie-ins are ultimately brilliant but the author takes her time.

Those complaints aside, There Are Rivers in the Sky is a superb work of literary and historical fiction, and I highly recommend it to most audiences. It reminded me very much of Anthony Doerr's excellent novel Cloud Cuckoo Land, and readers who enjoyed that title will likely relish this one equally. It would make an excellent book group selection.

Reviewed by Kim Kovacs
This review will run in the September 4, 2024 issue of BookBrowse Recommends