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There Are Rivers in the Sky

Elif Shafak

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5 stars

37,157 (52%)

4 stars

24,385 (34%)

3 stars

7,853 (11%)

2 stars

1,483 (2%)

1 star

351 (<1%)

Displaying 1 - 30 of 9,918 reviews

jessica

2,686 reviews48.2k followers

January 5, 2025

an utterly transportive story.

ES has a wonderful skill of telling stories through the lens of the most unassuming of things (either a tree or, in this case, water) and weaving a beautiful tapestry of life that makes the reader also feel connected.

what i would give to have been able to read this back when i was living in london. i would have immediately gone to the british museum and marvelled at all of the things i had no idea existed but now, after reading this book, feel very special to me.

i have quite an obsessive personality, so i definitely feel an ancient mesopotamia phase starting because of this book.

↠ 4.5 stars

Kate O'Shea

1,342 reviews197 followers

July 20, 2024

5 stars isn't enough.

Elif Shafak is so good at historical epic fiction. There Are Rivers in the Sky gives us three personal histories with Nineveh at their heart.

We have Arthur Smith (based on the Assyriologist George Smith) born to a poor family who has a phenomenal memory and a brain that works like noone else's. He begins his working life in a publishing house where his vast intellect and curiosity are encouraged by his employers but his real passion and interest in Nineveh begins when he sees the lamassus sculptures being brought to the British Museum.

Secondly we have Zaleekah, recently split from her husband and contemplating her life choices. Her interest is in rainfall and it's life cycle (which, on its own, would make for a fascinating novel). She moves to a houseboat and meets a tattooist who reignited her interest in cuneiform.

Finally we have Narin, a young Yazidi girl who lives on the banks of the Tigris. Her grandmother is determined that her favourite should be baptised in the Valley of Lalish in Iraq.

In setting the story Shafak gives us a wonderful backdrop of the city of Nineveh which was destroyed by fire after civil war. It was home to a vast library which held the clay tablets now at the British Museum.

The history of the city is fascinating and the way Elif Shafak weaves the ancient history into the story of these three people is simply sublime. The three stories feel connected from the beginning and we are given little insights into what will happen to them all the way through.

The stories are often quite emotionally fraught and deal with some heavyweight issues such as the rise of ISIS, the destruction of the valleys by the construction of dams, sale/removal of historical artefacts.

The research on this book must have been phenomenal. It covers so much ground. But the stories are still so beautifully told and I cared about each one of the main characters. It is incredibly emotive at times.

I loved this book. It will definitely rank as one of my favourites for this year. As an author she blows me away with her story telling especially with an epic tale. Absolutely mesmerising. I listened to qanun music, I looked up the geography, I looked at images of the artefacts and downloaded the Eoic of Gilgamesh. It's the sort of book that inspires you to read more history.

Very highly recommended.

Thankyou very much to Netgalley and Penguin for the advance review copy. Most appreciated.

literary-fiction

emma

2,586 reviews93.3k followers

July 16, 2025

i love modern books that feel like fairytales!

so i loved the start of this book, which follows a drop of water across historial figures of significance to our story and the characters that will make up our plot.

and then i also enjoyed the middle of this book, which alternates between three characters by rivers.

i eventually got tired of the constantly switching perspectives, but then i'm a multi pov hater so it's not a surprise.

i did not anticipate the dark ground this story would tread, and i feel the first half of the book did not quite equip it for the solemnity it would take on. but maybe that was just because i'm surprised. regardless, this is good!

bottom line: really enjoyed this, both against and with the odds.

(thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)

3-and-a-half-stars arc literary-fiction

Canadian Jen

667 reviews2,920 followers

September 18, 2024

It all begins with a rain drop. A drop that transcends time, countries and follows the path of the Tigres and then to the Thames. Communities that survive along them. How it breathes life; and how it can destroy it. Some flow freely while others angrily.

Shafak is a magnificent story teller. This tale weaves through 3 time periods with 3 different characters.
Water is what binds these lives together.

We meet Arthur,born in the sewers of London,1840, at the edge of the Thames. His mission in life is a quest for the sacred tablets that hold poems dating back centuries to Mesopotamia.

Narin, a 9 year old, in Turkey, 2014. Her own history of being a Yazidi and waiting to be baptized in Iraq by the river Tigres.

Zaleekhah, a young water scientist, 2018, studying water as she has her own personal connection to it.

The prose harmonious and heart breaking: life long searches for answers.
5⭐️

Also worth checking out is The Island of Missing Trees.

5-star-favourites historical-fiction middle-east

Nancy

617 reviews600 followers

August 12, 2025

4⭐️

“Remember, though, what defies comprehension isn’t the mysteries of the world, but the cruelties that humans are capable of inflicting upon each other.”— Elif Şafak, There Are Rivers in the Sky

Spanning three different eras, There Are Rivers in the Sky intertwines multiple storylines that connect the past to the present. The story begins with a raindrop falling on the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal, its journey weaving together the fates of three lives: Arthur, a boy born in 19th-century London; Narin, a young Yazidi girl in Turkey in 2014; and Zaleekhah, a hydrologist in England in 2018. Arthur’s and Narin’s timelines interested me most, particularly Narin’s, which was devastating in parts and at times hard to read.

Elif Safak is a gifted writer and storyteller, and her prose is absolutely stunning. It’s clear the book was thoroughly researched, with meticulous attention to historical detail. Unfortunately, the extensive listing of facts sometimes made it read more like a beautifully written textbook than a novel.

This book delves into several heavy-hitting topics, including the persecution, mass killings, and enslavement of the Yazidi people by ISIS; the concept of water memory; racism; unethical organ harvesting; and the stark disparities between the rich and the poor, to name just a few. Perhaps it’s just me, but when a book takes on so many themes, I often feel that none of them get the full attention they deserve. I’d rather diver deeper into fewer topics than skim over many, but that’s just my personal preference.

”Water remembers. It is humans who forget.”

It's easy to see why her novels are highly rated and well loved. I enjoyed this book overall and am looking forward to reading her novel The Island of Missing Trees.

Karen

753 reviews2,004 followers

August 6, 2024

Three characters lives..in different time periods… in different parts of the world…all connected by a single raindrop. From London, ancient Mesopotamia, Turkey, and Iraq.
I loved this big book!
(A totally different experience for me with this author than a book of hers that I tried to read with a talking tree)!

Thank you to Netgalley and Knopf for the ARC

Kartik

231 reviews140 followers

May 23, 2025

Controversial opinion but this was literally so fucking boring.

disliked-it

Ted Richards

332 reviews37 followers

August 30, 2024

Crushingly dull, far too long and more pretentious than people who drink port at the pub.

When the inevitable documentary on brat summer 2024 gets made, I hope the filmmakers think to include his book as an example of its antithesis. This is one of those books I would have normally given up on halfway through, but, out of spite and the need to dislike it in its totality, I crawled to the finish line. In a way I'm glad I did.

The plot is a triptych, told from three characters in history besides two rivers, the Thames and Tigris. You have the 1870's Victorian orphan, the 2014 Islamic State refugee and 2018's lost soul in London. The idea where stems from the 'journey of a drop of water' and how that same drop of water cycles around the earth to land in the same place across displaced years. It is a fun premise and I bitterly wish Elif Shafak had leaned into it more. Following her previous work, the book would have been so much more fun if the entire piece was viewed through the drop of water, journeying back to visit these three characters it finds fascinating. It would have upped the pretentiousness past the point of mattering, and led to a much more fun and engaging framing device.

To begin with the positives, the final quarter is actually rather good. All of the character arcs have interesting endings, although it was often a competition for 'least boring' rather than 'most interesting'. I particularly liked the lip service paid by Shafak to Arthur's moral dilemmas, though this very quickly became a pastiche rather than a critical engagement with the topic. One thing everyone can nod along to is the exploration of Yazidi culture. It was good, and would have made for a fine hundred pages. Yet, after the opening few chapters, the Yazidi's lives often either get trivialised into 'did you know?' exposition, or flattened to be unrecognisable from other persecuted minority religions.

Perhaps the most positive part of the book is the care that has been sunk into putting it together. Shafak is a superb writer. Her prose is elegant and incredibly well balanced. It is also clear from the end notes that she devoted a ton of time to researching and investigating all of the particular time periods and lifestyles she was writing about, as well as the science behind Earth's water cycle. Unfortunately, that research massively gets in her own way. The story becomes a list of trivial points and nothing about the great span of this book ever feels like it has any propulsion.

This is ultimately a book to buy for your friends who pretend to like serious books, and then witness them struggle to make it past the first hundred pages. It may best be used to once again reiterate that the literary snobbery levelled at the romance and fantasy genre is unwarranted. Where a literary darling like Shafak fails is in the interweaving of three distinct character arcs and narratives to make all of them compelling and satisfying. That is something even the most basic romance author can pull off; something a fantasy writer delights in using, to hide secrets and Easter eggs. Shafak tries to use Easter eggs here too, but they are the kind that you hide to make sure everyone at the party comes away having found at least one each.

As a final aside, there is something compelling about this book. It is not within the characters, plot or setting. Rather, it is so awful, so crushing and hopeless that, as this essay demonstrates, it is very fun to launch criticisms at. There is something appealing even in that I suppose; the unspecified catharsis of having a really good whinge.

On the whole, it is not fun, not interesting, not compelling, not illuminating and not touching. Nothing about this book would make me want to recommend it to someone, and I am so relieved that I will never need to read it again.

audiobooks

Michael -- Justice for Renee

293 reviews254 followers

February 26, 2025

Pathed Waters, Dreamed Shores

“Later, when the storm has passed, everyone will talk about the destruction it left behind, though no one, not even the king himself, will remember that it all began with a single raindrop.” So begins “There are Rivers in the Sky.”

Thousands of years ago, on the banks of the Tigris River in Nineveh, the world’s largest and wealthiest city, a single raindrop fell on its king, Ashurbanipal. The raindrop, before dissolving and returning to the sky, bears witness to the king cruelly setting fire to his mentor, a man who has betrayed him.

This drop of water falls, thousands of years later, on a newborn, Arthur, in 1840, on the banks of the Thames. Springing ahead to Turkey in 2014, a young Yazidi girl, Narin, touches a drop of water which was to have been part of her baptism in the Tigris. Finally, in 2018, a hydrologist by the name of Zaleekhah, is moving into a houseboat on the Thames. A tear falls from her eye– water once a snowflake or a wisp of steam. These three characters are all connected by the endless threaded journey of a single drop.

Aquatic memory. “Water remembers. It is humans who forget.”

Arthur’s people christened him King Arthur of the Sewers and Slums. Based on a historical figure, George Smith, Arthur is born into the most adjunct poverty. He has hyperthymesia, an extremely rare condition which allows tremendous amounts of sharply edged details to be recalled. He becomes obsessed with a book, “Nineveh and Its Remains,” and stumbles onto Assyrian tablets in the British Museum, tablets he alone seems able to decipher. His life’s goal focuses on chasing the completion of “a poem.”

A substantial amount of Elif Shafak’s message on water is brought out by Zaleekhah. As a water scientist she gives voice to climate crisis - water crisis issues. Man has sought to control river shapes– burying rivers by boxing them in concrete, covering them with dirt, and building over them. Water has been weaponized, too, throughout history, reshaping the flow of rivers in order to benefit, as well as to devastate.

Young Narin’s passages stress the suffering her people have been subject to throughout history. Dehumanized with labels like “devil worshipers,” it is said the Yazidis have been massacred seventy-two times… from antiquity to ISIS. At one point Arthur is sickened when he hears an official judgment on breaking promises to these infidels, ’‘...the Yazidis are kaffirs. Therefore, you do not need to worry about lying to them. In the eyes of God, it is lawful to snare a heathen; you can deceive them into thinking you mean them no harm and then do with them as you please.’

Sprawling? Absolutely. A lot of ground is covered, a lot of history. This is all tied together with more than just that traveling drop of water. The amount of research required here is staggering, but the characters, the information, and plot twists prevent it from sinking under its own weight. There is so much fascinating world history here, presented in a way rarely uncovered in the classroom.

“And what is passion if not a restlessness of the heart, an intense yearning to surpass your limits, like a river overflowing its banks?”

Thank you to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor and to NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review. #ThereAreRiversintheSky #NetGalley

historical-fiction literary-fiction

Sujoya - theoverbookedbibliophile

789 reviews3,564 followers

September 16, 2024

My first Elif Shafak novel and I'm at a loss for words!

RTC

2024-favorite-reads netgalley-arc physical-arc

Laetabunag

124 reviews5 followers

August 16, 2024

There are rivers in a sky is a beautifully written and impactful novel following the lives of three people across different timelines whose lives are tied together by water and ancient Mesopotamian culture.

I loved learning about ancient Mesopotamian culture and the history of Nineveh and the Yazidi people through this book. However, although the Epic of Gilgamesh was a key theme or point of interest throughout the book, we never actually learn much about it, which is disappointing given that that’s what drew me to reading this.

The novel also tackles tough topics such as colonialism, genocide, ISIS, human trafficking, depression, global warming etc. Whilst this was done well and was super impactful at the end, I think it tried to tackle too many themes at the same time. The book is also very slow paced and the character’s themselves I didn’t find interesting at all so reading this felt really boring. Although the key topics I mentioned before were present in the book, the full exploration of these topics doesn’t happen until pretty much the end of which meant for the first 75% of the book, nothing really happened.

Overall, I gave it 3 stars because although the writing was good and I did end up enjoying it, it was a slog to get through and only really piqued my interest towards the last 25% of the book.

Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin UK for giving me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Anne Bogel

Author 6 books84.9k followers

December 17, 2024

This is a 2024 Modern Mrs Darcy Summer Reading Guide selection.

The award winning British-Turkish novelist Shafak delivers an ambitious and gorgeous novel revolving around three fascinating individuals, the Tigris and Thames rivers, and the ancient poem The Epic of Gilgamesh. The sweeping narrative begins in King Ashurbanipal's Mesopotamian court and ends in modern-day London, with the central thread revolving around the life of a boy known as King Arthur of the Sewers and Slums, from his birth by the Thames in 1840 to his death by the Tigris in 1876. The memorable characters, separated as they are by time and space, may not at first seem to have much in common, but they are connected by something small, crucial, eternal: a single drop of water.

Listen to my conversation with Elif Shafak in What Should I Read Next Episode #455

what-should-i-read-next

Sofia

1,352 reviews297 followers

March 15, 2025

Shafak is a great storyteller. I can imagine her with her stylus and tablet poring over the tablets and the fragments in this pile and in that one and then that one over there. Collecting her facts, collecting the anguishes and the hurts, the actions and the consequences, and then giving us this story, with its past and present and possible future.......

I got sucked into the story, I followed that drop of water through the years and all the narrative threads. I went to Nineveh, to London, to Sinjar, to Castrum Kefa and cried inside for them most of all but also for us all. Us who forget that 'they' continue to struggle too, and we turn a bit our line of sight and forget.

I also cry for us because we are destroying the hand that feeds us, sillier and more criminal than that we cannot be. Following that drop of water, I read about and saw the great ecological mess we've created in the name of progress, civilization, imperialistic grandeur, technological advancement. We continue to pay a heavy price and the price will get higher and higher. With her parallel narratives about the Thames and the Tigris we see that it is easy for us to destroy, we destroy rivers in the 'civilized' world and also in that land where we vaguely know what's happening. So it is not a question of location, or religion or culture but it's us humans, so the solution must also lie with us, every one of us.

Yazidi slavery - it is not over yet

George Smith - Assyriologist

An ARC kindly provided by author/publisher via Netgalley.

2024 arc-netgalley eagerly-read

Angela M

1,463 reviews2,112 followers

December 7, 2024

This is a multilayered and multiple time framed story of three characters connected through time by single drop of water. An all encompassing novel about words and ideas, about good and evil, tying past to near present with water. At times it felt a little too ambitious and a little slow moving. However, it merits 4 stars for the beautiful writing and wonderful characters, my favorite of whom was Arthur .

I received a copy of this from Knopf through NetGalley.

netgalley-reviews

Amina

551 reviews271 followers

February 9, 2025

Water remembers, it is humans who forget

Like a fairy tale, this saga will envelop you in the folds of storytelling. Two rivers intertwine three characters, and the ancient poem, The Epic of Gilgamesh. A single drop of water entangling their lives most unexpectedly.

Arthur was born in 1840 to an alcoholic father and a mother suffering from mental illness. He was raised in the slums by the River Thames. The only way to escape the throes of his harsh reality is the gift of his brilliant memory. After finding a job with a publisher, his skills led him to publish a book, which grabbed the attention of those researching the river's history.

Narin, a young Turkish girl from 2015, is struggling with ailing health and the possibility of going deaf. Her grandmother is insistent on getting her baptized in the Yazidi culture, but the threat of terror and encroachment on their religion keeps the family in fear.

Hatred is a poison served in three cups. The first is when people despise those they desire—because they want to have them in their possession. It’s all out of hubris! The second is when people loathe those they do not understand. It’s all out of fear! Then there is the third kind—when people hate those they have hurt

In 2018 London, Zaleekah, a divorced woman studying hydrology, moves into a houseboat on the Thames to escape her husband. Raised by her wealthy uncle, Zaleekah made a painful decision to take her life in one month, but a unique book about her homeland occupies her mind.

We move between London, Ancient Mesopotamia, Turkey, and Iraq. The story is vibrant and rich, with exquisite writing. Author Elif Shafak has done her research. She is thoroughly vested in each character's persecution and their journey to a better life.

This wasn't a 5-star for me because of the cycling between characters, which makes it challenging to keep their stories present (I wonder when editors will figure out that character cycling is exhausting- what happened to linear storytelling?) Waiting for characters to link took time and occurred in the last few pages, which was slightly exhaustive. I would have preferred tidbits of interlocking connection between characters instead of finding myself adrift, trying to piece the story together.

The only other caveat—incorporating current political jargon—while I'm not opposed, it took me out of the fictional element, bringing me into a dark time in our country's history. Nonetheless, the topics of religious persecution and colonialism were valid and relevant.

Nations may dissolve and empires melt, but the only true ruler is water

I am in awe of Shafak's research, she talks extensively at the end of the book about her resources and research, it is truly otherworldly. A journey reaching from Tigres to the Thames. Overall, it is a magnificent feat!
4/5 stars

Ella Kang

117 reviews4 followers

October 28, 2024

Finally I am done. Omg I really didn’t like it like to the point where I had to keep a list in my notes app of the things that I didn’t like so I wouldn’t explode. 2 stars because every so often I was interested in what was happening. Here are the main things I didn’t like:

Extremely explanatory. We don’t need to be told that the poor kid from the streets is excited to be in a museum because it represents an opportunity for knowledge and growth that he’s never had. We could’ve context cluesed that. This makes me feel crazy.

Why are we trying to mention every single societal and environmental issue that exists. Can’t stop thinking about the random invasive crabs that were mentioned one single time for no reason. Or the random child predatoring school principal in one single scene.

The whole water memory thing is cringe. Water does not have memories. Why would someone research that.

Arthur’s character makes no sense. Why is he able to magically translate ancient writing and why does anyone care. Also why’s he such a little baby omg drama drama drama shut up. Ur a bad husband and a bad dad. If you really had a photographic memory you should’ve known more things. Why’d you leave your mom in an insane asylum to die and then be like nooo I feel so bad wah wah but it had to be done NO U SHOULD FEEL BAD

So many pages of history that I skimmed through because they didn’t add anything to the story.

HOW WOULD A TATTOO SHOP THAT EXCLUSIVELY TATTOOS ANCIENT CUNEIFORM STAY IN BUSINESS

BORING. Boring boring boring.

SORRY this was harsh. Pretty book cover.

Henk

1,210 reviews332 followers

May 18, 2025

Female erasure of the original god of storytelling and the cycle of water form the framework of this novel. While fascinating in subject matter, often I felt the book dragged and I wasn't fully invested in the characters, except for the plight of the yezedis
Mourning is a women’s job, and so is remembrance.

Maybe I am a bit jaded, or am I turning into a curmudgeon, but everyone of the main characters is so obviously, blandly, one-dimensionally GoodTM that at times There Are Rivers in the Sky was supremely boring to me. It is as if you are reading a musical like The Greatest Showman.
The dialogue in general is too instrumental and instructive from my perspective, everything is explained or giving adjectives so that we know what to feel or think about things and people in this book. Not to say that the subject matter is not fascinating, especially the way Elif Shafak engages with yezedi history and culture is laudable, and at the end of the book harrowing. Arthur being modelled on real life George Smith (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg...) is also cool, in how it lifts this working class character who translated The Epic of Gilgamesh from obscurity.

The Epic of Gilgamesh also forms the backdrop of the novel, starting off in Nineveh in 600 BCE. Female erasure of the original god of storytelling already hints of a lot of themes in this section.
The water cycle ties the novel together over 50 chapters, alternating between:
- Arthur Smyth, born in 1840 London, at that time also the greatest city of the most powerful empire in the world, like Nineveh. His mother is disenfranchised scouring the Thames for valuable remains in the slime of the river, and his birth features a magical, fairytale like snowfall. Arthur is a river baby, born on the same day as queen Victoria gives birth, being welcomed to the world with a drop of water that has seen the palace of Nineveh centuries ago. I must say I did laughed out loud while reading about slum dwelling in Chelsea, thinking back from the modern day.
- Narin - Lives in 2014 on the river bank of Tigris (the Eastern of the two great rivers of Mesopotamia) in eastern Türkiye, a Yezhidi. The first scene where we get to know her features water prominently, with her being baptised. Deafness is threatening Narin, as does the fact that their community is continually marginalised, prosecuted and massacred 72 times in recorded history as "devil worshipper".
- Then we have Zaleekhah - in 2018. She is a ccientist with a failed marriage and a new lease on a boat at the Chelsea embankment (can’t imagine this to be cheap actually).

The three threads of the story alternate, with the grave of Arthur mentioned early one in one of the timelines, a book on Nineveh ties Arthur his narrative to both the prologue and the region Narin comes from and the Yezidi crisis obviously being relevant for the 2018 timeline as well. In general I would say Arthur his storyline, which spans his whole life, was most interesting for me, even though I would say Narin her story became incredibly powerful near the end of the novel. Also the whole theme of displacement because of economic development, here a hydroelectric dam, is well rendered by Shafak.

In general I didn’t find Arthur very cautious or quiet, which is the way Shafak describes him, but the boom of publishing and the influx of money and power into London, culminating in campaigns into the faltering Ottoman Empire to excavate the remains of Nineveh, make for an almost Dickensian (he does make a cameo as well!) storyline. Arthur visiting the world exhibition and seeing toilets and other modern marvels is also fun. As a Londoner nowadays I at times found scenes rather funny, especially when Arthur takes walks in incredible short times, how does someone walk from Chelsea embankment to the British Museum, this takes 30 minutes at minimum with the tube nowadays... Or when Arthur his jacket goes from perfectly tailored to ill fitting in one chapter. The historical tidbits are well woven into the narrative, like London having 300.000 horses, all shitting on the street and cholera, the blue terror, residing in water and killing 10.700 Londoners in an outbreak.

Zaleekhah her storyline in my opinion is by far the weakest. She has an extremely rich family with off course a dark side. The whole narrative of her being a scientist discovering water molecules have memory sounds kind of ridiculous (like the Dan Brown novel set in Washington whose name I don't remember) and does so little to really advance the plot in any manner. The only things that was interesting in her narrative was the concept of daylighting, bringing a covered up river up to the surface again, the example that is mentioned in the book in Seoul I have actually visited. Oh and maybe I see tattooing in cuneiform as a new trend.

Overall it is poetic how the cycle of water binds together such diverging narratives in time and space, but I was disappointed after enjoying the more literary 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World from Shafak a lot.

Quotes:
Water remembers, it is humans who forget.

Eat child, when the belly is light, the heart will be heavy

Cruelty has not broken him, he is used to it.

Remember, people like us can’t afford to fail.

When God is less lonely, we are less lonely.

Mourning is a women’s job, and so is remembrance.

One always begins to forgive a place as soon on as it is left behind.

A story is a flute through which the truth breathes

Yesterday I was a river, tomorrow I might return as raindrop

Guilt is her most loyal companion, and regret too.

Thank you for liking me, but I am not very likeable.

Riddles are how lady truth cloaks herself.
Why would truth need to cloak herself?
Because if she were to walk around naked people would stone her in the streets.

Poverty is a nation with no borders and he is no foreigner in it but a native son.

I envy happy people

To write is to free yourself from the constraints of place and time.

2025-priority-list

Marcia

801 reviews30 followers

August 20, 2024

Undoubtedly the best book I have read this year and probably one of the best in my lifetime , There are Rivers in the Sky encompasses everything I love about reading. It is historical fiction at its best, taking place in long gone eras ( pre biblical Mesopotamia as well as Dickensonian England) that peaked my curiosity and intellect. The writing was so beautiful it was breathtaking at times. I learned about faraway places that haven’t been on my recent radar. . There are four distinct stories and the main characters are so well drawn and interesting that each could have been the protagonist of an entire story.

In the dawn of civilized history, King Ashurbanipal of Mesopotamia, strives to achieve immortality through his legacy of written tablets containing the Epic of Gilgamesh, bringing to my mind the epic poem Ozymandias. The Tigris River is threaded throughout his story as is a raindrop falling on his newborn head only to re-emerge in future generations. Water is the sustenance of life.

In 1840, born to poverty, near London’s Thames River, King Arthur of the Sewers and Gutters, as a boy, becomes fascinated by by ancient Mesopotamia and archeological findings of that era. Arthur’s intellect transcends his impoverished beginning. He gives up a successful career in printing to work in a museum where he is able to travel to Mesopotamia searching for the remains of the tablets bearing the missing pieces of the Epic of Gilgamesh.

In 2014, again at the Tigris River, is young Narin, a Yazidi girl , who is losing her ability to hear. Caught in the political horrors of the ISIS slaughter of nonbelievers, Narin becomes a pawn in a religious war in which the terrorists plunder and steal valuable historic artifacts and commit the genocide of a peace loving religious minority.

The year is 2018. Zaleekah Clarke, escaping a dying marriage, moves to a simple houseboat on the Thames where she develops an interest in tattoos of the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the artist who draws the tattoos.

Thought provoking, intellectually stimulating, with down to earth characters embodying human strengths and frailties , Elif Shafak has crafted an unforgettable tale. The recycling of a drop of water through the ages connects the characters to each other. Human destruction of our ecosystem and the disease ridden pollution of life sustaining element, water is described again and again. I was also left to ponder how damming of rivers causes floods which bury both current towns and historically significant artifacts. Looming as an overriding current issue with roots going back ages, is the genocide and misinformation leading to persecution of Yazidis. So much to think about and research on my own.

Awarding this incredible book five stars seems insufficient. It is a masterpiece. I highly recommend it for discerning readers who enjoy learning and thinking about what they read. It is being published tomorrow, August 20, 2024. It is a must read. Many thanks to NetGalley and Knopf and Penguin publishers for an advance readers copy in exchange for my review.

Maria Espadinha

1,167 reviews519 followers

June 27, 2025

Os Rios Não Gritam Socorro

Também há rios no Céu é uma história de crimes reais em que a grande vítima é a Água — a Água que corre livre e inocente sob a forma de rios e riachos pulsantes de vida. Rios e riachos cuja vida foi ceifada, barbaramente assassinados, envenenados pelos meios mais perversos…

Na sua prosa poética, Elif Shafak conta uma história em fragmentos de História, e aqui fica um retalho do primeiro:

No século VII A.C. reinou, na Mesopotâmia, um rei de nome Assurbanípal que foi apodado de “O Rei Bibliotecário”.

E Rei Bibliotecário porquê?

Porque foi ele o criador duma magnífica biblioteca pejada de milhares de tabuínhas de argila que versam sobre os mais variados assuntos — cartas do firmamento, remédios, feitiços, provérbios, elegias, prenúncios, rituais, fábulas, entranhas de animais… — há de tudo um pouco nesta imponente biblioteca cuja entrada é flanqueada por dois lamassus gigantes que a protegem atentamente.

Esta obra notável era o lugar de eleição de Assurbanípal, o local onde ele se abstraía do mundo lá fora, imerso nas suas tabuínhas azuis. Porém, além de erudito, este monarca transbordava de crueldade, e até o rio Ulai foi alvo da sua incontrolável perversidade:

“Mas vós, meu soberano, transformastes a água numa arma mortífera. Já não há peixe no rio Ulai: saturaste-o com tantos cadáveres que agora corre da cor da lã tingida de vermelho. Primeiro a seca, depois a fome. Meu rei, os vossos súbditos morrem de inanição. As planíceis em torno de Susa estão pejadas de mortos e moribundos. Agora, segundo ouvi, preparais-vos para fazer o mesmo em Castrum Kefa...”

Ulai foi o primeiro. Mais se seguirão…
Os rios não gritam Socorro. Elif Shafak grita por eles…

———————————————

Murdered Rivers

Water has been on earth long before mankind. It has spread all over the planet covering 71% of its surface. In fact, we are all Daughters and Sons of Mother Water, with our bodies carrying about 60-70% of that precious liquid. However, in spite of the generous amount of water on earth, less than 3% is available for human use. In practical terms, it means that 1 in 4 people have no freshwater in their lives. Ergo, if we go on and on with the Polluting Saga, in a very near future, that number will seriously increase…

Among other things, Rivers in the Sky talks about the polluted rivers that are now buried under cities — fresh watercourses cruelly murdered, poisoned with all sorts of trash. My guess is those are the rivers covered by this enigmatic title. Am I right, Ms. Shafak?!

Elif Shafak is a brilliant storyteller. In There are Rivers in the Sky, the main focus is on Water. It’s a story any drop of water could easily tell 😉

Kasa Cotugno

2,765 reviews590 followers

July 18, 2024

A triptych of a highly enriching tale, with so much erudition, and YET a page turner. Beautifully written spanning centuries, bringing to life the glory that was Nineveh. The amazing feats of architecture and art of Mesopotamia have not been as lauded as those of the Greco-Romans, even though they predate those eras. I learned so much about life along the Tigris -- the statuary, cuneiform writing, the epic of Gilgamesh, lapis lazuli, but then also about life along the Thames thousands of years later during the Victorian Era, and then up to almost present day horrors of living under ISIS. Not to mention the life sustaining importance of water. If I were to compare this to anything, it would be to Anthony Doerr's Cloud Cuckoo Land, with its three seemingly disparate threads being woven so beautifully at the end. Elif Shafak, an author new to me, has been prolific and if this is any gauge, someone I will go back and read whatever she has written.

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Katie B

1,740 reviews3,174 followers

August 20, 2024

4.5 stars

There Are Rivers in the Sky is the second book I’ve read by Elif Shafak, and once again I’m impressed with her attention to detail and thoughtful writing style. This story covers multiple timelines including the ancient city of Nineveh, Victorian London, and the more recent 2010s. How are they all connected? Why water, of course.

The story unfolds in a heartbreaking but beautiful way. The characters featured are all struggling for various reasons and it was easy to feel invested in their lives. Clocking in at over 400 pages it does not feel like a long read. The pacing is good because the plot is moving around the different timelines and characters. Highly recommend if you are in the mood for a thought-provoking read.

Thank you Knopf for sending me a free advance copy! All thoughts expressed are my honest opinion.

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Talkincloud

296 reviews4,310 followers

Read

June 26, 2025

Elif Shafak nie zawodzi. Woda gra w tej opowieści pierwsze skrzypce — to kolejna dojrzała, misternie skomponowana i doskonale napisana historia w dorobku autorki. Gdybym miał ją z czymś porównać, wskazałbym "Miasto w chmurach" Anthony’ego Doerra — tam również starożytny tekst łączy losy bohaterów ponad czasem i przestrzenią. U Shafak to "Epos o Gilgameszu" staje się iskrą zapalną dla lirycznej podróży, która meandruje przez wieki, rzeki i języki — aż do umysłów Arthura, Narin i Zaleekah, a oni patrząc w niebo, chłoną słowa jak krople deszczu.

Arthur, chłopiec z wiktoriańskiego Londynu obdarzony pamięcią absolutną, dorasta w slumsach nad zanieczyszczoną Tamizą. Jego los odmienia się, gdy trafia do wydawnictwa — a wśród postaci, które spotka na swojej drodze, znajdzie się nawet sam Charles Dickens. Autorka inspirowała się postacią George’a Smitha — badacza pisma klinowego i podróżnika, który dotarł aż do Imperium Osmańskiego. Historia Arthura wciąga od pierwszych stron — śledziłem ją z wypiekami na twarzy, ciekaw, kiedy i jak splecie się z losami pozostałych bohaterek.

Zaleekah, hydrolożka mieszkająca na łodzi w Londynie, to głos współczesności — to przez nią Shafak wprowadza temat kryzysu wodnego, zmian klimatycznych i utraty sensu. Kiedy w jej ręce trafia tajemnicza książka, świat nabiera nowych barw, a tatuaż, który przyozdobi jej ciało, stanie się później symbolem wybawienia dla młodej Narin.

W wątku Narin, wrażliwej Jazydki, zanurzamy się w dramatyczną historię prześladowań, porwań jazydzkich kobiet i przemocy. Dziewczynka stopniowo traci słuch, a rzeka Tygrys, niczym mityczna opiekunka, towarzyszy jej jak cień. Ale kiedy przychodzą wielkie zmiany – budowa tam, podział wód – przyroda traci głos, a wraz z nią milkną historie, które nie zdążyły zostać opowiedziane. Relacja Narin z babką i jej duchową mądrością to jeden z najpiękniejszych elementów tej opowieści.

Shafak z precyzją tka narracyjny gobelin – łączy pozornie odległe wątki, epoki i światy, by stworzyć obraz, od którego nie sposób oderwać wzroku. Każda scena, każdy fragment, każde słowo — mają tu swoje miejsce. To literatura przemyślana, symboliczna i przepełniona czułością dla świata.

Po lekturze zostaje myśl: woda pamięta wszystko — jak pisała też Toni Morrison. Jest pamięcią planety. Wraca do nas, łączy ludzi i niesie smak przeszłości. A nasza największa ułomność to nieumiejętność zauważenia tej prawdy.

Jestem fanem twórczości Elif Shafak. "Tam na niebie są rzeki" to powieść, którą chciałbym widzieć w każdym domu — bo uczy empatii, uważności i współodczuwania. Wzywa do bycia bardziej ludzkim...

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Lisa of Troy

1,375 reviews8,212 followers

Want to read

August 17, 2024

Waterstones posted a picture of this book (it was in a stack), and I instantly had to pull out my credit card.

Need the UK version STAT! Blackwell's, here we come!

Bam cooks the books

2,313 reviews324 followers

August 16, 2024

Excellent storytelling! So much ties the plot together, beginning with one drop of rain that lands on the head of King Ashurbanipal in ancient times. His vast kingdom of Mesopotamia is destined to be destroyed, along with his extensive library which includes the Epic of Gilgamesh, predating even the Bible. On the palace grounds are mammoth statues of protective spirits called lamassu, with the head of a human, the body of a bull, and the wings of a bird. These will also find their way throughout the story as does the River Tigris.

And the second great river is the Thames in London. On a cold fall day in 1840, a baby boy is born to a poor mudlarker on the banks of the river. The mother's fellow searchers decide to call him Arthur: King Arthur of the Sewers and Slums. The boy is gifted and will remember the taste and feel of a snowflake landing on his lips on the day he was born--the very same drop of water that touched a great king's head millennia before. The boy will grow up to have a fascination for the works of Gilgamesh...and will hunt for the broken pieces left behind when an ancient civilization was destroyed.

And in 2014 by the River Tigris, in an ancient settlement named Hasankeyf, a young girl named Narin hopes to be baptized in the river. She and her people are part of the Yazidi community, who many people despise as devil-worshippers. But the government is building a dam that will flood their homes and they must pack up and move on. What does fate have in store for them as displaced people?

And in 2018, a young hydrologist named Zaleekhah Clarke is moving into a houseboat on the River Thames in Chelsea. She is struggling to start over as her marriage seems to be falling apart. She learns that the woman from whom she has rented the houseboat is a tattoo artist named Nen whose shop is called The Forgotten Goddess and she is fascinated by the words of Gilgamesh as well.

'Why are women left out of history? Why do we have to piece their stories back together from fragments--like broken shards of pottery?' Anyone who has done any genealogical research for their family knows the truth of that. One thing is the name change that used to happen when a woman married and took her husband's, which maybe happens less so in today's society. But I digress...

Excellent story--so many plot threads so well tied together! This is my favorite novel of 2024 so far. Any story that has an appearance from Charles Dickens in it has to be great, right? This time of year I begin planning what books I will give for Christmas gifts, and this one will be on the top of the list.

Many thanks to the author and publisher for providing me with an arc of this new work of literary fiction via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and the opinions expressed are my own.

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Rosemary Atwell

514 reviews43 followers

July 25, 2025

Shafak’s singular premise is underpinned by an astonishing breadth of research, resulting in a highly complex novel that is dense, overlong, thoughtful and highly addictive.

With an abundance of rabbit holes to descend, plot holes to argue over and geographical locations to pinpoint, ‘There are Rivers in the Sky’ will be sure to provoke a spirited discussion at next month’s book club.

Neale

358 reviews199 followers

October 28, 2024

The year is 1840 and London is the most overcrowded city in the world. Anything unwanted or lost tends to end up in the river. Arthur’s mother is scouring the banks of the river, hoping that the mud and sludge will give up a “treasure”. Anything she can sell to survive. Her state of poverty and penury have forced her to search even though heavily pregnant and it is on the banks of this famous river that Arthur is born.

No ordinary child, Arthur is born with a photographic memory. Able to recall every fact, instant, experience, that his brain has stored. It is his memory that enables him to escape from the horrible world of poverty that his mother was trapped in.

Jumping to Turkey and the year 2014. Ten-year-old Narin is losing her hearing. In a month or so she will be completely deaf. Narin is one of the Yazidi (a persecuted minority who have been the target of genocide since time began}. Her grandmother is taking her to Iraq to be baptized.

Back to London and 2018. Zaleekah has left her husband and moved to live in a tiny houseboat on the river Thames. Keeping with the water theme, Zaleekah is a hydrologist and is going to end her life in the same river that she is now living on.

Three completely different characters and stories are brought together by a single drop of water and the ancient poem “The Epic of Gilgamesh”. Two mighty rivers, The Thames and The Tigris meander through the book defying time and forming another connection between the three narratives. Although Arthur’s narrative arc covers more of the book, each character is vital to the main story and for me young Narin almost steals the show.

Shafak covers many themes. Persecution, climate change, cultural theft and identity, genocide, pollution. The fact is that most of us take water for granted and yet there are communities in this very age who still struggle with supply, still struggle with diseases, such as cholera. This entire planet is pretty much water and without it we die.

There are also communities now who are persecuted. Minorities whose voice we don’t seem to hear. Social media opens our eyes to crimes against humanity such as the Yazidi genocide in 2014. Books such as this are just as powerful. This book encouraged me to read about the Yazidi people and their history.

Shafak has written another brilliant story while addressing global issues that we as a species need to address.

For me Shafak is one of the best contemporary authors writing today.

Morayo

449 reviews30 followers

August 19, 2024

It hurts my soul that I didn’t like this book

Michelle

1,561 reviews267 followers

September 22, 2025

This is my third book by the author, and I do know by now that whatever Shafak writes will not work for me. However, this was a book club pick, so a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

Having been in Iraq and Syria this year and visiting the world first civilisation ruins, holding the first written words in my hands along with seeing the recent history of ISIS and their destruction, elements of this book were very visual to me and were the key factors in me getting through this book.

I'm just not a fan of this author. Her character dialogue is juvenile, basic. This is an adult fiction book with fully grown adults as characters, and honestly, there's better dialogue out there in YA.

There's also a lot of personal rants in here. The whole rant about fish and sanitary towels is one example of how information is shoehorned into the narrative. It's awkward.

And there's no trust of the reader. For me, a good author will show not tell. Unless you are TJ Klune writing books for very young adults, I really don't need to be hit over the head with morals and how to be a decent human being.

Two stars.

Andrea Gagne

367 reviews25 followers

June 13, 2024

This will definitely be on my "top books of the year" list!

The scope of the novel is an ambitious one: three timelines, each connected to Mesopotamia in a different way, woven together by water, memory, loss. In the 1800s, a boy with a brilliant mind named Arthur is born in the slums of London along the Thames river, with an uncanny interest in ancient Nineveh; in 2014, a Yazidi girl in Turkey named Narin travels up the Tigris river to Iraq with her grandmother to visit their ancestral village next to the ruins of Nineveh; and in 2018 a young hydrologist named Zaleekhah grapples with depression in a houseboat on the Thames.

The book opens with a drop of water falling on King Ashurbanipal's head in his Nineveh palace back in ancient times. That same droplet of water evaporates and rains back down to earth over and over across centuries, retaining small pieces of memory along the way. This is what begins to tie the three seemingly disconnected storylines together, though as we read on we find there are more connections between them than we initially knew.

The writing in this book is absolutely gorgeous, and I loved the musings about memory and meaning, and what water represents in Yazidi culture, and ancient wisdom and culture, and what lives on after civilizations crumble. It was stunningly beautiful at times.

I also loved getting to know the characters. I will admit that I found Zaleekhah to be a little less interesting than Narin and Arthur -- who I felt deeply emotionally invested in -- but I enjoyed all three plotlines nonetheless, and I think they all worked well together.

The settings were just as alive as the human characters, too, especially with the rich history they brought with them. Ancient Nineveh, where the story of the Ark took place, where ancient Mesopotamian scribes innovated cuneiform writing on clay tablets, was so interesting. The Yazidi villages, as well as their culture and traditions, were fascinating to learn about, too.

I should note that there are quite a lot of content warnings for this book. Suicidal thoughts, violence and armed conflict on-page, and discussions of sexual violence (which thankfully took place off-page) were all present.

5 stars 🌟

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf Publishing Group for this ARC to read and review.

Melanie Caldicott

355 reviews77 followers

August 12, 2024

Normally I adore Shafak and was really looking forward to this release.

However, I am sad to say this was not for me. Characteristic of Shafak it contains her usual blend of culture, storytelling and philosophy.

But there were two aspects to the flow of this novel that meant I felt removed from the characters and prevented me from connecting with the story -

1. The blend of historical and scientific fact which constantly wove around the story made me feel like I was reading an encyclopedia and disrupted the flow of the plot and the character development. It was like there could have been endless footnotes in this novel but they were contained in the prose but none the less still felt like asides all the time to me. I could see how they related but felt like interruptions which distracted me constantly.

2. I really dislike plotlines that have the kind of pacing where an event in someone's life is introduced and then we see the development and effect of this within the next few paragraphs. I prefer a slower more convoluted plot development that feels more nuanced.

I'm so disappointed and DNFd at 50% but I will still follow Shafak in the future as I think she is intelligent and insightful.

This honest review is given with thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this book.

Displaying 1 - 30 of 9,918 reviews

Ratings & Reviews for

There Are Rivers in the Sky

Elif Shafak

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