“This novel is the work of a junior scribe,
One of the many bards, balladeers and storytellers who walk the earth.
We weave poems, songs and stories out of every breath.
May you remember us.
Now and always.
Praise be to Nasiba.”

It begins with a drop of water that falls from the sky onto the head of King Ashurbanipal by the Tigris River in “olden times”, where it becomes part of the cycle of time that sees the same drop travel over and over again.

There Are Rivers in the Sky is a big book that tackles big ideas and does so with big success. With a staggering amount of research, Elif Shafak (The Island of the Missing Trees) weaves concepts steeped in history (King Ashurbanipal, Mesopotamia, Napoleon), culture (Middle East), science (hydrology, ecology, epidemiology), religion (Yazidi, Kurdish, Christianity) and literature (Epic of Gilgamesh) into a beautiful story that ebbs and flows through three distinct timelines all connected by and through water -- and Nineveh. King Arthur of the Sewers and slums enters the world beside the River Thames in 1840 into a life of poverty and hardship, but chance gives him opportunities to escape to the land of his dreams. Narin, a 9-year-old Yazidi girl and daughter of a popular musician, comes from a line of female water-dowsers and travels with her father and story-telling grandmother to be baptized in her motherland only to face persecution for her faith and imprisonment by ISIS in 2014. In 2018 Zaleekhah, a hydrologist, lives in a houseboat on the River Thames, with her marriage ending and her journey of self-discovery just beginning.

Shafak not only writes with exquisite beauty, but she also creates incredibly detailed art. Through the time periods she seamlessly features recurring items like a chandelier, a lamassus with a charred front hoof, fragments of tablets, written symbols, and a shared malady called “restlessness”. Zaleekhah meets a cuneiform-obsessed friend named Brennen, a name that means “little drop of water”. And for her fans who read The Island of the Missing Trees with its list of instructions for “How to Bury a Tree”, Shafak includes a list of instructions for “How to Bury a River”. These are but a few of the pieces of an incredibly woven tapestry.

Throughout the novel, water is the constant. It nourishes, provides the white noise, gives life, and is the utmost metaphor.

“In the end, perhaps what separates one individual from another is not talent but passion. And what is passion if not a restlessness of the heart, an intense yearning to surpass your limits, like a river overflowing its banks?”

I highly recommend There Are Rivers in the Sky, especially to avid readers of literary fiction. It is timely, it is enlightening, and it is memorable. I won’t soon forget Arthur, Narin nor Zaleekhah and consider this my favorite book of 2024.

“Cousins, friends, books, songs, poems, trees . . . anything that brings meaning into our lives counts.”

“But it is harder to grasp the gradual evaporation of love, a loss so slow and subtle as to be barely detectable, until it if fully gone.”

Thank you to Knopf for the ARC of this book through Netgalley, which I received for my honest review.

There Are Rivers In The Sky by Elif Shafak, I was looking so forward to this book I love this author‘s book in his great way of discussing identity he has written some really great books one of them being one of my favorite books ever and that is The Flea Palace, but unfortunately this third person narrative about three people living around a river was hard to get into and to maintain my interest. I really was looking forward to this especially after a good friend of mine described it as a fairytale type story but again and a last it wasn’t my favorite book. #NetGalley,#ElifShafak,#ThereAreRiversInTheSky,

There is something (and I wish, friends, I deeply wish, I could do better here, for you) I cannot describe except as a joy or a sense of joy or a sense of inevitably that is equal parts unlimited possibility.

Elif Shafak is one of my favorite authors, ever since I fell in love with the Island of Missing Trees. This newest endeavor was just as beautiful and endearing!

Wow. I absolutely loved The Island of Missing Trees by this author, but I think I loved this book even more. 3 people connected in time and place by a single drop of water. Each had a singular story all their own, but in the telling of their stories, we are reminded again and again how we are all connected to each other, to the past, to our ancestors, to the ones who came before us, and to the land we inhabit. These characters come to life and I was entranced with every page. I listened to parts on audio and it was very well done. The ending was a bit quiet, not shocking at all. However, I felt that it fit very well with the book as a whole. Highly recommend to anyone who loves literary fiction.
Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC to read and review. All opinions are my own.

Elif Shafak is quickly becoming an auto buy author for me. Did I like this book more than The Island of Missing Trees? Possibly.

I was quietly blown away by this historical fiction novel. It’s beautiful, elegant, and sad. The writing is luxurious, lyrical, and intoxicating. I took my time with this book and decided it deserved a slow read to let everything percolate and sink in.

Set in London, Turkey, and Iraq, the book is told in multiple timelines with three very different main characters, all united by the Epic of Gilgamesh and a single drop of water that has touched them all. Narin is a small girl in a Yazidi community being taught of the olden days by her water diviner grandmother, Zaleekhah is a scientist studying the memory of water who has just left her marriage and settled in a houseboat on the River Thames, and Arthur is a boy genius in poverty stricken Victorian London, named King Arthur of the Sewers and Slums by the mudlarkers who assist his birth on the banks of the Thames. While each character is on a journey of some kind, Arthur is the most interesting character to me, fascinated at a young age with ancient Mesopotamia and the artifacts of the ruined city of Nineveh. His brilliance will take him from the slums to the British Museum’s department of Mesopotamian acquisitions, and later around the world looking for lost knowledge.

I mean, COME ON. You had me at “King Arther of the Sewers and Slums,” but please also take me to lost cities, teach me about rivers, plagues, and war, and make me think about who should be the keepers of history!

Aside from its length, which is maybe 100 pages longer than it needs to be, this would make a great book club read, with so many topics to cover. I loved this book and cannot recommend it highly enough.
(chef’s kiss)

What a soaring epic! The way Elif Shafak writes is achingly beautiful and I was hooked from the very first description of the water and the memory and history carried in water. It moves between time periods and locations without ever seeming confusing or overwhelming and it all comes together in the end perfectly. Absolutely gorgeous from start to finish.

Amazing!!!

If I can give it 6 stars, I would.

After "The forty rules of love", this one is my second-favorite from this author!

Water as a source of life, water as a killer, water as a connection between people, places, and times. This book surpassed my expectations!!

The story is about 3 people, 2 rivers, and 1 poem - the Epic of Gilgamesh. They are all connected by the same drop of water. This drop comes in the form of drinking water, snow, rain, and tears. Their stories are as interesting as they are heartbreaking. The author has gone through a lot of trouble to research ancient Mesopotamia, Victorian London, today's area between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, water and it's qualities, and human nature.

I flipped the pages as fast as I could, and at the same time savored and re-read most sentences to enjoy them longer.

Highly recommended!!!

What a book. This is a new to me author and this book is so hard to describe. It's definitely going to be at the top of my favorite books for this year. This is such a good one. One you won't want to put down and you definitely can not just skim through it and understand what is going on.(in case you do that)

This book is told from three timelines and about three people. In 1840 when a baby boy is born on the banks of the River Thames. Named King Arthur of the Sewers and Slums by his people. He is destine to do some very important things. Author has a memory like no other. He never forgets anything thus is considered a genius. He is obsessed with the sacred tablets that hold poems dating back centuries to Mesopotamia. He starts out with a job in a publishing house and eventually is dedicated to deciphering the sacred tablets in the museum. He travels to Mesopotamia to find the missing tablets. The rest of a poem. His story is sad and exciting. He is such a good young man. I loved this character.

Then in 2014 we meet 9 year old Narin. A Yazidi girl who lives with her grandmother. The Yazidi people are called devil worshippers and treated bad. As you learn more about this young girl your heart will be broken. The things that happened to these people. I had no idea. From ISIS taking them. Killing the men and boys and selling the girls to be used as sex slaves. The older women buried alive just to save on a bullet. You learn what happened in to Narin.

Then you jump into 2018 and meet Zaleekhah, a young water scientist. She was raised by her uncle after the tragic deaths of her parents. Zaleekhah lives on a house boat. She is a very smart woman who has taken her life in her own hands and decided to live for herself. Though she does plan to end her life in one month. A lot will happen before that. She is separated from her husband of three years and her uncle really wants her to go back and try to make things work. Do whatever she has to to get things back the way they should be. But Zaleekhah has other plans.

This all starts with a drop of water. A snowflake. A tear. How water plays a role in this story is told in a beautiful and heartbreaking way. What is happening in the world is the name of progress is sad. Buried cities. Buried people. Whole areas just wiped out. Yet in the midst of all of this you meet these three people and they give you a lot to think about. Or they did me. This book is just so good. Easy to read and easy to keep up with all that is going on. It's long but also a fairly quick read. One I highly recommend.

Thank you #NetGalley, #Knopf, for this ARC. This is my own true thoughts about this book.

FIVE huge stars.

There is no other author that I’ve read that writes a whole book in such a melodic but melancholic way. This book is heavy, and sad, but also so informative and emotive and complex. An ode to water and the ways it sustains us even when we destroy, divert and pollute it. This story weaves together 3 separate time frames and characters to explore the history of water and important relics of history. This story kept me interested throughout, but it may be slow in parts for others. Characters are held at arms length, but I think that is purposeful and important to the execution of this story. I was left with a curiosity to learn more about the people and places in this book. And it really made me think about who “owns” historical relics. @aaknopf @vintageanchorbooks

Elif Shafak is one of my favorite authors writing today — she combines lush, gorgeous storytelling with incredible research and a drop of the fantastic to give us a reading experience like no one else. And There Are Rivers in the Sky is no exception. In fact, it’s my favorite of her novels to date.

This book gives us 4 timelines along 2 historic rivers, the Tigris and the Thames: King Ashurbanipal in Ninevah in the 7th century BC, Arthur in London in the 1800s, Narin in Turkey/Iraq in 2014, and Zaleekah in London in 2018. And all of them are connected by a single drop of water.

This novel is impeccably researched. The audiobook was gorgeously performed, and it was easy to follow that way. That said, as immersive and transportative as it is, it’s also acute — there’s a good deal of pain here. Arthur is impoverished and abused; Narin’s family finds themselves in grave, violent danger; Zaleekah is navigating divorce; and we are given an intimate look at the genocide and persecution of the Yazidi.

I’m a sucker for a book with multiple connected timelines across history, and with Shafak at the helm, there was no way I wasn’t going to love this book. Pick it up — I bet you’ll love it, too.




Content and Trigger Warnings:
Genocide, violence, and murder; Racism; Child abuse; Homophobia; Alcoholism (minor); Suicidal thoughts (minor)

So emotional and moving. Elif Shafak is great at creating these stories and characters that grab onto your heartstrings and never let you go. Just wonderful!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an advance copy in exchange for honest feedback.

3.5 - While I did really enjoy these characters and how all their stories intertwined, along with the mythology and storytelling, for some reason the changing periods threw me off. The writing was absolutely gorgeous, and I really connected with some of the later characters in the story, especially Narin and Zaleekah. I also loved the concept of the single drop of water connecting all humans and how all of our stories ebb and flow and come from the same start.

There Are Rivers in the Sky is an impressive feat of storytelling, telling the stories of three different characters, all who emerged from the Epic of Gilgamesh and the ruins of Mesopotamia. Arthur has suffered his entire life, having to deal with an abusive father and mentally ill mother from a young age, who tries to use his brilliant mind to escape the life he was born into. Narin lives in the 21st century, suffering from a rare disorder, and is waiting to be baptized in the river Tigres. Zaleekah is a scientist who is studying water. All three of these characters emerge out of a single drop of water and are connected by the concept of the ever flowing and changing water surrounding them.

As the story went along, I did find myself connecting to the characters more and really appreciating Shafak's storytelling ability. The focus on water and all that it encompasses was so unique. Thank you to Knopf and NetGalley for providing me with this advanced readers copy in exchange for my honest review!

I *loved* THE ISLAND OF MISSING TREES and was sooo excited for RIVERS. Marketed as an epic tale, spanning centuries and countries.. I was *so* ready to be wowed. But, I wasn’t. And I’m so sad about it!

I don’t think this was bad, per se. But it wasn’t great all the time. There were 3 main POVs and timelines (Arthur in Britain in the 1800s, Narin in Iraq in 2014 and Zaleekah in Britain in 2018) and Shafak sets the scene and stage for them all to come together. Unfortunately, she took approximately 60% of the book to slowly set the scene. It was a lot of work for what was, IMO, a small reward. I keep chugging a long because I thought I would be wowed at how she made it all connected in the end but I wasn’t.

I will say, Shafak’s writing is undoubtedly beautiful. The storytelling, when I wasn’t bored to death, was quite good. For example, the beginning of Arthur’s story and the end of Zaleekah’s were both great but the flip side of both were painfully slow. (Of note, sweet Narin’s story was always very good and always very heartbreaking). There were even some very important and informational parts - especially Narin’s - that I think a lot of people should read about! But the pacing took away from me loving this one.

It kind of sounds like I hated it but I didn’t. I think it’s a solid book with a lot of good parts. But from all of the RAVE reviews, I thought I would love it.💔I don’t want to dissuade people though because I think I’m in the minority for sure!

If you can vibe with a blend of literary and historical fiction with elements of magical realism, you just might love this. Shafak is known for beautiful prose and unique stories. This meets that expectation. It didn't beat The Island of Missing Trees for me but it's still great and I recommend it.

I admit that it did take me a couple of tries to get into it, but I think this is just one of those books you have to be in the right headspace for. And for some sections, I used the audio version as well to push through. It's not a light book you just pick up here and there. But, when the reader is ready and focused (yes, I think her books require focus and true attention) the experience is enchanting and memorable.

The events of this sweeping, gorgeous novel span from Mesopotamia where King Ashurbanipal hoards in his vast library copies of the Epic of Gilgamesh while his people struggle to survive; to turn-of-the twentieth century London, where one marvel of a man decodes cuneiform at the British Museum; from modern-day 2014 Turkey, where a young Yadizi woman and her grandmother seek a cure in ISIS-controlled Iraq; to 2018 London where a hydrologist struggles to come to terms with heartbreak and calamity. All four stories intersect where life-nourishing water flows.

This was an amazing story. I underlined so many passages that resonated with me–Shafak is a poet and master storyteller. I recommend this book to anyone who loves historical fiction and complex, thought-provoking, pithy storytelling. This was my favorite book of the summer, so far the best book of 2024 for me.

Thanks to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor and NetGalley for access to the ARC. The opinions expressed herein are my own, and I’m not compensated for my review.

In this sweeping epic we follow 3 protagonists. In 2014 we read of Nira, a 9 year old, hearing impaired, Kurdish girl from a small village in Turkey, traveling to dangerous Nineveh amid Kurdish extermination in order to be baptized in the river there. In 2018 London, Zaleekhah, a stoic, melancholic doctor of water amid a marriage breakup and life implosion of her own self pitying making. In 1850-1876 King Arthur Smyth of the Slums is an extremely impoverished, brilliant, eidetic young man who becomes a self taught scholar and renowned expert on ancient Mesopotamian writings, who finally travels to Nineveh in search of a tablet with 17 missing lines to a lost poem. This poetic story is infused with historical and research facts in addition to parables and ancient stories woven throughout. It is richly character driven with these varying rivers from England to the Middle East. Seeded throughout is the continuity and memory and rebirth of water, down to droplets of rain. I found I was impatient for each of their stories to materialize. It was a lovely written book. Thank you to NetGalley and Alfred A. Knopf of Borzoi Books.

There Are Rivers in the Sky is a big book in terms of ideas, writing style and plotlines. It combines science, religion, history and literature. It’s the very definition of epic. It’s like a huge tapestry, weaving people and objects across the time periods. And through each story, the power of water.
The story jumps back and forth between the Middle East, specifically the Tigris River in Turkey and Iraq and the River Thames in London, between 660 BC,1840, 2014 and 2018 and between three diverse characters.
In 1840, Arthur lands a job at a publishing house in London thanks to his photographic memory. He develops a fascination with the book, Nineveh and Its Remains, which in turn leads to him translating cuneiform tablets. Arthur is based on the real life George Smith, the first man to translate the Epic of Gilgamesh into English. His story was the most appealing, covering the discoveries of that time period.
In 2014, Narin, a 10 year old Yazidi girl, is slowly going deaf due to a genetic disorder. Her grandmother is determined that she be baptized in the temple in Iraq. This section taught me about the Yazid faith and the persecution of their sect.
And in 2018, Zaleekah is a hydrologist in London studying the effects of climate change on water. She has just left her husband, moved into a houseboat on the Thames and is looking to find meaning in her life. I loved learning about hidden rivers in her section.
All three of these characters and their stories immediately drew me in. And I was entranced by Shafak’s ability to interweave these stories together into a meaningful whole. The ending has literally left me a bit shellshocked.
Each different section taught me something new. It combines the best parts of historical and literary fiction. As much as it taught me, it also sent me down numerous rabbit holes trying to learn more. This may end up being my number one favorite book of 2024.
This is a book that begs to be read by a book club. I will also be amazed if it doesn’t end up on the lists for all the big prizes.
My thanks to Netgalley and Knopf for an advance copy of this book.

This was easily one of the best books I’ve ever read. The prose is gorgeous, the storylines blend magically, and the level of class analysis and advocacy for the global south is loud. This is literature at its finest.