Elif Safak

A court has ordered renowned Turkish author Elif Şafak and Doğan Publishing to pay a total of 252,000 Turkish Liras ($8,320) in damages to Mine Kırıkkınat for copying her work.

The case was brought to light by Turkish author Kırıkkanat, whose work "Fly Palace" was copied by Şafak in her "Flea Palace."

I have hated everything about New Year's all my life: cheap street decorations, things no one would try to pass off as gifts at any other time of the year, restaurants where food is bad and the music is worse, television channels with loud and gaudy programs and connections to main squares in New York, Paris and London, street parties where there are just too many people, friends' house parties

About 50 people, mostly young and mostly women, are lying on the grass on the Kordon, the coastal front at the center of İzmir, reading their books. It is Oct. 30, İzmir's Book Reading Festival, a spontaneous festival that surfaced on social media. It is strikingly simple - with no activities or sponsors: "Just bring your book, a cushion and a cup of coffee."

An ambitious woman who aims to reach ministerial level knows that she has at least one cabinet post open to her: The Ministry of Family and Social Policies. Before 2011, it was known as the Ministry Responsible for Women.

According to the chairperson of the Bulgarian Book Association, Veselin Todorov, book sales in Bulgaria registered 7% increase in 2015.

A growing interest was also recorded towards Bulgarian literature, with 1/5 of the fifty best selling titles being of Bulgarian authors, Todorov said in an interview for Focus news agency.