re: What are you reading?

My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk.

I'm about a third of the way through right now, and I'm fascinated. It's about the master artists in Istanbul in the 1500s. They are working together on a masterpiece for the sultan, a large illustrated book. But some of them, instead of continuing to paint in the style of the old masters, are becoming influenced by new, Western ideas of individuality and style. And others are becoming influenced by the ideas of a radical cleric who says that any artistic depiction of a human or animal is a violation of the Koran. And now one of them has been murdered, but who did it, and why?

Since Pamuk is a Nobel winner, I'm expecting the rest of the book to be as good as the beginning.