We are very excited to announce that the new issue of Cornucopia, Dutch Masters, is making its way to a bookshop near you as we speak. Subscribers, keep an eye out for the postman!

All the book reviews are available to read online now.

Tim Stanley finds a positive outcome to a disastrous trip to Bulgaria in 1989 in the pages of Nurhan Atasoy and Lale Uluç's Impressions of Ottoman Culture in Europe, Cornucopia's book of the month for April.

Scott Redford is hungry for more publications about the architecture of the Beylik Period after reviewing a book on the recently restored Balat Ilyas Bey Complex, edited by M Baha Tanman and Leyle Kayhan Elbirlik: 'Imagine Venetian Gothic profiles and muqarnas carved out of antique marble in the same mosque and you have a sense of the wonder of this period.'

The historian David Barchard examines the under-appreciated British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Sir Henry Layard, via an edited version of his memoir and his wife's diaries, published by Sinan Kuneralp and the Isis Press. The Layards were in Istanbul during the 1877-1878 war with Russia. The Crimean War of 21 years earlier has been expertly tackled by Orlando Figes in Crimea, The Last Crusade, also reviewed by David Barchard for Cornucopia.

Meanwhile, Thomas Rouéché has been reading about The Last Sultan, at least by Robert Greenfield's reckoning: Ahmet Ertegun, pop music mogul and founder of Atlantic Records. 

In fiction, Barbary Rogerson reviews An Evil Eye, the latest in Jason Goodwin's series of Ottoman detective stories, and The Story of the Damascus Drum. This first novel by Cornucopia's food writer Christopher Ryan, is a fabulous adventure story set amongst the historical monuments of Syria. 

Elsewhere in the magazine we have mouthwatering watermelons, Turkey's finest wines, 26 pages on the hidden charms of Ankara, the late Josephine Powell's remarkable photographs of Anatolian nomads, and a history of Dutch-Turkish relations.