Recently I got a big care package of books from the new Left Coast Press, Inc., which was started last year by Mitch Allen, long-respected editor at Altamira. Although I was quite daunted by the stack, among them was this tasty little book, a personal memoir of a Turkish site guard responsible for guarding the 9,500 year old Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük. Sadrettin Dural is a natural diarist, and his tale of his life working at one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world is quite accessible, and allows the rest of us a glimpse into how people who are not archaeologists interpret what we say.

Having worked at Çatalhöyük before and during Ian Hodder's excavations, Dural has a unique perspective at Çatalhöyük, sharing the local ideas about the site before Hodder began excavating, the ideas of the archaeologists as they excavate, and the ideas of the tourists as they wander about chatting with the guard.

• Protecting Çatalhöyük, read the entire review
• The Goddess and the Bull, a book by Michael Balter about the site
• Çatalhöyük: Urban Life in Neolithic Anatolia
• Protecting Çatalhöyük, buy the book at Pricegrabber or
• Protecting Çatalhöyük, get it from Left Coast Press

I have to add: Ian Hodder's crowd at Çatalhöyük has provided some off the most interesting public archaeology in the world, always inventive and never dull. Between several recent books, their website, their Flickr page, and even a Second Life virtual environment, I am always astounded at their creativity.