A view from Istanbul during the #TurkeyCoupAttempt

Glancing at the to-do list on my desk that I’d scribbled just hours before, the scrap of paper seemed to have appeared from some alternate universe too banal to be believed.

Set alarm for 6 a.m. Take out the trash when I go out for an early-morning run. Bring some money to buy fruit for breakfast on the way home.

Cowering on the entryway floor at 3 a.m. as jets roared past, their sonic booms shaking the building and threatening to break the windows, hadn’t been part of the plan....

As shots rang out outside my window and concerned messages pinged in from friends and family around the world, my editor at CityLab, The Atlantic's website on urban issues, asked me if I'd like to write something about my personal experience of being in Istanbul during what turned out to be a failed military coup.

Read the rest of that essay, "Istanbul, the Day After," on CityLab.

For more on the politics of the coup attempt, its aftermath, and its possible ramifications, here are some news, analysis, and commentary pieces I think are worth a read:

• "The night Erdoğan almost lost Turkey," Noah Blaser, Foreign Policy, 15 July 2016
• "The tragedy of Turkey's attempted coup," Jenny White, CNN, 16 July 2016
• "Turkey's failed coup gives its president a chance to seize more power," Piotr Zalewski, The Economist, 16 July 2016
• "Turkey's last coup: What I saw in Ankara," Selim Koru, War on the Rocks, 16 July 2016
• "Erdoğan’s Pyrrhic victory," Hugh Pope and Nigar Göksel, Politico, 17 July 2016
• "Erdoğan promised to bring true democracy to Turkey. Instead, he’s held it hostage," Elmira Bayrasli, Quartz, 17 July 2016
• "No ordinary weekend: personal reflections on a failed coup," Başak Çalı, Medium, 17 July 2016
• "Turkish president foiled coup with luck, tech savvy," Dion Nissenbaum, Adam Entous, and Emre Peker, The Wall Street Journal, 17 July 2016
• "Brutality of Turkey's failed coup caught on phones, social media," Ayla Jean Yackley, Reuters, 18 July 2016
• "How the internet saved Turkey’s internet-hating president," Zeynep Tüfekçi, The New York Times, 18 July 2016
• "Vast purge in Turkey as thousands are detained in post-coup backlash," Tim Arango, Ceylan Yeginsu, and Ben Hubbard, The New York Times, 18 July 2016
• "The view from Taksim Square," William Armstrong, The Times Literary Supplement, 19 July 2016