Forgetting, he is learning, is how the world heals itself.

In this recent book by Anthony Doerr (author of All the Light We Cannot See), young Anna lives in fifteenth-century Constantinople with her sickly sister, frustrated with endlessly stitching priests' robes--and secretly learning to read stories from the past.

In twentieth-century Idaho, Zeno has lived a long life filled with yearning, war, and unexpected late-in-life academic satisfaction. He is directing a precious group of children in a farcical, heartbreaking play based on the stories Anna read five centuries earlier.

And far in the future, Konstance is in a vault on the spaceship Argos, destined for a distant planet. She largely lives in a vivid virtual world but leaves to scribble scraps of information about the same ancient stories that touched the lives of Anna and Zeno.

The stories in Cloud Cuckoo Land (which is the name of the book-within-a-book) connect these characters across space and time.

It feels unfair to compare Cloud Cuckoo Land to Doerr's beloved and quite different book All the Light We Cannot See, and the books are exceedingly different. But in both books, Doerr demonstrates the ability to bring a reader deep into disparate situations and create emotional investment.

I didn't feel immediately connected to Doerr's story because of the various timelines and characters, but as he began to deeply interweave the stories across time, he also set up rich glimpses into characters' lives at different points in history, and I began to be fascinated by the interconnectedness.

Doerr presents ancient fables (invented by Doerr) that are imagined as having been written by the real-life ancient Greek author Diogenes. Using the stories as a common point between the book's timelines sounded potentially gimmicky--and also potentially confusing--to me at first.

But the stories themselves emerge as not silly, but as elucidative and relevant to each character's hopes, heartbreak, and reckonings with mortality.

"Some stories," she says, "can be both false and true at the same time."

At one point, one of our main characters notes that academic commentaries through the ages have struggled with the famous ancient Cloud Cuckoo Land and its intentions. ("...was Diogenes writing lowbrow comedy or elaborate metafiction?") Was it a simple fable about a fool, or a genius examination of how essential hope is to the world?

Cloud Cuckoo Land also explores devastating environmental destruction, human culpability, cruel wars, rightly earned despair, the gray areas of various complex situations, and, after it all, and within each disparate, desperate situation, cautious and almost embarrassingly persistent hope.

He realizes that the truth is infinitely more complicated, that we are all beautiful even as we are all part of the problem, and that to be a part of the problem is human.

Doerr's characters persist, each in their own way, in trying to make a positive mark on the world and in preserving what is precious to them--and what they imagine will be important to future generations. Even when all hope should be lost, each character in its own way continues to press on. "But what's so beautiful about a fool...," the text says at one point, "is that a fool never knows when to give up."

Cloud Cuckoo Land was consistently beautiful, always interesting, and sometimes heartbreaking.

I received a prepublication digital edition of this book courtesy of NetGalley and Scribner.

This was an ambitious book - and Anthony Doerr pulled it off nicely. There are complex stories taking place in ancient Constantinople, in the mid-20th century, in the present, and in the future. The characters in each of these times are very different, but they all have some ties to a special book. I loved watching everything unfold, and I thought the ending was excellent in so many ways.

And, this is also a love story of books, and libraries, and stories. So of course I liked that part. I'll be thinking about this book and its stories for awhile!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this!

My brain hurts. So do my ears, after listening to the audio (excellent narrator for 90% of book, narrator for the myth was…discordant). I’m still trying to follow the many many many threads of this loooooong story through my brain cells, yet I consistently get lost. Five narrators tell the tale of a lost Greek myth and how this myth connects them all, attempting to illuminate the place storytelling has in our history and our current world. My hat is off to Doerr for his creativity and his beautiful writing. Yet if you asked if me I enjoyed this book, the answer would be a soft “No.” Not resounding, just No. It felt overly verbose to me, redundant at times (did it really need FIVE narrators?), and it skips around so much which is what hurt my brain. Each time I became invested in a particular story line - boom, it shifted. And then I had to listen to the harsh voice of the myth-teller. Ugh. I am sure Doerr had a wonderful time writing this - it is very cool. Just not my cup of tea.

Dorr takes all the deeply thought storytelling that infused his book All the Light We Cannot See to this fantasy heralding the uplifting and transformative power of storytelling, especially in times of war and strife. From the 1400’s Ottoman empire siege of Constantinople to current-day small town Idaho and to a spaceship taking humanity escaping climate ravaged Earth into an interstellar alternative planet home, Doerr tells the tales of four children tied to an ancient, long lost Greek manuscript featuring stories about an Eden in the clouds.

Outside of Constantinople, there’s Omeir, a 13-year-old boy with a cleft palate whose grandfather refused to kill at birth and is living in isolation with his family scraping a living by farming the land. Omeir is also a bit of an animal whisperer- and has two oxen who follow his every word. As the Ottoman surge passes through their land, Omeir and his oxen team get conscripted into the army.

Inside Constantinople, Anna, a 13-year-old smart orphan who learns to read ancient Greek, struggles to work in an embroidery house. She eventually goes on the hunt in an old priory for ancient manuscripts she can sell in the hopes to heal her older sister.

What connects these characters is a morality story called “Cloud Cuckoo Land,” written more than a thousand years earlier by the Greek writer Antonius Diogenes – but is actually a fiction created by Dorr. Fragments sections get read or appear in the novel, all about the travails of a shepherd who keeps getting turned into different animals as he hunts for Eden in the sky.

In present day Idaho, Zeno, an ex-Korean war vet, takes his translations of Cloud Cuckoo Land and works with a group of kids from needy homes to stage a play of it, which they morph as a group into a script of their own imagination. At the same time, creating great tension, a young eco-terrorist has brought a backpack bomb to the library where they’re rehearsing.

On a future spaceship Argos, 14-year-old Konstance is on a race to escape an eco-destroyed Earth. She finds solace in the tale of Cloud Cuckoo Land which her father shared with her when young.

All the children in the book face intense strife and uncertainty: from war, abandonment, terrorism, apocalypse. Across these dramatic battlefields crossing the ancient past, present and far-flung future, all herald the imaginative power of storytelling to infuse a hope of survival.

Thanks to Netgalley for an advance reader’s copy.

This stunningly crafted novel spanning several centuries is phenomenal. Doerr' shows us how a wondrous story can inspire people across different circumstances and geography and endure across the ages.

My rating seems mingy, doesn't it. It did to me...I was fully expecting to five-star this bad boy. I wanted to five-star it. I five-starred <I>All the Light We Cannot See</i>, and it was (like this book) a braided-perspectives structure telling a deeply felt and emotionally fraught story.

I blame it on the sci-fi bona fides I have learned to demand of mainstream writers.

Author Doerr's gorgeous sentences are all here:
<blockquote>Almost overnight, the streets glow with meaning. She reads inscriptions on coins, on cornerstones and tombstones, on lead seals and buttress piers and marble plaques embedded into the defensive walls—each twisting lane of the city a great battered manuscript in its own right.
–and–
“Repository… you know this word? A resting place. A text—a book—is a resting place for the memories of people who have lived before. A way for the memory to stay fixed after the soul has traveled on.”
–and–
There is magic in this place, the owl seems to say. You just have to sit and breathe and wait and it will find you. He sits and breathes and waits and the Earth travels another thousand kilometers along its orbit. Lifelong knots deep inside the boy loosen.</blockquote>
His gift for the pithy aperçu is on display, too:
<blockquote>“Fear of the thing,” Maher murmurs, more to himself than to Omeir, “will be more powerful than the thing itself.”
–and–
"Boil the words you already know down to their bones," Rex says, "and usually you find the ancients sitting there at the bottom of the pot, staring back up."</blockquote>
That last is particularly resonant to me. Cloud-cuckoo Land, invented by Aristophanes in his play <I>The Birds</i>, never existed (as far as I am aware) in the form posited by Author Doerr in this story. Big ups to him for actually fooling me into looking up "Antonius Diogenes Cloud Cuckoo Land" to be absolutely sure of it, though.

So what was the problem? It was the generation-ship element in which Konstance, in all our future, resides. An Earth that can muster the resources to create such a massive object, which has AIs as sophisticated as Sybil (I had to check...I'd've named it "Sibyl," so I verified that it wasn't before typing this), would not need to flee their home world. (Also, is running away from home because we've made a mess really all that hopeful a message in the first place?) It's part of the charm of 1950s sci fi that there were generation ships launched to escape nuclear-war ravaged Earth without anyone saying, "waitaminnit <I>waitaminnit</i> all those resources would be just ducky used on Earth to help people!" but it's 2021 and those sorts of naïve assumptions are scrapheap-of-history material. And yes, I got to the end... I know about the twist...but it comes very late and, for me at least, doesn't change the jarring code-switch from its intended if not entirely successfully sold hope-full to hope-less. The point of making this last-minute course correction was simply lost on me. It ended up making the whole narrative line feel like a cheat.

Another thing that *needs* to be scrapheap-of-history'd is the coding of villains as neurodivergent. One entire star vanished for that. This is all I will say on the subject.

In the end, though, it's the gestalt that doesn't happen that costs this beautifully told tale another of my stars. I expect, if I'm following five (or six, depending on your take on Aethon in the ancient play) main threads, to experience a coming-together, a thematic unity that makes each strand of the story stronger after I've reached it. This was, I'm very sad to say, missing in my reading experience, much as it was in my unhappy read of <I>Cloud Atlas</i>. A much more successfully gestalted example from my own reading is the near-future India of SF chunkster <I>River of Gods</i>, or the outstandingly exciting present-day crime-story chunkster also set in India, <I>Sacred Games</i>.

It verges on misery porn to use children's PoVs in highlighting the cost to innocents of the great human-caused upheavals of History. I'm very glad Author Doerr presented the misery of unnatural change from both sides of the 1450s fall-of-Constantinople story; no triumphalism allowed here. I was less convinced that the overarching thematic reach for Hope was successful, in that these children are all facing the awful, wrenching adjustments whether or not the world actually collapses around them. I mean by that, that the collapses are hard-wired and the survivors are going to be powerless to do more than respond to the New World Order. This vitiates any real hope, at least to my mind it does. That's more than the usual problem for me in this book's case because by its very nature...a story about stories and libraries and words in their eternally exciting welter of meaning, connotation, metaphorical freight...Hope should be the one thing that each character finds, retains, develops, has by the end of the tale.

In the final analysis, this is an Anthony Doerr book. Reams and reams of printer paper, a metric ton of toner, all used to commit the MS's supremely descriptive language to the page. Deeply felt and beautifully written dialogue. Thought-provoking and well-presented explorations of significant thematic concerns of the world right now. But this many pages in the present tense? I felt pummelled with the <B>immediacy! <I>urgency!</i></b> of that choice, the sense that I was being asked to move through the story at far too rapid a clip. Your book club will, I am pretty sure, love it anyway or even because of this, will discuss it for the required hour and probably go over.
<blockquote>In a life you accumulate so many memories, your brain constantly winnowing through them, weighing consequence, burying pain, but somehow by the time you're this age you still end up dragging a monumental sack of memories behind you, a burden as heavy as a continent, and eventually it becomes time to take them out of the world.
–and–
It's never easy. Past tense literally causes him back pain, the way it flings all the verbs into the dark. Then there's the aorist tense, a tense unbound by time, that makes him want to crawl into a closet and huddle in the darkness.
–and–
Each morning comes along and you assume it will be similar enough to the previous one—that you will be safe, that your family will be alive, that you will be together, that life will remain mostly as it was. Then a moment arrives and everything changes.</blockquote>
I needed things I didn't get...a faster pace in each timeline, fewer flowery passages (though they are gorgeous!)...got things I didn't want (<I>cough</i>Seymour<I>cough</i>), and yet read the book from giddy-up to whoa. Never once did I so much as contemplate abandoning the read, and that is saying something.

This title is a FINALIST for the 2021 Best Fiction National Book Award! The winner will be announced on 17 November 2021. My most sincere well-wishes to the author and the publisher for their success in this contest.

I struggled with this book. I had heard so much about his other book and wanted to like it, but it did not grab me.

This is one of the strangest books I have read in a long time. It took me three attempts to finally get through this large book. The story is expansive and there are so many characters, timelines that you have to keep track of.

The title comes from a fictional Greek story. Zeno is the keeper of this story in present day. When the book opens Zeno is taking a group of young children to the library to rehearse the play Cloud Cuckoo Land. At the same time a young man named Seymour is about to do something that will change the course of everyone in that same library.

The book then switches to the 15th century and then to 22nd century. All the stories of course involve this Greek text. And this is where I started drifting. While I enjoyed Zeno and Seymour’s portion of the story, I had a hard time following the connections throughout. I heard Anthony Doerr give an interview on this book and he assured the readers that he left enough Easter eggs throughout so it would be easy to follow the jumping timelines and many characters, however, I did not see it.

This is a book that takes much concentration and time to read. It will not be for everyone. If you are expecting All The Light We Cannot See, this is not that book. There is a lot of beautiful writing in this book and enough that it keep me engaged, but when it was done, I did not get the feeling that this was unforgettable.

Thank you NetGalley and Scribner for an Advanced Reader’s copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I read the plot summary for Cloud Cuckoo Land when the book was first teased and thought, 'What on earth IS this book?". I continued to ponder that question throughout my entire journey with the story.

This book is all over the place - in location, time, and topic. There's a long-lost ancient story. There's an oncoming battle. There are volunteers in space. There's a lot of talk about donkeys and owls.

Despite the whiplash I felt from jumping to different characters and timelines every few pages, I mostly enjoyed the book, even though it took me a while to come to that conclusion. I still have questions, but I'm impressed how very different this book was. I doubt I'll ever read anything quite like it.

Anthony Doerr’s latest novel overflows with the beautiful phrasing, lyrical descriptions, and intriguing characters readers found in his Pulitzer-Prize-winning <I>All the Light We Cannot See</I>, yet this reader found it difficult to complete. The plot shifts frequently between three vastly different settings — Constantinople during the Ottoman Siege of 1453; Lakeport, Idaho, 1940s-2064; and aboard the Argos, a sealed ship in the sixth decade of its journey to a new planet — and five narrators. The shifts were so frequent that it was almost impossible to become invested in any of the characters, leaving this reader with very little desire to finish the story. It was not until reading over 60% of the book that I began to care what happened to the characters. I wanted to love this book, I truly did, but overly slow, drawn-out plots in all three time settings made that impossible. The lovely language and homage to the power of story will appeal to many but will leave character-driven readers cold.

I received an advance copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I selected Cloud Cuckoo Land based on its author, Anthony Doerr. It was a little daunting to find out the book was over 600 pages long, but the length was necessary to tell the stories contained in the book. The book was a little confusing at the beginning when we meet the main characters in three different timelines: Anna and Omeir in 1453 Constantinople, Zeno and Seymour in current day Idaho, and Konstance in the near future where she lives on a spaceship traveling to another planet. Interwoven throughout the book is the Greek myth, Aethon, which is used to bind the stories together. Anna discovers the book within the walled city which is protecting many books and manuscripts. She has been taught to read and the first person she reads the story to is her ailing sister. The book is magnificent in its storytelling of each of the characters and I was drawn in wanting to know the outcome of each of the characters. The book has 24 chapters like the number of letters in the Greek alphabet. There are some Greek words in the book as well, but the words are translated so it is easy to understand their meaning. The book impresses upon how through time there is a need to keep our books and stories so that they live on long after the authors are gone. There are so many layers to the novel and such beautiful prose that it definitely needs to be added to many curriculums studying American literature. Thank you to Net Galley and Scribner for the ARC of Cloud Cuckoo Land in exchange for an honest review.

There is a lot about this book that is intimidating; it’s long (over 600 pages), it combines genres (historical fiction, contemporary fiction and science-fiction) and seems confusing (we follow five characters across three different eras). These aspects made me hesitant to start reading, but I’m so glad I did because Cloud Cuckoo Land // Anthony Doerr is an absolute masterpiece.

Cloud Cuckoo Land bounces between Constantinople in the 1400s, Idaho from the turn of the century to today and many decades into the future aboard a spaceship bound for a new, liveable planet. The various characters throughout these times are connected by a single story from Ancient Greece about a fool who believes the mythical Cloud Cuckoo Land is real and sets out on a journey to find it.

First, the fact Doerr was able to assemble this story at all is impressive. There are so many disparate parts it can feel a little overwhelming, but the way everything is brought together is nothing short of magical. Second, the writing is stunning. I highlighted so many lines (and I am not usually a highlighter) because I was so moved by them. Third, this book is exactly what we need at this moment. At a time when the world seems to be literally ending a book about hope and resilience, the capacity for stories to unite us and the power of librarians hits exactly right.

It took me two months to finish this book, but I’m glad I did.

When I read books, I keep a list of all my favorite quotes, and I found myself having to write down a beautiful new quote every chapter. If you like this kind of (almost poetic) writing, this is a wonderful novel for you.

Zeno and Seymour’s chapters were absolutely amazing. I love the way Doerr started with present day for these two characters and then allowed us to slowly discover what lead us to this moment where their paths cross. Though I must admit Anna and Omeir’s chapters felt kind of dry to me. They felt repetitive and like a chore to get through. The siege on Constantinople felt very distant, and not something I felt any anticipation for. I felt that it lacked the urgency that made Zeno’s chapters as a prisoner of war and Seymour’s struggles at school (and both their lives in general) most compelling.

Overall, however, I am in awe of the concept of Cloud Cuckoo Land: it’s a concept I would have never imagined on my own. I like how it examined how one seemingly inconsequential and unknown book can thread through so many lives. The feeling I got while reading this book reminded me a lot of All the Light We Cannot See in that I felt like I was constantly waiting for the moment it would all come together. I was pleasantly surprised when Zeno, Seymour, and Konstance’s stories all connected, all the little hints falling into place. It’s the kind of book I’d want to read again to see how all those pieces had been foreshadowed from the beginning.

This novel is an extraordinary achievement! Intricate, complex, moving, it's a braid of multiple stories that address the themes, emotions, and philosophies in a number of ways. For bibliophiles it is a massive love letter: a book about storytelling and reading and libraries and the journey is well worth the commitment!

Immersive and clever story! I knew going into reading this new book that some readers had some issues with this story. I approached each chapter as a short story. It wasn’t long until I began to see how each separate story shared a common thread with the others. It covers ancient times, the present day and the future world, linking them all with a common story that has been preserved throughout history.

Anna, a young orphan in Constantinople, learns to read, eventually finding the story of Aethon, which she reads to her dying sister. The book is a source of comfort to them during their difficult times.

Omeir, a poor village boy ends up in Constantinople and meets Anna as they both flee the city which was under siege. Omeir helps Anna keep the book safe throughout their journey.

These two stories connect with a man named Zeno, who lives 500 years later in the United States and spends his days in the local library. Zeno, who also knew Greek, translated the story of Aethon and is helping a group of children perform a play of the story.

Konstance, who lives in the future, also knows the story of Aethon, as it was told to her by her father. These four unlikely timelines, connected by Aethon, show us how we are all linked to each other both during our time on this earth and beyond.

I thought this was a clever, well done tale, that was so different from anything I have read. It is one book I could see myself re-reading in the future. Readers of historical fiction, fantasy and science fiction will not want to pass this one up!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for allowing me to read an advance copy and give my honest review.

I would like to thank Scribner and Net Galley for giving me an ARC of this book to review. WhenI first read a blurb of this to be published book, I must confess I was a bit dubious. It spanned 3 timelines,( Constantinople in the 1400's, Idaho in 2020 and a spaceship in the not too distant future,) had multiple character arcs and was over 600 pages long, I was unsure of my interest level. Cloud Cuckoo Land is indeed sprawling in scope, intense in character development and 640 pages long. It is also excellent. I have read a few books lately of similar length that were in need of some editing. I could have read this book for another 100 pages! The characterizations are rich and and engaging. The storylines, while seemingly diverse, go indeed meld in ways I could never have guessed. Anna and Omeir are teenagers on opposite sides of the wall around Constantinople in 1453. Seymour is a teenager, (on the Ausberger spectrum it appears , although not specifically stated) in Idaho on 2020 and Konstance is 10 years old, living on a spaceship fleeing earth. I do not want to give anything away, but just know that this is compelling storytelling on many levels.Thank you again for giving me he chance to read it.

I read Doerr's last book "All the Light We Cannot See" and absolutely fell in love with his beautiful writing and the story. I typically read books and donate them to libraries when I am finished, but that was book I knew I would want to read again so it still sits prominently on my shelf. So I had a little trepidation picking up this book wondering if it could live up to my heightened expectations -- and I am glad to say it does. I am amazed and how brilliantly he is able to wave threads of 5 different stories spanning the past and the future and I was able to follow and keep track of each plot trajectory. The stories are so interesting and compelling and I cared deeply for each of the characters (even those with incredible flaws). I would find myself moved to tears on many occasions at the recognition of some of the interweaving themes or foreshadowing throughout. This book speaks to the power of stories and is a true homage to libraries. It highlights the importance of preserving stories and how stories bring out our own humanity. The book also touches on climate change and does a brilliant job brining all of these themes together.

This book is a true masterpiece -- it is the best book I have read all year. I highly recommend it. It is going on the bookshelf next to his previous work.

I received a temporary digital advanced copy of Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr from NetGalley, Scribner, and the author in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Despite being from different millenniums, Anna, Omeir, Zeno, Konstance, and Seymour lives are drastically changed after reading Cloud Cuckoo Land, a Greek myth about Aethon. Anna learns to read in exchange for wine and finds Aethon's tale in an old monastery. Her and Omeir's paths will cross after an invasion of Constantinople. The tale will later help the two save someone they both love. Zeno will use his rudimentary ancient Greek translation skills to unearth the story that was almost lost to time while Seymour tries to destroy Zeno's happiest place. Konstance, traveling through space to a new planet, hears of Aethon's story from her father and uses Cloud Cuckoo Land to make sense of her world.

The premise of Cloud Cuckoo Land is fantastic. I loved the five stories being woven together through Cloud Cuckoo Land. Like many other readers, I did find it extremely frustrating that the individual stories were short or stopped in the middle of a climax. I also found some character's stories much more interesting than others--Zeno and Konstance were my favorites. Nevertheless, the writing was extremely well done and it will be a story I remember.

This is the story about three children in different eras who are all connected to an ancient Greek manuscript. A girl who lives in the 1400s in Constantinople first discovers the manuscript in an abandoned castle. 500 years later an boy in Idaho goes off to war and meets a Greek scholar. When he returns to Idaho after the war, he uses his knowledge to translate the book. Then he creates a play based on the book for youngsters at the public library. Finally in the not too distant future, a girl on futuristic interstellar vessel finds the book.
These the separate stories are scattered throughout the book. It is not till the end that the reader understands how the stories are interconnected.
This is a long book (over 600 pages) and it takes awhile to understand how the stories are related. However it is well written and bound to be a classic.
I received this ARC from Net Galley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

This was very different to Doerr’s first book, but an absolute masterpiece as well. So beautifully written, I loved the different perspectives and stories. It was daunting to get into because of the length but once I was invested I flew through fairly quickly. Definitely a top book of 2021.