Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr is as ambitious as it is long. At 640 pages, Doerr creates an elaborate narrative that changes between three different eras - near Constantinople in the 1400s, a small town in Idaho during the 20th and 21st centuries, and on the interstellar spaceship Arthos in the not-so-distant future. There were a lot of stories being told about different characters and it was hard to follow how and why Doerr switched between the different characters when he did between chapters and why. It took me a little while to understand that the beginning of each chapter had an excerpt of an entirely different story, Cloud Cuckoo Land, and that this separate story ultimately ties all the characters to each other across the centuries.

I found the novel descriptive, with some elegant elements, but overall it a little askew, mostly because it was a novel that was trying to fit into to many different genres all at the same time - historical fiction, fantasy, and science fiction. It's almost like Doerr couldn't decide what type of novel he wanted to write and threw three different books together. He would get you hooked onto the story of one character and then abruptly switch to another but not necessarily returning to the first. He had five different main characters, or six if you want to count the man from the Cloud Cuckoo Land story.

It is a beautiful novel with a lot going on, and makes you think about many past and current social and political issues. Overall, I think it is a book most people will enjoy but know that it is very different from his Pulitzer Prize winning novel All the Light We Cannot See. I would go in with an open mind and knowing that it will get a little confusing at times.

A true epic tale, Cloud Cuckoo Land takes us across the globe through time and space(?) with different narratives all connected by an ancient story. Lush prose and distinct characters make the different narratives stand apart, and each could have been expanded into it's book with full plots and casts.

When starting the book, I was immediately drawn in to the whimsy -- it reminded my a bit of The Starless Sea (one of my favorites of all time). The further we got into the book, the less whimsical this felt, but not in a bad way at all. It is very much a love letter to books and time and the intersection of these two things.

Zeno was absolutely my favorite and there were some truly beautiful lines in his chapters about life and memory. Some pacing issues towards the middle detracted from my enjoyment, but overall this was a great read and I'm sure it will be a hit this fall!

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for the chance to read this book early in exchange for an honest review.

I was afraid when starting this book that it would just be a collection of mediocre stories joined by their superficial connection to the lost manuscript that gives its name to the title. Ultimately, I thought that that connection was indeed pretty tenuous, but the stories ended up being much more engaging than I was expecting, and I raced through the book in just a couple of sittings. Overall, I’d say the book is much more style than substance, but I’d recommend as a beach or plane read.

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC!

'Cloud Cuckoo Land,' by Anthony Doerr (Scribner, Sept. 28, 640 pages, $30)

For a Pulitzer Prize-winning author to best one of the most beloved literary novels of our time is no easy task. Yet, Anthony Doerr, author of “All the Light We Cannot See,” does that here, in his third novel, “Cloud Cuckoo Land.”

Redemptive can be an adjective too freely loosed on works of literature, but “Cloud Cuckoo Land” earns that badge. Floating from the 15th century to, by the novel’s end, the year 2146, Doerr’s novel takes us from ancient Constantinople to a small town in present-day Idaho to a berth on an interstellar ship in the future. Tying this together is an ancient Greek manuscript connecting humanity’s past, present and future, centering on an original story of Aethon, a young shepherd who dreams of a wild series of adventures leading to paradise.

The early accolades for this book from reviewers are already filling the annals of online sellers and other cyberspace realty. They are not undeserved.

I hate to give a bad review but this book was beyond difficult to read. It is told in so many multiple viewpoints, that would have been hard enough to follow. But, there was such a dragging plot that never felt like it was going anywhere, it made me put the book down multiple times. I decided to trudge through because I loved All the Light We Cannot see...unfortunately, I felt exactly the opposite about this one.

It's a little hard to describe the plot of this book, and the experience of reading it but here goes. The story is told on three separate timelines, and within each timeline, we have multiple characters (at the beginning, I considered making a spreadsheet to keep track). The timelines are connected by the Cloud Cuckoo Land story - an ancient Greek myth considered lost to antiquity until it is discovered by a group of archeologists and translated by Zeno Ninis (one of our characters). In the first timeline, it's we're in Constantinople in the 1400s as the Ottoman armies are preparing to attack the city. Anna, a young girl, finds herself in possession of a manuscript of the Cloud Cuckoo Land story which she guards with her life. In the second timeline, Zeno Ninis is rehearsing a play of Cloud Cuckoo Land with a group of fifth-graders when they find themselves held hostage by a suicide bomber in the local library. In the third timeline, it's hundreds of years in the future on an intergalactic ship called the Argos when Konstance (12 years old) has fond memories of her father telling her the story of Cloud Cuckoo Land.

It took me a while to get into this story but once I did, I was totally sucked in. (Note: it also took me a while to stop thinking of the LEGO movie whenever I was reading it given the overlap of Cloud Cuckoo Land.) The writing is beautiful - so descriptive that in every location and time I felt like I was right there with the characters. Some of the stories were more engaging than others but seeing them all come together in the last 10-15% of the book was really rewarding and unpredictable. The book is long (600+ pages) so there were times where I wished it was a little less rambling and there were threads that I felt weren't entirely tied up by the end. Otherwise I really enjoyed this.

Thanks to Scribner and NetGalley for the early copy. All opinions are my own.

This was unlike anything I have ever read. I don't even know how to provide a pithy synopsis as this is the definition of epic. It covers hundreds of years, multiple POVs, and a long-lost Greek story that plays a key role at multiple points of history. The story itself is somewhat absurd, but slowly is revealed just why it mattered so much. 

This should have been hard to read. It's really long (over 600 pages) and changes POVs and timelines frequently, including different timelines of the same characters. But I found it completely captivating right from the beginning. It is so well written, it's so easy to follow and connect with every single one of the many characters (even the terrible ones!) 

This is an amazing blend of genres, with historical fiction, and sci fi, and social commentary, it feels like it shouldn't work but absolutely does. 

I have so many things that I loved about it, it's really hard to cover it all. I'd definitely recommend! Thanks to @netgalley and @scribnerbooks for the early copy!

This book had beautiful descriptions and I wanted to love the book, but I found the multiple plot lines too confusing. It is a long book and it took a long time before the connections became apparent between the multiple characters. And I felt like I wanted more closure for a few of the plot lines. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

Thank you, NetGalley and author Doerr for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I loved All the Light We Cannot See. I liked the characters, the setting was interesting, and there was a well written story. In this book, however, I found no likable characters, confusing and poorly written settings, intricate stories interwoven by chronology, location, and point of view. I slogged through, even though I wanted to quit several times.

This book….I’m almost lost for words. At first I though this would be a DNF….but with all the hype I get going and thank goodness I did! It’s truly a masterpiece and not a quick one, but once you understand the genius behind it you’ll quickly realize how brilliant @anthonydoerrwriter is! Absolutely beautiful in execution

In all honesty, it was really hard to get into this book at first however, once you pass the first 50-75 pages, it is totally worth it.

It still amazes me how wonderful and well-crafted Anthony Doerr's writing is. You can tell in every detail, in every page. I was so excited to read this his newest book, very different setting and atmosphere from All The Ligth We Can Not See, which is my favorite of his, but still an unforgettable and amazing story.

This book has many facets to its story. It takes place in three different time periods, the mid 1400’s in Constantinople, present day in Idaho and sometime in the future aboard a spacecraft headed to a planet light years away. The thread that binds them all together is a story, a book, really, found by Anna in Constantinople. This book chronicles the adventures of Aethon, who longs to become a bird to fly to a utopian land that exists in the clouds.

I knew when I read the synopsis of this book I was either going to love or hate it. How in the world was author, Anthony Doerr, going to weave these stories into a connected, cohesive tale? Brilliantly, that’s how he does it. I feel I can’t say too much about how this story unfolds without spoilers, but it grabbed me from the start and never let me down. My suggestion for the reader who decides to embark on this journey, sit back, relax and enjoy how this magnificent, complicated story unfolds.

*I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This wasn’t quite what I was expecting from the author of book club favorite All the Light We Cannot See. It feels much less of a “traditional” novel and though it took me quite a while to get into it, it was ultimately very rewarding.

As with All the Light, there is more than one narrative strand, but this time they range much more widely chronologically. There are characters in the 15th century siege of Constantinople, one in a Korean prisoner of war camp in the 20th century, the same one in a library besieged by a teenage eco terrorist in the 21st century, and one in the future on a spaceship headed to a distant planet after Earth has been made uninhabitable. Linking all these different strands is a (fictional) story by (real life) Ancient Greek Diogenes called Cloud Cuckoo Land.

The author does a brilliant job of capturing the specificity of the many different characters and settings. Each character is leisurely and robustly drawn with a deep back story and three dimensional support characters. Each location and time period is evoked with convincing and almost tangible details.

What I didn’t love was the shifting between one story and the next. Though there are some clear linkages through Cloud Cuckoo Land, both the story itself and the physical codex, I found the fitting together of the narratives just a little bit too clever. When I really wanted to luxuriate in Mr Doerr’s wonderful storytelling, I found myself having to intellectualize what I was reading.

So if you loved All the Light, but really wanted it to hurry up to when Marie-Laure and Werner were in the same place at the same time, this may not be for you. But if you loved it because of the separation of the two narratives which then zipped up together, then you should definitely give this one a go.

Thanks to Scribner and Netgalley for the digital review copy.

Thank you NetGalley and Scribner for an ARC of the Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr. This is a sci-do novel based on several different eras. A book of Aethons is the base for all the lives. Anna is an orphan that lives with the women who embroider robes for the priests. She is always searching for something new and learns to read. Anne finds the book by Aethon and reads it to her sick sister, Maria during the siege of Constantinople. Omeir, a conscripted youth with his two oxen, are outside the wall where eventually their lives cross. Zeno, who learned to read Greek while a prisoner of war, works with the bored youth in town to read and write the material into a play while Sherman, a troubled youth hides a bomb in the library.
All stories rotate around the Lakeside Library in Idaho and the book by Aethons, Cloud Cuckoo Land and the powers they believe it possess.
Anthony Doerr did some amazing writing but I got confused as to what the story was about. That’s why I gave it. 3.5 rounded up to four. Worth the read for the good writing and the character development.
Thank you NetGalley and Scribner for the opportunity to read this book.
#Netgalley #Scribner

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A big thanks to @netgalley and @scribnerbooks for the ARC. This one comes out September 28!

On the most basic level, this book is a beautifully written novel spanning the past, present, and future. On a deeper level, this is an examination of the horrific things that plague us: “climate instability, pandemics, and disinformation.” Doerr expertly writes of the terrors while intertwining hope and interconnectedness.

This story is told in the past, present, and future through 5 different characters. It mixes fantasy, sci-fi, historical fiction, and contemporary fiction. At times I was completely engrossed, and at times I thought it was too much.

Each character was both well-developed and needing just a little more. The short chapters moved the book along, but often, jumping from one POV abruptly brought me out of the story.

Reflecting on this one, I’m amazed at the thought behind it. Stories were here, are here, and will be here long after all of us. Life is a human experience, which translates to then, now, and next. We are all connected, which is really, really beautiful.

This is not an easy book to read, but it is a great book to reflect on. No matter what you ultimately think about this one - it’s unlike anything you’ve ever read before.

Beautiful story with underlying themes of love for books, for libraries and also for the natural world and its fragility. This story is told from multiple POVs in multiple timeframes and is only loosely connected by the story "Cloud Cuckoo Land" by Diogenes. Some of the stories meander but I just didn't even care. The prose is just so descriptive and lovely that I was happy to get lost in even the most mundane-seeming POV. That being said, each character took turns being the most interesting one for me. The ending was a bit of a shocker-I really wish that this storyline was a little more fleshed out so that I understood fully what had happened. I definitely understand some of the negative reviews-I don't think that this book is for everyone at over 600 pages long. I however loved it.
Thanks to Scribner and NetGalley for the ARC in return for my honest review.

This book was a lot! It was a lot of pages, a lot of characters, a lot of storylines....
I struggled for the first half of this book. There was just so many different things going on that I couldn't connect to any character or storyline. I also didn't really like the "past" story and found myself skimming large portions of this.
At the halfway mark, things picked up a bit and it was easier to get through. I loved the "present" and "future" stories and characters. They were interesting and easy to connect with.
The ending really brought everything together in a unique and unexpected way. Although, I did feel that parts were rushed, underdeveloped, and kind of left hanging, especially in the "future" storyline.
Overall, there were some unique and interesting parts to this but it was a long, and difficult road to get to those parts. And even though the ending was unique, the lack to closure in some of the storylines left me unsatisified.

Anthony Doerr’s new novel, Cloud Cuckoo Land, is unlike anything I have read before. This book follows five different characters (Konstance, Zeno, Seymour, Omeir, and Anna), detailing their lives lived in different times and places, eventually weaving them together. Konstance is a girl living aboard a spaceship in the future. Zeno is a retired snowplow driver and amateur translator in Idaho. Seymour is a troubled teenager who wants to save the world. Omeir is a young man with facial deformities conscripted into war. Anna is a book lover stuck in a city under siege. They are all tied together by the story of Cloud Cuckoo Land.

This book takes the reader on an adventure around the globe (and beyond) while also showing the different forms of isolation each of the characters experiences. While reading this book, I felt immersed in each character’s unique situation, feeling their loneliness and despair along with them, but also feeling their hope. These characters are nothing if not resilient.

I loved this book. It blends genres of historical, contemporary, and science fiction. It is magical, epic, and extremely human. But it’s not perfect. In the end, I found myself wanting to know why. I think Doerr was intentional in leaving some questions unanswered. After all, those unanswered questions have left me thinking about this book long after finishing it. And ultimately, this book is about the power of literature to change the world—one person at a time.

Cloud Cuckoo Land, by Anthony Doerr

Cloud Cuckoo Land is a gloriously transportive novel and must have been a labor of love for Doerr.

CCL is a book about books, the legacy of words, and of stewardship. At its core, it’s a story within a story, the tale of Aethon and how it touches the lives of our five main characters. - Aethon hears tell of a place in the sky, a paradise of golden towers, honey cakes and rivers of wine, free from suffering, where only birds can circle. He seeks to be transformed into a majestic bird so as to be allowed entrance into this utopia. Early on we are made to understand that Aethon simply has overheard someone describing Aristophanes’ play The Birds. Is Aethon the fool or the hero of this tale?

CCL does not confine itself to a single genre as it deftly weaves five alternating POVs along timelines from the past, present and future. One can think of this book as an anti-Greek tragedy where the main characters are all humble dreamers and outcasts seeking a way out of their everyday struggles no different than the reader. These characters are curious, resourceful and manage to learn from mistakes, both theirs and others’. At once, CCL is both hopeful and a cautionary tale. I could not—have not— stopped thinking about the many facets of Cloud Cuckoo Land. Clearly, Anthony Doerr likes to play with his words.

I’ve waited 7 years to read Anthony Doerr’s next book and it was worth the wait. Many thanks to @netgalley for the gift of this digital ARC. It was a delight to read and will not be forgotten any time soon.

Look for it! Pub Date: 28, September 2021

#CloudCluckooLand #anthonydoerrwriter #scribnerbooks

#lifejourney
#interconnectedness
#stewardsofbooks
#legacyofwords
#booksforever
#stewardsofourplanet
#hope
#arc
#comingsoon
#beautifulcover
#ownvoicesreviewer
#readinglife
#bookworm
#mmdbookclub

It took me a little to become fully invested in this novel, but once I was, it completely blew me away. It’s an ambitious premise that very much succeeded for me.

Cloud Cuckoo Land follows a few characters throughout time — Anna and Omeir, in 1400s Constantinople; Zeno, a veteran who is in his 80s during the present day; Seymour, a teenager whose timeline overlaps with Zeno’s; and Konstance, a girl on an interstellar ship in the future, escaping Earth after environmental destruction. All five are bound together by a strange ancient Greek folk tale.

The narrative is certainly confusing at times until you get comfortable with the shifting timelines and POVs, and some characters shine more than others. It’s not until the end that everything clicks and you get to appreciate how masterfully Doerr can weave a story. It was very satisfying to watch all the pieces fall into place, but I could also see the neat ending as a little too convenient.

However, I think a convenient ending really lends itself to the ultimate tone of the novel: hope. There’s a lot of despair throughout the book — the big themes being war and environmental destruction/climate change — but even still, Cloud Cuckoo Land feels hopeful for a better future, whatever that may look like.

Ultimately, this is a novel about the passage of time and what threads humanity together throughout it. And it’s also somewhat of a love letter to books and storytelling, and how powerful both can be.

Some CWs: mass shooting/bombing, gun violence, war, death, xenophobia, homophobia, confinement, physical abuse