Do you like libraries, librarians, books and precocious children? Who am I kidding, of course you do! You will love this book- it checks all the boxes. Intricate plotting with big themes incl the importance of literature on a personal and cultural scale,climate change, nature & coming of age. Short chapters w alternating POV move the narrative along briskly. Moving from the fall of Constantinople to the future sounds like a grandiose epic but because it is told through children (much like Doerr did with All the Light We Cannot See) it is brought down to earth and is relatable.

I loved All the Light We Cannot See, I started this book wondering if it could live up to that. At first it did not, but as I put my bias and love for All the Light aside, and read this book for what it was the story won me over. It is a compelling narrative, covering many different time periods, many different areas of this planet and beyond. In the end it all comes together, the story of the ancient text resonates with all and goes on….

I absolutely loved All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr, and was not sure what to expect from his new novel with the name, Cloud Cuckoo Land. The story was beautifully written with fully developed characters who come alive. This novel may not be for all, as it does skip back and forth between times and characters, but if you hang in there, you will read a novel like one you have never read before!
The story revolves around characters in the fifteenth century Constantinople, modern day Idaho, and on a space vehicle in the future. Anna lives inside the walls of Constantinople, and Omeir who lives outside the same walls, will cross paths. They both will be impacted by the story of a shepherd named Aethon who desires to become a bird and live in a perfect world. Zeno, a war veteran in his eighties who lives in Idaho, discovers the same preserved Greek story, and translates it into English. Zeno enlists five children to help him adapt the story into a play, but Seymour, a troubled individual will alter the outcome. Konstance, a young girl ensconced in a vault on a spaceship has always been enchanted by the story her father had told her of Aethon and is determined to find the written story in the virtual library.
I enjoyed this novel and am glad I read it. I loved the way all the stories tied together with some twists in the end. Doerr dedicated it to all librarians in the past, present, and future, symbolic of this beautiful, feel-good story.

Thank you to Anthony Doerr, NetGalley and Scribner for the opportunity to read and review this book before publishing. All opinions are my own!

I have to admit, I had a hard time with this one for the majority of it. I was surprised by this, as I adored All The Light We Cannot See by Doerr so much. In this book, it at times felt like he was doing too much. However, the ending saved it.

This book follows multiple timelines, including one in 1400s Constantinople, present day Idaho (and a bit of past Idaho leading up to it), and a future timeline where a group of humans are hustling through space seeking a new home planet after Earth has fallen apart due to climate change going unattended to.

This book will definitely give some serious perspective on why we need to get more realistic about the impacts of climate change on our planets future. This was really hard hitting and frightening, as well as incredibly timely and important. I did adore this aspect of the book.

Some of the timelines were less interesting than others. I definitely didn’t need as much of the lead up to Constantinople’s fall, from either of the characters we were following. Seymour and Zeno’s chapters were wonderful and engaging, and you really followed and understood both of their motivations and values. Konstance, in the future, was likely my favorite part. She was like able and relatable and you definitely found yourself rooting for her.

Ultimately, my difficulty with this book ended up with it feeling like it was doing too much. I could see a lot of people quitting this book for that reason. It’s science fiction, historical fiction, fantasy, so many things. The last 25% was wonderful, and I enjoyed it very much. This book could have been much shorter, I think. And Doerr was tackling a lot of things all at once, and I’m not sure many (if any) authors could really do that justice. I’m impressed with how well he did accomplish this, despite everything. Additionally, I do adore Doerr’s writing style. It’s moving and poetic and full of imagery. This is awesome if it is a style that suits you, but I could also see it slowing down the story further for some. Ultimately, I’m giving this book 3 stars.

After reading "All The Light We Cannot See," I was looking forward to reading Anthony Doerr's new book. This new book is so different than his last one. It takes place during three different time periods and wanders through the three periods throughout the book. It took me some time to grasp the flow of the book and to understand the connection between the time periods. All in all, I did like the book primarily because it is about books!

Feels like an epic novel. Can't wait to discuss it with someone else. A serious but very compelling read. The character development was really wonderful.

This book began as an utter delight and if it was just the writing and the characters and the plot, it would be a 5-star review. But this book is not more than the sum of its parts. It was just too long. It is an ambitious undertaking that spans all of time and the future. The conceit, that everything for all time is connected is played out in such a sophisticated way. I cared deeply about the characters and wanted to know their fates, but it just took a bit too long to get there. I felt the same way about The Goldfinch. Just a bit too much of a really good thing.

Love the concept of the book and the characters were great.
The only draw back for me was the story jumps from past, present, future from the different characters perspectives. It takes a bit to keep it all straight. I've read many books like this and enjoy the different story lines, this one took a bit more concentration. Once I got everything down, loved the story.
Overall a great read.
I received an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I was so excited to have the opportunity to read Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr. Doerr, author of the Pulitzer Prize winning All the Light We Cannot See, never fails to beautifully craft a story. I've been eagerly awaiting the arrival of this novel for several years now. The book is dedicated to, "the librarians then, now, and in the years to come," because they are the stewards of knowledge, helping to ensure that knowledge, even if only piece of it are passed on each generation. There is no doubt that this book is a love letter to reading, writing, and the intrepid folks that painstakingly stored and passed on manuscripts. There is a love of the written word that permeates the entire novel and is apparent in each of the very different character sections.

Cuckoo certainly feels like a novel of the pandemic. As a historian, one of the things that I love to look at, is the contemporary literature that stems from major world events. The Decameron by Bocaccio perfectly encapsulates the horror of the Black Death, Pale Horse, Pale Rider by Katherine Anne Porter is about the all encompassing grief of losing a loved one and surviving the 1918 flu pandemic, and there are numerous examples of authors responding to war. Cloud Cuckoo will likely be one of the examples of that for the Covid-19. Each of the characters is undergoing some sort of siege and the claustrophobia waxes and wanes in a way that feels all too familiar in this moment. It's one of the most impressive aspects of an already impressive story.

There are two things that are likely going to hinder some readers. The first is simply the length of the book. While I never felt like it was too long, it is a hefty read, and one that requires attention. The second is the changing protagonists and varied timelines. Much like Maggie Shipstead's Great Circle (keep an eye out for an upcoming review!), the jumping timeline will be a hurdle. The one benefit, in my opinion, is that each time period is very distinct. It felt like Doerr recognized the challenge of having a variety of voices and chose to keep the voices distinct with the change in style as the timeline changed.

All that to say, I adored this book and really savored the moments that I had with it. Once it was done, I had a serious book hangover because it hit all the right spots for me.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Scribner for allowing me early access in exchange for an honest review. Cloud Cuckoo Land is available September 28, 2021 at a bookshop near you!

When I was given the opportunity to read the ARC #CloudCuckooLand by Scribner and Net Galley I was excited to read another book by Doerr. I have not been disappointed. It took me a few pages to sort out the stories and the connections but when I got it I could not stop reading. Special characters. Konstance, Zeno, Omeir, Anna and even Seymour warmed my heart. Their stories are intertwined by an ancient script written by Diogenes. Cloud Cuckoo Land. The stories are set in Constantinople, Idaho and Outer Space. Their lives are lived through time. #AnthonyDoerr #CloudCuckooLand #netgalley #Scribner

Cloud Cuckoo Land is just that…cuckoo. While the concept is gorgeous and imaginative, the story needs to be organized better. I can respect seeing the story unfold from the viewpoint of various characters, but repeatedly going into the past, present, and future thru the guise of different characters gets confusing. I feel like this book requires a re-read because you have to know how the characters connect to fully understand the plot. I think it would be easier to follow the story if it were separated into parts. For example: Part 1=present, Part 2=future, and Part 3=past. That way, you still get the grand reveal, but it is easier to follow the individual storylines.

I loved his other books but I just couldn’t connect with this one it just jumped around to much and seemed disjointed.

Thank you to #netgalley and #scribner for allowing me to read this beautiful book. I didn’t know where it was going at first but it tied up beautifully at the end. Wonderful writing and an amazing storyteller and I didn’t expect any less from Anthony Doerr.

A beautifully crafted story! I was at first intimidated and a little put off by the number of characters and settings to keep track of, but once I pushed through the beginning chapters, I fell in the love with the story.

Beautifully written utilizing storylines woven through multiple ages from antiquity to the future, I’d best describe this as literary historical science fiction. On the surface, it would not seem the varied storylines would work together, but there is so much to unpack as you follow Omeir and Anna in medieval Constantinople, Zeno and Seymour in modern day and Konstance in the futuristic community all interspersed by the lost Greek tale of Aethan. My favorite theme was definitely how story writing ties ages together and how they provide healing and comfort. I honestly could read this several times over with an eye on different themes. Cloud Cuckoo Land is definitely one of the best books I have had the pleasure of reading this year. As an avid reader who had been suffering a streak of subpar books, this book reignited my passion for reading and shows Doerr’s giftedness as an author.

Thanks to Simon & Schuster Publishing and NetGalley for a copy of this book. This review is my own opinion.

I really, really tried, but I could not finish this book. I pushed myself through more than half of it, but it just wasn’t for me. I loved All the Light We Cannot See and was so excited to be able to get an advance copy of this new one. The writing is fabulous and he has obviously done his research but the story itself is too segmented for me to follow. I found none of the characters appealing. I was curious to see how he brought all of the storylines together but I felt like I was forcing myself to read, like a college assignment. I’m sure it will get deservedly wonderful reviews but this book is not for me. Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read it.

4.3 I did like this book but I have to be honest that it was a very challenging read. Like many said before me, it is hard to stay engaged during the early parts of the novel, but you have to keep reading on and it is well worth the bumpy ride. I absolutely loved All the Light We Cannot See so I was really excited to get an advance copy of this novel. The writing and prose are breathtaking in this novel. The stories, each taking part in different times—the fall of Constantinople in the fifteenth century, an event at a library in Idaho in 2020, and a spaceship en route to a distant planet in the future—weave an inextricably linked storyline through an ancient manuscript of a shepherd’s yearning for utopia and how certain decisions to attain that impacted his life; yet at times the stories were hard to follow but did eventually come together. Doerr has provided us with a creative novel to look at the past, present and future with overlapping themes, including particularly the love of books and what they impart and teach us, and impact our lives, and to a lesser extent, the impact and ravages of war, and the impact of humans on earth. Some characters are definitely more endearing than others, but I really liked Zeno, Omeir and Anna, and Konstance just a little less. At the end I have to admit I found Doerr’s concept for this novel both ingenious and chilling. This is very different from All The Light We Cannot See, and it may not be for everyone, but it is a very interesting and worthwhile read. Thank you to NetGalley for providing me an advance copy in exchange for a candid and unbiased review.

A lovely novel with interweaving stories spanning hundreds of years. It sounds too ambitious, but the author did a great job capturing the feel of each time period along with thorough character development. I will recommend this novel to my patrons.

I am a library paraprofessional and received an advance copy from #NetGalley

Thanks to NetGalley.com for an ARC!
Anthony Doerr’s new novel, Cloud Cuckoo Land, builds upon many of the same themes as All the Light We Cannot see: the role of technologies in linking people together, the empathy required of us to see the brilliance of disabled people, the destructive uselessness of war, and the importance, and bittersweetness, of strong father-daughter relationships.

Like many contemporary writers, Doerr uses a structure that Deleuze and Guattari characterize as rhizomatic—disparate narratives held together by barely visible threads. What holds all these stories together, and gives them novelistic unity, is the story of “Cloud Cuckoo Land,” a previously lost Hellenistic adventure novel that recounts the story of foolish shepherd who wants desperately to become a bird so that he may fly away to the otherworldly paradise of “Cloud Cuckoo Land.”

Doerr employs many tried and true metafictional tropes—the rediscovered ancient manuscript, the story that heals in its telling, and the misunderstood hero. There are so many wonderful things about this book, I’m loathe to ruin any of them for the invested reader, but that reader needs to be forewarned the novel requires patient and attentive effort. Doerr’s book invites us, through its structure and its themes, to recognize that listeners to stories are those stories co-creators. In the midst of that co-creation, he grapples with environmental degradation, pandemic, corporate greed and hubris, and conspiracy theories. It is a magnificent book that will reward readers and stay with them long after they complete it, just as the story of “Cloud Cuckoo Land” endures in the novel itself

This was an obvious choice for me to read since I enjoyed All the Light We Cannot See so much by this author. The second reason I wanted to read this book was because the title intrigued me. I had never heard the express "cloud cuckoo land" so I looked it up and found the meaning in Wikipaedia: "Cloud cuckoo land is a state of absurdly, over-optimistic fantasy or an unrealistically idealistic state where everything is perfect. Someone who is said to "live in cloud cuckoo land" is a person who thinks that things that are completely impossible might happen, rather than understanding how things really are.[1] It also hints that the person referred to is naive, unaware of realities or deranged in holding such an optimistic belief.

In the modern world, a "cloud cuckoo lander" is defined as someone who is seen as "crazy" or "strange" by most average people, often doing or saying things that seemingly only make sense to themselves, but also exhibit cleverness at times in ways no one else would think of.[2]" The term originated from the Greek comic dramatist Aristophanes (450 - 385 BC) in 'The Birds'.

This book encompasses that meaning with four stories set across four time periods. The book moves back and forth between the characters' stories, and each is fascinating. The stories are of Anna, Omeir, Seymour, Zeno, and Konstance, and each is very different yet alike in that they are all outside of mainstream society and they all have their own dreams. These stories all have a central core of hope running throughout the book. My favorite was Konstance's story, I think, although I liked all of them. This book crosses many genres and is compelling.

Thanks to Scribner through Netgalley for an advance copy. This will be published on September 28, 2021.