First…thanks to the publisher, author and NetGalley for the Advanced Readers Copy of the book.
This tale was slow in starting, jumping amongst centuries and characters. It appears to be three disparate stories without connection. While each was well told it took a while to start to see the connections. Masterfully written, it is worth the time it takes. Take your time and enjoy the journey.

I truly enjoyed this book. In the beginning, it took me a minute to orient myself with how quickly it jumped between characters and timelines, but it wasn't long before I was fully engrossed and finding myself thinking of the story even when I wasn't reading the book. For me, thinking about it even once I've stepped away is the mark of a great book. This is one I would definitely recommend.

Doerr surpasses ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE. What an incredible work. He stretched his writing muscles with this one, balancing five different POVs, which he proved with ATLWCS, but the time periods! He is still the best at chacterization, and the style of short chapters makes this novel easily consumable.

One of the best authors doing it today. What a follow-up, and definitely worthy of another Pulitzer.

Anthony Doerr continues his beautiful style of writing that we fell in love with during ‘All the Light We Cannot See’. While I loved his style of writing, this one jumped around a lot through multiple narrators and multiple timelines in the present, past, and future which made it hard to stay engaged for me. I loved the use of Greek mythology to tie all the storylines together. Overall, it was very imaginative and clever how all the connections were revealed towards the end.

Thanks to #NetGalley, Anthony Doerr, and Scribner for the e-ARC of #CloudCuckooLand in exchange for an honest review.

A lush story told from multiple POVs—past, present and future—all thematically influenced by one ancient text that ties them together.
Engaging and intriguing. I enjoyed the time jumps and the multiple story lines. The writing is lovely, the historical settings well crafted and detailed.

Thank you to Scribner Books and NetGalley for the gifted copy. I read the advanced digital copy and I enjoyed the book.

The reader catches glimpses of different people's lives. The language is beautifully written. I am already thinking of gifting this book to several people for Christmas gifts. I know who would love this novel.

This is not an easy read. It takes place in three widely separated time periods, and its multiple protagonists, too, are dissimilar, a least on first glance: 13-year-old Anna and young Omeir in the 15h century, teenager Seymour and octogenarian Zeno in contemporary times, and teenager Konstance in the distant intergalactic future. Initially, I found it difficult to follow the seemingly unrelated tales and wondered why they weren’t presented in three separate, continuous stories, rather than moving back and forth from one story to another, from one time period to another, from one character to another. But, finally I began to see the connections and, so, became engaged through the characters and the themes: a book (the story of Aethon), libraries, relationships, struggles, endurance, danger, hope, and more. The writing itself is impressive, as one would expect from Anthony Doerr, the author of All the Light We Cannot See.

This is a magical book with a big message. Written in Anthony Doerr’s signature style, the lyrical words jump off the page. As you follow the main characters forward and backward in time, the ancient tale is revealed. By the end, you can see the connection between all the storylines. I highly recommend this book!

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC copy of <i>Cloud Cuckoo Land</i>.

<i>CCL</i> is a novel about, among other things, the invisible threads of time, blood, happenstance, etc., that connect us to people and events in the distant past we have no idea about, and a novel that reminds us that what we do today is creating the same kind of invisible threads that will one day affect people in a future we will not be around to see. Our decisions matter; our actions matter.

There were moments while reading this novel that made me pause mid-sentence while an image, a memory popped into my mind. Memories of stepping into a library for the first time, of holding fragile, leatherbound books in my hands. Memories of family and friends dead but not forgotten, of people who come into your life for brief periods of time but lasting impact, changing you, changing the way you view life. It's that kind of novel, a sort of looking-glass novel where you see parts of your own life reflected in the characters and situations. Which is quite an accomplishment as the novel spans centuries, cultures, and languages that are unfamiliar to me.

I don't like to write about the characters or plot, because I always feel like I give away too much. But I would urge any reader who picks up this novel to go along for the ride, trust the author, trust the story. Yes, the novel flies back and forth between the past and future, between characters, and I admit at times it was a bit frustrating because you wanted the story of the character you were with to continue (the author is very good at creating tension and compelling you forward). But Doerr is weaving a large, beautiful tapestry, and when it's finished you will nod your head and see how all the threads come together and say, "Ah!" And you will wish the tapestry was a little larger yet.

How to describe a story that spans centuries tied together by a book written in a language that cannot be read anymore let alone a book secreted away and lost and found over the course of 2000 years? Well, Mr. Doerr does exactly that: weaving a beautiful story of the past, the present, and the future.

Just a quick word of thanks to both Scribner/Simon and Schuster publishers, as well as netgalley.com for an advanced reading copy in return for my honest feedback for this novel.

4.5/5 stars is my rating for this novel.

To start, I have to say that I have been really looking forward to Anthony Doerr's newest novel, Cloud Cuckoo Land. I read and was completely engrossed with his last novel, All the Light We Cannot See. This was probably the best novel that I have read in the last 10+ years. That said, Cloud Cuckoo Land did not disappoint. Well-written, characters who are easy to connect with, and descriptive language throughout the novel made this another great novel by Doerr.

"He that knows all the learning ever knows only this - that he knows nothing yet." One of the many excellent lines from this novel. Cloud Cuckoo Land follows five major characters in this novel - two from the medieval times in Constantinople, two in current times in Lakeport, Idaho, and one from the future times presumably in space. The novel goes back and forth throughout these characters, with each chapter interspersed with a Greek story from Antonio Diogenes - Cloud Cuckoo Land - that has survived and been retold for generations.

Omeir and Anna - the two characters from medieval times - meet through the fall of the city of Constantinople by the hands of the Ottoman empire. Both characters are young, both have flaws within them that make you feel for them. Ultimately, the two have a survived copy of Diogenes's Cloud Cuckoo Land.

Zeno and Seymour - the two characters from present times in Lakeport, Idaho - meet through rather unfortunate circumstances at a library in Lakeport. Zeno has been translating Cloud Cuckoo Land, and is getting ready to perform the story with a group of young children at the library. Seymour, an autistic young man who sees the environment being destroyed over many years, arrives at the library to vent his frustrations.

Finally, Konstance - the young girl who is from the future and is in space with her family and those "survivors" of Earth - and is on to a new planet - Beta Oph2. Konstance becomes the only survivor of the space craft, Argos, and ultimately assembles Cloud Cuckoo Land from notes and references in her local library in space.

Whew - and those were the main characters! I found that I did need to jot down a few notes as the story went on, so that I did not confuse or forget who was who in the novel (hence, 4.5/5 stars for this novel). However, I found that I did get into this novel pretty quickly, and, similar to All the Light We Cannot See, I found that I could not put it down. The way Doerr intertwines the characters - Omeir and Anna coming from two different backgrounds during the fall of Constantinople, Zeno and Seymour in the same town, but having different life histories, and the tie-in with Diogenes's Cloud Cuckoo Land story and the its future in the hands of Konstance - made this a good read for me. Doerr seems to have a good way of telling a story - you know that something good (or bad) is going to happen to a character, but how you get to the finish line is the enjoyable part of his writing.

Outside of the many characters in this novel that you have to keep track of, I found this novel to be a great read on the survival of a story - in this case Cloud Cuckoo Land - throughout many generations.

Cloud Cuckoo Land is a well written story that has alternating storylines. It was sometimes hard to follow with the multiple storylines, but the characters were orchestrated with such care that I wanted to know what happens. Overall, would encourage it to others!

Thank you to netgalley , the author, and the publisher for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you Netgalley and Scribner for providing me with an e-arc in exchange for my review!

I appreciate Anthony Doerr's talent. I have enjoyed other novels by him but this book just didn't do it for me. The multiple storylines were hard to keep track of, it didn't flow together as they should have. I was really excited about this book and I really wanted to like it but I gave up halfway through after weeks of trying to get through it. I lost interest far too quickly here.

What an amazing adventure it was to read this book. I had read Doerr's other books and still wasn't prepare for the magical journey I would embark on when reading this book. I had to work to keep track of the storylines but it was worth it. Doerr's novel begs to be read aloud, his images and descriptions are amazing.

All the Light I can Not See is one of my favorite books and I was super excited to get the ARC of Cloud of Cuckoo Land, that being said I only stuck with it because of how much I enjoyed Anthony Doerr's writing. I had a hard time with the alternating stories between historical, contemporary and science fiction. The writing was beautiful and the characters well developed but it was just not for me.

Cloud Cuckoo Land is SO well written. The way the story weaves and turns and how the characters are introduced is very well done. Overall, I really enjoyed this book. There were times I felt a little overwhelmed with all the different ideas and stories going on, but still enjoyed the theme.
thank you to netgalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

This book was just ok for me. I really hoped to love it, but there just was too much going on for me to keep up. The author brings historical, sci-if, fantasy, & contemporary stories, and most of the time it felt like different stories, instead of one common thread.

Cloud Cuckoo Land takes some bold and narratively ambitious choices from author Anthony (Antonius?) Doerr. Ultimately, Doerr weaves a narrative of survival and the power of story- those we tell ourselves and to each other.
I would not however call this book transformative or particularly transportive. This is one read that is a literary achievement yet difficult to enjoy until the end. Only a few characters were engaging, such as Konstance. I admit I struggled through the first half, even with the cliffhanger chapters. Yet there is undeniably beauty and brilliance to Doerr's writing which one hopes will have a timeless appeal. Recommended for those who enjoy literary fiction.

Simply put, Anthony Doerr's novel, Cloud Cuckoo Land is a magnificent novel. Doerr, the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for All the Light We Cannot See, has managed to create a wondrously imaginative tale that is a love story to libraries, reading, nature, and the interconnectedness of human experiences. Centuries of time are not a barrier when there is a thread of a quest braiding through the experiences of a disparate group of characters. Most of these characters are outcasts in their own time.

Doerr's tale spans centuries with locales sprinkled across the ancient world, war-torn Korea, contemporary United States, and a futuristic interstellar spaceship. There are two constants: the ancient story of Aethon, a young Greek, who longs to turn into a bird so he can fly to see the golden city in the sky, and the solace that getting lost in such an adventure can bring. Aethon's travails and travels bring excitement and comfort to the many characters as his efforts are emblematic of their own uncertainty. All of Doerr's characters are fully developed even though they stand outside of the ordinary and the easily accepted. The very relatable characters feel a connection to the living world around them as that very world is threatened by short term thinking and demand for excess.

This is not a fast read, but it is a compelling one.

#NetGalley #CloudCuckooLand

"Stranger, Whoever you are, open this to learn what will amaze you." This is just about the opening line of the book and, whoo boy, does Doerr deliver on this promise. There is magical storytelling that enchantingly braids past, present, and future story lines into something greater than the sum of the parts. There are sympathetic characters, even one who initially could be the villain, but turns out to be someone a lot more complex. This is powerful storytelling that reminds us just how life-saving and life-giving a good story can be. It is a tale that needs to be told in these uncertain times, because it gives hope that, as messy as life can get, there is always hope. If you read only one book this year, make sure it is Cloud Cuckoo Land. You will not regret it