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Cloud cuckoo land : a novel / Anthony Doerr.

Summary:
"Set in the besieged city of Constantinople in the fifteenth century, in a public library in Idaho, today, and on a spaceship bound for a distant exoplanet decades from now, the novel tells a story about children on the cusp of adulthood in worlds in peril, who find resilience, hope--and a book. An ancient text provides solace and the most profound human connection to characters in peril. They all learn the story of Aethon, who longs to be turned into a bird so that he can fly to the paradise of Cloud Cuckoo Land, a better world. In 1453, thirteen-year-old Anna lives in a convent where women toil all day embroidering the robes of priests. She learns to read from an old Greek tutor she encounters on her errands in the city. In an abandoned priory, she finds a stash of old books. One is Aethon's story, which she reads to her sister as the walls of Constantinople are bombarded by armies of Saracens. Anna escapes, carrying only a small sack with bread, salt fish--and the book. Outside the city walls, Anna meets Omeir, a village boy who was conscripted, along with his beloved pair of oxen, to fight in the Sultan's conquest. His oxen have died; he has deserted. Five hundred years later, in 2020, in a library in Lakeport, Idaho, eighty-five-year old Zeno, a former prisoner-of-war, rehearses five children in a play adaptation of Aethon's story, preserved against all odds through centuries. Tucked among the library shelves is a bomb, planted by a troubled, idealistic teenager, Seymour. This is another siege. And in a not-so-distant future, on an interstellar ark called The Argos, Konstance is alone in a vault with sacks of Nourish powder and access to all the information in the world--or so she is told. She knows Aethon's story through her father, who has sequestered her to protect her. She has never lived on our beloved Earth. Like Marie-Laure and Werner in All the Light We Cannot See, Anna, Omeir, Seymour, Zeno,and Konstance are dreamers and misfits who find resourcefulness and hope in the midst of gravest danger. Their lives are gloriously intertwined. Dedicated to "the librarians then, now, and in the years to come," Anthony Doerr's Cloud Cuckoo Land is about the power of story and the astonishing survival of the physical book when for thousands of years they were so rare and so feared, dying, as one character says, "in fires or floods or in the mouths of worms or at the whims of tyrants." It is a hauntingly beautiful and redemptive novel about stewardship--of the book, of the Earth, of the human heart."-- Provided by publisher.

Record details

  • ISBN: 9781982168438 (hardcover)
  • ISBN: 1982168439 (hardcover)
  • ISBN: 9781982190095
  • Physical Description: 626 pages ; 24 cm
  • Edition: First Scribner hardcover edition.
  • Publisher: New York : Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc., [2021]
Subject: Space > Fiction.
Future, The > Fiction.
Libraries > Fiction.
Children > Fiction.
Books and reading > Fiction.
Space and time > Fiction.
Istanbul (Turkey) > History > Siege, 1453 > Fiction.
Idaho > Fiction.
Genre: Dystopian fiction.

Available copies

  • 97 of 116 copies available at SPARK Libraries.

Holds

  • 2 current holds with 116 total copies.
Show Only Available Copies
Location Call Number / Copy Notes Barcode Shelving Location Status Due Date
Abington Community Library FICTION DOERR (Text) 50687011744631 Adult Fiction Available -
Albright Memorial Library FICTION DOERR (Text) 50686016093333 Adult Fiction Available -
Alexander Hamilton Memorial Free Library F DOE (Text) 37268003113248 AHMFL Adult Fiction Available -
Altoona Area Public Library F DOE (Text) 33240004939867 Adult Fiction Available -
Annie Halenbake Ross Library F Doe (Text) 00150607 ADULT Fiction Available -
Ashland Public Library FIC DOE (Text)
Memorial: In Memory of Eileen (Scully) Weikel
30399000358197 Fiction Available -
Bangor Public Library F DOE (Text) 75011000362464 Adult Fiction Available -
Bedford County Library F DOE (Text)
Memorial: In Memory Of Marnie Beatty
35010001089224 Adult Fiction Checked Out 04/02/2024
Bellwood-Antis Public Library F Doe (Text) 310BEL00087804 Adult Fiction Available -
Bernville Area Community Library DOE (Text) 33249023876125 Fiction Available -

Summary: "Set in the besieged city of Constantinople in the fifteenth century, in a public library in Idaho, today, and on a spaceship bound for a distant exoplanet decades from now, the novel tells a story about children on the cusp of adulthood in worlds in peril, who find resilience, hope--and a book. An ancient text provides solace and the most profound human connection to characters in peril. They all learn the story of Aethon, who longs to be turned into a bird so that he can fly to the paradise of Cloud Cuckoo Land, a better world. In 1453, thirteen-year-old Anna lives in a convent where women toil all day embroidering the robes of priests. She learns to read from an old Greek tutor she encounters on her errands in the city. In an abandoned priory, she finds a stash of old books. One is Aethon's story, which she reads to her sister as the walls of Constantinople are bombarded by armies of Saracens. Anna escapes, carrying only a small sack with bread, salt fish--and the book. Outside the city walls, Anna meets Omeir, a village boy who was conscripted, along with his beloved pair of oxen, to fight in the Sultan's conquest. His oxen have died; he has deserted. Five hundred years later, in 2020, in a library in Lakeport, Idaho, eighty-five-year old Zeno, a former prisoner-of-war, rehearses five children in a play adaptation of Aethon's story, preserved against all odds through centuries. Tucked among the library shelves is a bomb, planted by a troubled, idealistic teenager, Seymour. This is another siege. And in a not-so-distant future, on an interstellar ark called The Argos, Konstance is alone in a vault with sacks of Nourish powder and access to all the information in the world--or so she is told. She knows Aethon's story through her father, who has sequestered her to protect her. She has never lived on our beloved Earth. Like Marie-Laure and Werner in All the Light We Cannot See, Anna, Omeir, Seymour, Zeno,and Konstance are dreamers and misfits who find resourcefulness and hope in the midst of gravest danger. Their lives are gloriously intertwined. Dedicated to "the librarians then, now, and in the years to come," Anthony Doerr's Cloud Cuckoo Land is about the power of story and the astonishing survival of the physical book when for thousands of years they were so rare and so feared, dying, as one character says, "in fires or floods or in the mouths of worms or at the whims of tyrants." It is a hauntingly beautiful and redemptive novel about stewardship--of the book, of the Earth, of the human heart."--

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