Cloud Cuckoo Land | 
pickWell it was not as good as All the Light We Cannot See and it‘s a problem when it takes the first 350 pages — 350!! — to get into it, but I tore through the last 200. Creative and really compelling characters. An ode to libraries and books, which I love.
The tagged book was a stellar read in July and will certainly vie for one of my best reads of the year
#12booksof2024 @Andrew65
pick4✨ With multiple POVs it was difficult at first to keep them all straight. They are in different time lines, and some I enjoyed more than others. I paid more attention the story lines I liked, but it‘s important to understand all of them when you get closer to the end. I have to say it was my favorite escape this week especially. #FoodandLit 🇹🇷 @Catsandbooks @Texreader
My girls go to dance twice a week. So I at least get 2 hours of uninterrupted reading time, each week,this semester. 🥰
pick3.75/5 ⭐️ I feel like this could have been much shorter, but it was still a great story. My favorite section was Konstance's.
#FoodandLit Turkey 🇹🇷
I read so many good books this month I couldn‘t pick a favorite. I‘m posting this on the last book read. I didn‘t read nearly as many books this month but still pretty impressive since 3 had 500+ pages and I was on vacation half the month and barely able to read while overseas. Litsy stats:
- 2 books for #authoramonth
- 2 books for #foodandlit #Turkey (1 still in the works)
- 2 book for #camplitsy2024
- 2 books about #Ireland (for vacation)
pickWhat genre did I just finish? Historical fiction? Contemporary literature? Science fiction? Mythology? All four? And they all come together to make one integrated story that even makes sense? And it hasn‘t won the most prestigious awards? How is that possible? From the fall of Constantinople, #Turkey, to eco-terrorism, to a space odyssey in search of a new Earth-like home, a myth about a man wanting to fly weaves these stories all together into ⬇️
Book coincidences always baffle me. This month, for two different challenges, I read two books about translators. I read Babel for #authoramonth and the tagged book for #Turkey #foodandlit. @Soubhiville @Catsandbooks
Got a cute background from a Google search of Istanbul, Turkey to show off our version of a Turkish flatbread pizza (that our young kids will eat). 🇹🇷🤣😍💛 #FoodandLit
We made it to Reading!! Fortunately we were in the air when all went to heck. It was super quiet at London Heathrow because all the planes were stopped. Kind of dystopian-like. The trains were all delayed because a body was on one of the tracks. It turned out to be a mannequin. Didn‘t read much en route (it makes me airsick), but I‘ve been listening to the tagged book in the hotel. #Turkey #foodandlit @Catsandbooks
When in Tucson I always go to Bookman‘s because of their extremely affordable used books. 🤩 Plus with young readers we can get them some cute reads. I got some Agatha Christie, Jane Austen, A copy of Jane Eyre, some Stephen King for #LosersClub, and some reads I‘m really excited for. 🥰 Yay #BookHaul
Easily the best book I've read in the last few years 🩷🩷🩷
March is national reading month so we did a book swap at work :) I could have also grabbed the new Emily Henry but I was a dolt and thought I already read it 😂
pickYou could hardly err on a book about a book, or a library, or better yet both. And if it entertains the idea that manuscripts don't burn - you have it all. Though they do burn, or drown, or get eaten by mice. But stories survive and get retold. Bulgakov's Woland has more flair with that, but Doerr's Zeno Ninis feels closer to us, mere mortals, with his humility and humanity. And with his story
pick“Why can‘t healing happen as quickly as wounding?” What a phenomenal book about the trajectory of time, memories and the steadfast heart of human nature. READ THIS IF YOU HAVE THE CHANCE!! top of my favorites now
LibraryThing's Book Psychic (https://www.bookpsychic.com/) recommended Cloud Cuckoo Land for me- so far, it's a match! 🔮
I am going to look for him at football games. His students are so lucky! Go Blue! 💙💛
1. ☝️
2. The interwoven stories, the tone, the true-feeling emotional lives of the characters.
3. Los Angeles (a recent-ish development that was quite a surprise to me).
Thanks for the tag @The_Penniless_Author !
@Eggs #WondrousWednesday (a day late)
pickFinally! I‘m not sure what is says about me that I will sit on a book for months (years) after anxiously awaiting its release but here we are. I really enjoyed all the characters and plot lines in this one. I am glad each story was told in a linear fashion otherwise it might have been confusing. 4.5 🌟 2nd book finished for #JubilantJuly and #4 of my hardback #14books14weeks list.
Joining in #JubilantJuly with high hopes to finish all these books plus keep up on a couple of buddy reads.
As always, I love this choose your own goals readathon.
so-soCharacters felt believable but the atmosphere was a bit too depressing for me.
I loved the very beginning but soon this started to feel sad and threatening. And this dragged a lot. I thought that the ending would be amazing and worth going through all pages before it but this didn't deliver that.
This had two interesting storylines but two totally unnecessary ones and one that could have been edited shorter.
Thanks for the tag @Klou!
1. Cloud Cuckoo Land (sorry @BarbaraJean I thought I read it last year but it was my first for 2023)
2. A Symphony of Echoes
3. Covenant of Water - Abraham Verghese
4. I have no idea 😂
5. The Starless Sea - Erin Morgenstern - slogging through and not loving it
6....
pickCloud Cuckoo Land is an ode to the librarians—those who guard the books and share their immense, beautiful world of fact and fantasy to young people. I found hope in this novel, that the most lonely and forgotten people—an orphan in 15th century Constantinople, a plow driver broken by war, a child left alone on a spaceship—will make contributions experienced centuries later, when they dedicate their lives to protecting the stories they love most.
so-soWasn‘t as good as previous works like All the Light We Cannot See, but still a very good book.
pick1-6 June 23 (audiobook)
Such a great book. I regret listening rather than reading but have been trying to clear my TBR pile in anticipation of the Booker longlist.
Set across three different timelines, Doerr‘s novel pays homage to books and the importance of stories. It is beautifully told and highlights many issues - animal cruelty, education of women, the environment, dealing with difference. It is impossible to do it justice here but I loved it
Beautiful holiday Monday to enjoy the sunshine and some relaxation.
pickIt takes a solid 100-150 pages to feel like your following the multiple story lines. It all starts to pay off around page 500 or so when the author eloquently intertwines the stories. A beautiful piece of art
pickThe message is simple enough - yet quite profound if you truly grasp its full potential. Your story - as it is - is important. Almost a year later, I finally finished this book. Amidst a pandemic reading slump, the monotony of daily life, and my own suffering, this book of big and small questions was important, though never easy, for me to read.
🖋: LAMY 2000 Makrolon Black 14K BB Architect
🩸: FWP Atlas Iron Ore • Atlas Stationers Exclusive
pickThis book was perhaps the most imaginative and best written book I‘ve ever read. The author Anthony Doerr wrote this as a “paean” for books- basically in praise of books. This book follows characters in 3 points in history- thousands of years apart- in Ancient Greece, present day Idaho and in the far future aboard a spaceship, all reading the same book “cloud cuckoo land”. Brilliant
I loved this so much. Made all the better by Marin Ireland‘s narration.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Up next: I haven‘t heard anything about this one but I‘m a sucker for anything narrated by Marin Ireland.
panThis did not work for me. It felt over-explained (eg the first scene in a spaceship at pains to tell us it‘s in the future) & preaching the message that books are good & can be life-changing. Action slowly unfolds in nicely written scenes with no dramatic tension. Favours written books over oral story-telling traditions. Ending felt contrived. Too earnest for my taste. Many have loved it so don‘t let me put you off. 😉
pickA breathtaking, heartbreaking, timescaping adventure, and yet, not, because most of the characters' real journeying leading to growth is internal, is a recognition of the immutability of their paths and at the same time, the value of them as such. Escapism vs acceptance.
As much about the emotional connection each person made to a certain recurring text, as the contents of the book itself. 1/?
pickYep, this is a good one. Much as I expected from the author of All the Light We Cannot See, Doerr brilliantly weaves together storylines stretching over vast distances of space, time, and understanding. I alternated between audio and print on this one, which helped with some of the Greek and gave me a chance to hear Marin Ireland again, someone who's fast becoming a favorite audiobook narrator for me.
Who WRITES such things? The use of language, the discussion of etymology, I'm hooked.
Were it not for the fact that basically every character in this book is in jeopardy, I would be having a wonderful time! 🙎🏼♂️
And people WONDER why I don't want to go to space! 🫣
Hands down the tagged. Best read of the year so far. For March: it‘s my birthday month! It‘s been yet another year where me and my partner wonder what minor deities we‘ve offended. It‘s just been hit after hit. But we are still blessed in this universe and Spring is coming. I plan to read a lot and take part in all the readathon. And hike and camp in eastern WA State‘s beautiful desert, watch sand hill cranes, see the first flowers. ⬇️
