Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of All the Light We Cannot See, is a New York Times bestseller, National Book Award finalist, and one of the Best Books of the Year by Time, Fresh Air, and Entertainment Weekly.

Spanning centuries and worlds, this imaginative and deeply human novel weaves together the lives of five dreamers connected by an ancient story — the tale of Aethon, who longs to become a bird and reach a paradise in the sky.

In 15th-century Constantinople, orphan Anna discovers the lost manuscript as the city faces siege, while Omeir, a conscripted village boy, approaches with the invading army. In modern Idaho, Zeno, an elderly man, directs a children’s play of Aethon’s tale as Seymour, a troubled teen, plants a bomb in the library. And in a distant future, Konstance, aboard an interstellar ship, preserves the same story as humanity’s last link to its past.

A sweeping celebration of books, resilience, and hope, Cloud Cuckoo Land is a luminous ode to the power of storytelling across time and space.