Historical Fictionistas discussion

Our August 2023 Group Read selection is Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr. This will be our discussion thread for the book. Please make sure you are marking any/all spoilers.

Happy Reading!

Constantinople, 1453:
An orphaned seamstress and a cursed boy with a love for animals risk everything on opposite sides of a city wall to protect the people they love.

Idaho, 2020:
An impoverished, idealistic kid seeks revenge on a world that’s crumbling around him. Can he go through with it when a gentle old man stands between him and his plans?

Unknown, Sometime in the Future:
With her tiny community in peril, Konstance is the last hope for the human race. To find a way forward, she must look to the oldest stories of all for guidance.

Bound together by a single ancient text, these tales interweave to form a tapestry of solace and resilience and a celebration of storytelling itself. Like its predecessor All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr’s new novel is a tale of hope and of profound human connection.

For whatever reason I cannot get into this book. "All the Light We Cannot See," by the same author, was a favorite. Am I not liking the sci-fi or am I in a foul mood? This book is shelved for now.

Same with me Jackie. I had a hard time connecting with the characters in this story. As soon as I thought I understood what was happening another story would start and then another on top of that. I just couldn’t keep everything straight or get to know the characters so, unfortunately I gave up.

Maybe it’s because I was listening to the audio and the text is easier to navigate?
DNF for now.

This book is a dud. I tried reading it a couple years ago with my local library book club and most of us DNF'd it.

I tried it when it came out and did not like it

I am reading it very slowly and enjoying the writing. It is a very different book than his previous one. I agree it might not be for everyone.

I am the odd person out I guess. This book captured me from the first page and I’m loving it. I’m about half way through. On the other hand, I liked All the Light… but didn’t love it.

I love this book! I read it last year, then when my book club chose it, listened to the audio. My first time through, I got an index card & wrote down the different characters & time periods. That helped me to keep things straight until I got into it. Most of the people in our group loved it as well though there was one or two who found it too confusing.--Definitely different than All the Light though.

This book seems to have very little content about the Byzantine Empire. Seemed an odd choice for this month's read.

That’s a good point.

Eileen wrote: "This book seems to have very little content about the Byzantine Empire. Seemed an odd choice for this month's read."

This was the book that won the poll. Mods can't read every book that gets nominated to know how well it fits a theme. We do the most research we can in the limited amount of free time we have. It's up to the person nominating the book to be honest about whether or not a book is actually a good fit. Mods do their best to weed things out but we can only do so much.

I’m halfway through, trying to stick with it. I’m getting Cloud Atlas vibes so far.

I have finished the book and enjoyed it immensely. But it connected with me right away so it wasn’t a matter of soldiering through until it got better. For me, it was all about the power of story in the human experience. Upon finishing, I believe there was enough of a connection to Byzantium to make it fit the month’s category.

I am linking to my review if you are interested.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I’m 3 chapters in and finding it so hard to keep track of the different characters and stories with all of the jumping around. I’m going to keep pushing through.

Could not get into this. But I didn't love All the Light We Cannot See, either, so I guess I'm not surprised. Doerr is just not for me :(

I read the whole book & found myself questioning how on earth it's a New York Times Bestseller. For years I've believed that critics look for various things in movies & books that just don't mean much to me. Enjoyment. That's what I want. A decent storyline or more that connects with one another. Interesting characters. I really, really did not enjoy this book at all. 2**

I’m glad to see I’m not the only one struggling to get into this book. I realized once I started it this is my second attempt in the last year or so. I normally love books with different interwoven stories or timelines but I just cannot connect to this one. 4 chapters in & I will probably give it up.

I just finished it and really enjoyed it, review to come soon.

I found it a bit frustrating. First, I didn’t understand the title, and there was no real explanation of the meaning of the title (except for a nonsensical introduction involving Hercules). Apparently the writer Diogenes was a real person, but the book was not. I had to read book reviews to find out about this. Why lead readers to think this was a real text?

Although I read this book a few years ago, it still is vivid in my mind. It was a sweeping and epic saga taking place over centuries but in the hands of a brilliant author, Anthony Doerr, it was magical. I remember seeing an interview where he displayed his handwritten timeline that had been taped together so he could keep the lives of his protagonists and their intersection straight in his mind. I loved the book. And his dedication to librarians as everyone in this book has been impacted in some way deeply by a library. A great book that I hope to read again.

I read this book earlier this year for another group. I enjoyed it, once I got a ways into it and figured out the different storylines. I thought it was clever and well written, but it is more in the fantasy genre. It's not one I would nominate for a Historical group.

I’m new to this group and decided to read this months book choice Cloud Cuckoo Land. I really enjoyed the way Doerr uses language. Many sentences are short and to the point yet the writing feels somehow poetic. I liked the way he developed each character and slowly interwove their lives across time and space until everything fell together in the end, all married together by the interspersing of fragments of the ancient text of Cloud Cuckoo Land. I also also liked that it was not entirely predictable and there were aspects that surprised me! It took me a while to read but it was worth the effort!

Wendy wrote: "I’m new to this group and decided to read this months book choice Cloud Cuckoo Land. I really enjoyed the way Doerr uses language. Many sentences are short and to the point yet the writing feels so..."

I felt pretty much the same way, but you said it so well, Wendy!

I tried to read this when it first came out and couldn’t get through it

I thought this book was absolutely brilliant and not like anything I’ve ever read! I too struggled at first because there’s so much going on and SO many new to me words! But the more I read, the more I wondered how in the world all of these things were going to be tied up at the end. I think the author did a masterful job of weaving his story together and connecting it to a single beloved text. If you’re struggling at first, I encourage you to keep going. I was very happy with all the conclusions and will never forget the adventure of reading this book. Thanks for all that recommended it!

I’ll have to try this one again another time. I cannot get into it. It’s missing something for me that I can’t seem to make this book make a heck of a lot of sense.

When I finished it, I thought that this was a book made to be read twice to gain a full appreciation.

I agree with Steven, but Doerr's books can be like that. rereading can only add to the pleasure a reader gets from his novels........

So, I found this book to be a struggle at first but I've stuck with it and now I am completely invested. I'm in the middle of chapter 14 and I can see how the threads are coming together. I'm glad that I stuck it out- at first I was completely irritated.

I'm a new group member, and late to the party, but I LOVED this book. I listened to the audiobook, and would like to read the text version of it to fill in any parts that I missed. I agree with the others who commented about it being hard to follow in the beginning, but once the threads start coming together, it's like magic. This book got me started on Anthony Doerr. When I finished it, I went immediatly to All the Light We Cannot See and I'm now reading The Shell Collector.