Cloud Cuckoo Land is 600+ pages of historical intrigue, adventure, ruin, and resilience.

Five lives are linked by a Greek manuscript that was tattered back in 1453, when Anna discovers it in an abandoned monastery in Constantinople. The great city is on the brink of war, but Anna is determined to protect the scroll she can barely read.

Her bravery is mirrored by Omeir’s, a boy deemed cannon fodder by the Ottoman Empire because of his cleft palate.

Five centuries later, Zeno falls in love in a POW camp. When the Korean War ends, he translates the ancient Greek of the scroll in honor of his lost soldier.

Five decades later, he turns the text into a play to be performed at the local library—a location targeted by Seymour, an autistic boy whose broken heart has led him to ecoterrorism.

And somewhere in the future, Konstance floats through space in a ship containing the last of humanity.

Anthony Doerr weaves a dazzling web of war and rescue.

Fans of Cloud Atlas or People of the Book should make room on their reading lists.