Walter Moers

Optimus Yarnspinner travels to Bookholm on a quest to find the anonymous author of a manuscript that he inherited from his godfather, and during his journey he encounters many strange inhabitants of the so-called City of Dreaming Books.

The City of Dreaming Books

The City of Dreaming Books (Zamonia 3)

Elizabeth Moore

I loved this book. I caught myself over and over while reading this book just putting it down and smiling and thinking about how great it was- it was actually kind of weird. Extremely clever and also the only book I have read thus far that featured a Dinosaur protagonist! Very much is the same vein as Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth, one of my all-time favorite reads. This book was also interesting on more of a meta-level; it is the type of book in which the plot construction, character development, and overall story arch add to the theme of the story itself as much as they just provide for an overall enjoyable read. The word play in the book and the literary allusions were great adds, and a few of my new favorite characters in literature have been introduced to me in The City of Dreaming Books!

3.5 stars - fabulous setting and charming illustrations, very cool creatures and atmosphere. But for me, it was a bit too wordy, especially in its long descriptions and endlessly long LISTS of everything the narrator sees (and what for: why not just include it in an illustration?). But it's certainly worth reading when you feel like really diving into a colorful world full of weird but somehow cozy things. This is the perfect book for a winter holiday when you're chilling in a fancy coffee shop with a snowstorm outside.

Katherine Erickson

Wow.. This book was a wild journey that proved to be satisfying, humorous, imaginative, and epic. Definitely recommend it, though it can be a bit difficult to get used to the elaborate language.

Christina Hufford

I really, really enjoyed this book. Full of literary allusions and puns and infused with a love of reading and deep understanding of what it means to be a writer, in many ways this was exactly the book I needed to read right now.

A couple things kept me from giving it a full five stars, though. There were parts of the book that were a slog to get through (a lot of the adventures in the Shadowhall Castle seemed like they could've been shortened or altogether excised) while some of the more important scenes near the end were rushed through. This book could've been a hundred pages shorter, perhaps, and the story would've been much tighter. Sometimes the writing seemed sterile, though I wonder if this was a fault of the translation more than anything. Also, there were times when the reader was far ahead of the main character -- Optimus would assume someone was joking, or evil, or he would write off a situation that the reader could pretty quickly reason he was going to be proven wrong about. After a while, it made the main character seem a little thick-headed. These are minor complaints, though; usually when I don't like something about a book, I'm quick to set it aside, and there was no setting aside this one. I had to know what happened!

So, despite being at times really slow, when the story did pick up, it did so strongly. There are moments of real terror and emotion in here, and the sheer scope of imagination conveyed is sumptuous to read. Who doesn't want to live in Bookholm, with poets at every corner and books piled sky-high?

The City of Dreaming Books

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