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Tales of Magic & Enchantment
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Sign up todayThe City of Dreaming Books
The Zamonia Series: Book #3
Narrator
Richard Powers
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Translator
John Brownjohn
Length
19 hours 9 minutes
Language
English
Following The 13› Lives of Captain Bluebear and Rumo & His Miraculous Adventures comes a third hilarious and beloved Zamonia book, the most popular yet. It is a fantastic tale for every book lover.
Optimus Yarnspinner inherits from his godfather an unpublished manuscript by an unknown writer and sets off to track down the mysterious author, who disappeared into Bookholm—the so-called City of Dreaming Books. Yarnspinner falls under the spell of this book-obsessed metropolis, where an avid reader and budding author can find any number of charming attractions: priceless signed first editions, salivating literary agents, and for-hire critics. But as Yarnspinner pursues the trail of the missing author, the darker side of Bookholm begins to unveil itself—cold-blooded book hunters, cyclopean Fearsome Booklings, sharp-toothed Animatomes, and of course, the Shadow King, whose howls rise from deep beneath the city at night. Will Yarnspinner survive his quest into this world where reading is a genuine adventure?
Walter Moers was born in 1957 and is a writer, cartoonist, painter, and sculptor. The world of Zamonia that he created is currently being adapted for the screen. He lives in Hamburg, Germany.
Richard Powers has published thirteen novels. He is a MacArthur Fellow and received the National Book Award. His book, The Overstory, won the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction.
John Brownjohn, originally a classicist who from the age of eight studied ancient Greek as well as Latin, won a major scholarship to Oxford, from which he graduated with honors. He transitioned to a career as a literary translator, earning critical acclaim and many British and American awards. In addition to translating nearly two hundred books, he has produced English versions of many German and French screenplays and cowritten several feature films with Roman Polanski.
Reviews
“A salmagundi of whimsy, imagination, and book lore—remarkable fun.”
“German author and cartoonist Moers returns to the mythical lost continent of Zamonia in his uproarious third fantasy adventure to be translated into English, a delightfully imaginative mélange of Shel Silverstein zaniness and oddball anthropomorphism à la Terry Pratchett’s Discworld…A wonderfully whimsical story that will appeal to readers of all ages.”
“It’s back to Zamonia, scene of Moers’ 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear and Rumo, for another tale of intrigue, battles to the death, and books…Entertaining characters, terrifying monsters, and wonders beyond imagining make Zamonia the place for fascinating adventure.”
“German novelist Moers puts Tolkien through some sort of Willy Wonka sweetening process and comes up with characters such as Optimus Yarnspinner, who, names being fate and all, just has to be a storyteller.”
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