Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr (2021) Scribner

The novel covers six story lines based on character:

1. Diogenes original story that is only partially available that he sent to his sick daughter,

2. Zeno, the son of a Greek immigrant, whose father died in World War II, was raised by his almost step-mother, went to war in Korea and fell in love with a British soldier at a POW camp, who translated ancient Greek, and was separated from him when the Brit escaped, then went on to translate Diogenes’ story, and then help a group of fifth graders put it on as a play, and became a hero by running a bomb to a lake before it could kill anyone else,

3. Seymour, an autistic young man who was infuriated at the destruction of his Trusty Friend’s habitat and wanted to strike back at the developers who caused it and planted a bomb in the library where Zeno was watching a dress rehearsal of the play, he goes to prison for his crime and becomes a programmer for a company that is trying to present a view of the earth that is pristine.  He evaluates anomalies and marks them to be revised with something pleasant.  He eventually gets out of prison and goes to work for the company.  He begins putting easter eggs in the views that have an owl as a hint and if you click on them, you will see the original view before it was modified.  He finds that Zeno published a translation of Diogenes’ story and has them bound and gives a copy to the grown kids from the library play,

4. Anna, a young girl in Constantinople in 1483, when it fell to the Ottoman empire, who found a copy of Diogenes’ story and told it to her husband and sons,

5. Omeir, who was born with a cleft palette and whose grandfather refused to put the child to death, even though the child’s father died on the day of his birth, causing the family to have to move way out of their local town in order to survive – who raised two oxen and was pressed into the service of conquering Constantinople, but when the oxen died, he gave up and on his way home discovers Anna and takes her with him, marries her and raises two sons.  When she dies, he makes the journey to Italy with her poor copy of the story,

6. Konstance, who lives on a deep space ship with her parents and a group of people trying to find another home for humanity and finds the tale on a vast electronic library when a plague kills everyone else on the ship and her father stowed her in the computer room with enough nutrient powder to last her 5 years of a 567 year journey.

Some people question Konstance's story, but as far as I'm concerned, it's the best book I've read this year.