The City of Dreaming Books: A Book Review

This book is a big one, it's 450 pages but also, and more importantly, in my opinion, the words are small and there's lots of them on each page. 

Here's the synopsis from Goodreads because 'if it ain't broke don't fix it.' 

In this new Zamonian adventure, Optimus Yarnspinner, a young writer, inherits from his beloved godfather an unpublished short story by an unknown author. His search for the author’s identity takes him to Bookholm the so-called City of Dreaming Books. On entering its streets, our hero feels as if he has opened the door of a gigantic second-hand bookshop. His nostrils are assailed by clouds of book dust, the stimulating scent of ancient leather, and the tang of printer’s ink.

Soon, though, Yarnspinner falls into the clutches of the city’s evil genius, Pfistomel Smyke, who treacherously maroons him in the labyrinthine catacombs underneath the city, where reading books can be genuinely dangerous.

Here are a few more interesting things about the book before we get to my thoughts. 

It's written by Walter Moers, a German author, and it's a translated book.  If you haven't read a translated book yet here's an option. 

The in the book is that it's written by Optimus Yarnspinner, the main character, and translated from Zamonian, the fantasy world is Zamonia and the language is Zamonia.  Now if Zamonia was real then this book would be translated from Zamonian to German to English.  I thought that was really interesting. 

Optimus Yarnspinner is a dinosaur, although not the big prehistoric dinosaur that you might be thinking of.  His species has evolved from that time period and now they are much smaller.  He is in one of the pictures above.

Don't be fooled by the pictures in his book and the fact that the main character is an evolved dinosaur. It's not a "silly" book because of these things.  I don't think this book would have worked in the same way if plain old humans were the characters instead. 

This wasn't the fastest-paced book I have read but it wasn't necessarily slow either.  The beginning was slower though, and once I got to a certain part it picked up much more.  It's the type of book where I think one would be able to guess what happens at the end but not the journey to get there.  I think it is worth powering through the slower part at the beginning, to get to see real rocky adventures in this book. 

I think my recommendation really depends on what type of books you like.  If you lean towards reading contemporary, romance, and historical fiction books, and you are not looking to start reading a book in a new genre, this is probably not the book to go with right now.  You are looking to try a book out of your comfort zone and I think this it's really fun but filled with interesting characters and creatures. 

If you read mostly fantasy or science fiction books, this book still might be a hit or miss for you.  It's not like a typical fantasy book.  The main character is not a hero or a fighter, he is clumsy and has no idea what he's doing but also really fun to follow.

What do you think?  Have you read this book, and do you think you will after reading this review? Have you read a translated book before?

☆☆☆