#die stadt der träumenden Bücher

[mapo-leon]

Uh so a certain brain rot is back

Didn't expect that

Anyways so I read all the Zamonien books like 5 years ago and back then I wasn't as good at art as now so with the brain rot back I might be doing some fanart and I'm strating with Hildegunst of course because how else

[alu-cd]

I drew a thing.

Post it again because of troubles with quality👍👍

[clansocreations]

1. Switches gears between "hilarious" and "profound" and "jaw on the floor because of how emotionally loaded this silly story has just become" with little effort

2. Will name characters after anything

3. Will refer to things from our world, sometimes very subtly, sometimes as unsubtly as getting slapped in the face is subtle

4. "what if this classic storytelling fantasy thing but different"

5. What if WORLDBUILDING, but thought through to it's logical conclusion.

6. Fiction books that contain a surprising level of practical life advice

7. CITIES. Big capital cities that should not WORK. But they DO.

8. Bonus points if I close the book and think "what the fuck have I just read"

So yeah anyways this is me seamlessly going from reading Discworld again to reading Zamonia again, thinking about who would win in a fight between Ankh-Morpork and Atlantis.

((Honestly my money is on Ankh-Morpork. They're meaner. And also Atlantis literally fucked off into space. Which counts for disqualification.))

Anyways, if you're interested in this sort of shenanigans, please read a Zamonia novel.

And by shenanigans I mean that there's a writer mentioned in Labyrinth of Dreaming Books by the name of Eiderich Fishnertz

And I'm here like thinking who is that? (Because of anagram shenanigans)

And then it's Friedrich Nietzsche.

That sort of shenanigans.

My favorite is The city of dreaming books but the 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear is also great, or Rumo, or ANY ONE OF THEM I promise they're so neat!

[space-diablo]

I decided.. that it's finished and I like it.

[haveyoureadthisfantasybook]

vote yes if you have finished the entire book.

vote no if you have not finished the entire book.

(faq · submit a book)

[bibliophilecats]

26 May 2023: Black and white

[moon--meadow]

Shoutout to each and every person that loves Zamonia/Zamonien books on this site omg. I want to talk about them!! Especially if you’re german (sorry to the English speakers but I read them in German bc it’s my native language so all the character names, made up words etc. are more familiar to me in the language!)!! Hmu if you’d like, Rumo is literally my favorite book of all time so I love talking about that one in particular but all of them are fantastic.

[ginstermoff]

Re-reading Moers' City of Dreaming Books and Homunkoloss is a certified tumblr sexyman imho

[who-do-i-know-this-man]

Propaganda for Hildegunst von Mythenmetz:

He's a dinosaur poet! In his world (well, more on his *continent* - Zamonien is in our world but sank with Atlantis long time ago (this story is actually told in another book)) most of the dinosaurs specialise on being poets and authors and Mythenmetz is the best of them.

"Die Stadt der träumenden Bücher" (the city of dreaming books) is the first part of his autobiography, where he just starts out as a young dino-poet (not even a 100 years!), going out into the world and finding himself trapped in the catacombs underneath a town he visits by some greedy bookseller. (Read the boom if you want to know the whole story^^)

As to his character: He is a hypochondriac and rather eccentric. He has a personal feud with another author that he takes out in the footnotes or asides in some of his books. He wrote some very experimental stuff (like whole pages of the same word), but also some of the greatest literature in Zamonien.

Please read his books (translated by Walter Moers into German and from there into other languages), they are extremely funny, creative and abstruse :D

^

[mapo-leon]

Shark grub be upon ye!

[icryyoumercy]

In der englischen Übersetzung von Stadt der Träumenden Bücher wird William Shakespeare als Aleisha Wimpersleake anagrammiert und nimmt die zentrale Stelle von Ojahnn Golgo van Fontheweg ein (aber auch von anderen Dichtern wie Dölerich Hirnfidler). Die zentrale Bedeutung von Shakespeare für den englischsprachigen Raum führt auch dazu, dass der Buchling Golgo Aleisha heißt (häufig "Al" genannt).

now that is incredibly intriguing information, and if someone has a copy of The City of Dreaming Books, i will be forever indebted to you if you can give me a list of names for all the booklings and the lines they quote/reference, pretty please

[clansocreations]

4 & 15 💜

4: Which sections of a bookstore do you browse?

I usually go through to the shelf with the English language books immediately and on my way out I look at the Krimis in the front. Tbh though I'm not in the bookstore all that much because the library is like. One street over.

15: Recommend a book.

i will literally never shut up about this one

This is where my story begins. It tells how I came into possession of The Bloody Book and acquired the Orm. It’s not a story for people with thin skins and weak nerves, whom I would advise to replace this book on the pile at once and slink off to the children’s section. Shoo! Begone, you cry-babies and quaffers of camomile tea, you wimps and softies! This book tells of a place where reading is still a genuine adventure, and by adventure I mean the old-fashioned definition of the word that appears in the Zamonian Dictionary: ‘A daring enterprise undertaken in a spirit of curiosity or temerity, it is potentially life-threatening, harbours unforeseeable dangers and sometimes proves fatal.’

  Yes, I speak of a place where reading can drive people insane. Where books may injure and poison them - indeed, even kill them. Only those who are thoroughly prepared to take such risks in order to read this book - only those willing to hazard their lives in so doing - should accompany me to the next paragraph. The remainder I congratulate on their wise but yellow-bellied decision to stay behind. Farewell, you cowards! I wish you a long and boring life, and, on that note, bid you goodbye!

So . . . Having probably reduced my readers to a tiny band of reckless souls at the very outset, I should like to bid the rest of you a hearty welcome. Greetings, my intrepid friends, you’re cut from the cloth of which true adventurers are made! Let us waste no more time and set out at once on our journey. For it is a journey on which we’re embarking, a journey to Bookholm, the City of Dreaming Books. Tie your shoelaces good and tight, because our route will take us first across a vast expanse of rugged, stony terrain, then across a monotonous stretch of prairie where the grass is dense, waist-high and razor-sharp, and finally - along gloomy, labyrinthine, perilous passages - deep into the bowels of the earth. I cannot predict how many of us will return. I can only urge you never to lose heart whatever befalls us.

  And don’t say I didn’t warn you!

This is how my favorite book begins. The first time I read these two paragraphs I was like "you can't scare me off, bitch" and I have never regretted my decision even once.

As you can see, it's originally in German but it's translated amazingly well and doesn't lose much in humor or flavor at all.

This is where my story begins is an important sentence in "The City of Dreaming Books".

I will quote one sentence from this text, namely, the one with which it ended. It was also the sentence which finally dissolved the writer’s block that had inhibited the author from starting work. I have since used it whenever I myself have been gripped by fear of the blank sheet in front of me. It is infallible, and its effect is always the same: the knot unravels and a stream of words gushes out on to the virgin paper. It acts like a magic spell and I sometimes fancy it really is one. But, even if it isn’t the work of a sorcerer, it is certainly the most brilliant sentence any writer has ever devised. It runs: ‘This is where my story begins.’

It's therefore quite a meaningful echo that this is the same sentence that starts his own writing debut after he has survived his "daring enterprise that sometimes proves fatal".

He wanted to find the person who had written that story, the best story he'd ever read, nay, the best story in total. In the end he ended up under Bookholm, nearly died a couple times and...well. That would be spoilers, wouldn't it?

As the name suggests this book is is a book about books, a story about stories and that shows in every aspect, from the worldbuilding to the plot.

Instead of going into the worldbuilding in detail, let me give you the general gist and show you a few of my favorite illustrations.

What's Zamonia?

Zamonia is an additional continent on Earth. After humans and fantasy species had a falling out (literally, a politician was shoved out of a window) those species all collectively moved to that one continent and gave humans the proverbial finger. That explains why fantasy creatures from every part of the world live there now. (With a twist though!)

Apart from City and it's sequel, a few other Zamonia novels have been translated into English

• The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear

•Rumo and his miraculous adventures

• The Alchemasters' Apprentice

What's Bookholm?

Bookholm is a city that is proficient in every part of the book industry from writing to printing to selling to reading to writing bad reviews. It smells like a very large secondhand bookshop. By the time of the sequel, most of the city's buildings are built of fossilized stone books. (They don't burn as easily and they're a cheap resource because there's so many of them)

Below the city are the so-called Catacombs where you can find both the rarest books and the most unspeakable dangers.

At the very bottom of that Labyrinth of Dreaming Books (that's the sequel btw) there is said to be the most terrifying horror of them all. They call him the Shadow king. Everyone knows him. Nobody knows anything about him....

Have I piqued your interest yet? Good! Because this book is absolutely and woefully underrated and I want to talk to someone about it without being afraid of spoiling the story for them! 😁

[space-diablo]

I'm not sorry.

[sauron-kraut]

for the general questions:

4, 7, 8, 14, 20 (other than tolkien), 46, 54 ❤️

Thank you Mausebär <3

3 Loves

indulgence, euphoria and love itself

4 Turn ons

queerness, curved noses, joy, knowing how to dance

4 Turn offs

weird feet, heteronormativity, loud chewing, possessiveness

Something I really, really want

A proper holiday and someone to [CENSORED]

My favourite book(s)

Die Stadt der Träumenden Bücher and Rumo & Die Wunder im Dunkeln by Walter Moers

Heartbreaking, hilarious, disturbing and just in general amazing use of German.

A random fact I know

Dust mites drink our saliva from the corners of our mouths while we sleep.

Craziest thing I’ve ever done

Almost got arrested by Interpol because of a long story spanning the countries of Japan, Peru, Germany and The Netherlands which involves my stolen passport, a bar in Tokyo run by a family member of a member of Buck-Tick, and some coca leaves.

[decayingliberty]

TRICK OR TREAT~ german book recs?

Die Stadt der Träumenden Bücher (The City of Dreaming Books) by Walter Moers

Die Unendliche Geschichte (The Neverending Story) by Michael Ende

Uhh.... honorable mentions: Tschick by Wolfgang Herndorff and Rubinrot/Smaragdgrün/Saphirblau (ruby red/emerald green/saphhire blue) by Kerstin Giers

[zondel]

Tag game

@fiendir added me, so imma hop on

Last song: Happy song by Sooo. The shuffle gods wanted it scratchy and who am I, but a man of loud noise.

Currently watching: I don't have a series that grips me, but project sekai event stories count right? right? Yt vise, nothing big tbh haven't found a good video essay yet.

Currently reading: So many books....One general overview of art history, some about niche things like horses in art, japanese art etc. some about and some artist like Ernst Häckel, William Morris, Gustave Dorè etc. The other books I'm reading are, a deepdive about pigeons, one of my favorite childhood books (Die Stadt der Träumenden Bücher) the second book of the Howl saga, celtic folklore and some manga/light novels/fics to have something easier to digest on the side. I am a scatterbrain and need to have at least five books about different topics to cycle through.

Current obsession: Currently I fell back into my pigeon interest, which came packaged in a nifty lil bird obsession. There's also my Prsk Hyperfocus kept alive by the sheer goodness of vocaloid music. I want to mention that there are some blooming interests in medival culture and germanic languages, but I'm unsure about the depth they will take.

my collection of mutuals, whom I will pull into this game of tag:

@cjadewyton @fire-rose @that-dumb-moth

but also @anyone if you're interested :3