Overlook has published three of Walter Moers's hilarious and beloved Zamonia books and The City of Dreaming Books, a fantastic tale for every book lover, is his most popular yet.
Optimus Yanspinner inherits from his godfather an unpublished manuscript by an unknown writer and sets off to track down the mysterious author, who disappeared into Bookholm--the so-called City of Dreaming Books.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, fearsome cyclopean booklings, sharp-toothed animotomes, 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?

From Publishers Weekly
German author and cartoonist Moers returns to the mythical lost continent of Zamonia in his uproarious third fantasy adventure to be translated into English (after 2006's Rumo), a delightfully imaginative mélange of Shel Silverstein zaniness and oddball anthropomorphism à la Terry Pratchett's Discworld. Optimus Yarnspinner, a young saurian novelist, embarks on a quest to track down the anonymous author of the most magnificent piece of writing in the whole of Zamonian literature. Traveling to Bookholm, the legendary City of Dreaming Books, the naïve Yarnspinner falls victim to Pfistomel Smyke, a maggotlike literary scholar who poisons Yarnspinner and abandons him in the treacherous catacombs miles below the city's surface. Stranded in an underworld steeped in terror-inducing myth and home to more than a few bizarre inhabitants, Yarnspinner undertakes a long and perilous journey back to the world above. Enchanting illustrations by the author compliment a wonderfully whimsical story that will appeal to readers of all ages. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
''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 melange of Shel Silverstein zaniness and oddball anthropomorphism a la Terry Pratchett's Discworld . . . A wonderfully whimsical story that will appeal to readers of all ages.'' --Publishers Weekly

''A salmagundi of whimsy, imagination and book lore -- remarkable fun.'' --Cleveland Plain Dealer

''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.'' --Kirkus Reviews