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Books by Walter Moers

Cover of The City of Dreaming Books.

The City of Dreaming Books

by Walter Moers · published 2004 · read 2007-11-01

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

The year I got this book, I must have read it five times in a row. It's one of those books that appeal deliberately to any reader's affinity to books – but where stories about magical librarians or book-hopping narrators are cautious about it, Moers goes all in. This is not an appeal, it's unrepentant, happy, blatant pandering. God, I loved reading this book.

Cover of The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear.

The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear

by Walter Moers · published 1999 · read 2006-05-01

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

This is where Moers proved he was a wizard. It's not his best book, but it's absolutely outstanding nevertheless. The tour through the 13½ lives of Cpt Bluebear is amazing, astounding, sparkling with fantastic ideas as if it had been written by 13 creative geniuses instead of just one.

Cover of A Wild Ride Through the Night.

A Wild Ride Through the Night

by Walter Moers · published 2001 · last read 2021-01-13

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Walter Moers decided to branch out and do something wildly different. Okay, maybe not wildly: there's still much absurdity going on. But it's not Zamonien. Instead, it's the story of Gustave Doré, the famous painter. Or rather, his paintings. Or rather, all of his paintings, shoved together into a rather trippy (but entertaining!) story.

Cover of Rumo & His Miraculous Adventures.

Rumo & His Miraculous Adventures

by Walter Moers · published 2003 · read 2009-07-01

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Rumo was a lot of fun. Not as grand as Bluebear, not as nerdy as the book city, but a very good take on adventure books noneteless. Hitting all the tropes without being unintentionally cheesy. Probably the closest you can come to The Princess Bride with non-human protagonists.

Cover of Ensel und Krete. Ein Märchen aus Zamonien.

Ensel und Krete. Ein Märchen aus Zamonien

by Walter Moers · published 2000 · read 2003-02-01

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Bluebear was a great book. This is an okay book – more experimental in ways, and definitely less astounding. Where Bluebear means that you get an even balance of action and snark, and the City of Dreaming Book works even when you don't get literary snark, this book is just literary snark. I enjoyed it, but it's hard to recommend to anybody.

Cover of Zamonien. Entdeckungsreise durch einen phantastischen Kontinent. Von A wie Anagrom Ataf bis Z wie Zamomin.

Zamonien. Entdeckungsreise durch einen phantastischen Kontinent. Von A wie Anagrom Ataf bis Z wie Zamomin

by Walter Moers · published 2012 · read 2020-12-27

★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

Even though I love the Zamonien books as much as anybody, this … was not it. This book is an encyclopaedia for the fictional continent Zamonien, as a tie-in for all the other books by Walter Moers. And I understand everybody who loved it, in a nostalgic way, thinking back to when they first read the Zamonion books. But damn, this is so limited, like a big missed chance.

Cover of Das Labyrinth der Träumenden Bücher.

Das Labyrinth der Träumenden Bücher

by Walter Moers · published 2011 · read 2011-10-01

★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

Well, this was an exercise in disappointment. The follow-up book to the City of Dreaming Books is strictly worse than its predecessor. It reads as if Moers needed money and so decided to make a bad B-movie following his great blockbuster. Nearly put me off reading future Moers books entirely.

Cover of Der Schrecksenmeister.

Der Schrecksenmeister

by Walter Moers · published 2007 · read 2008-07-01

★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

I wasn't the biggest fan of this book, possibly because I thought that I had to read the book it was satirising first. I didn't have to do that, and it wasn't a lot of fun. I was impressed with the food porn though – when Moers sets his mind to really describing something, you're going to notice.