Cloud Cuckoo Land

Anna, a thirteen-year-old orphan, lives inside Constantinople's strong walls in a home of women who embroider priests' vestments for a job. Anna, restless and insatiably curious, learns to read and discovers a book, the narrative of Aethon, who wishes to be transformed into a bird so that he might soar to a utopian paradise in the skies. This she reads to her sick sister while the walls of Constantinople, her sole home, are bombarded during the great siege. Omeir, a country lad far from home, has been forced into the invading army alongside his beloved oxen. His and Anna's paths will intersect.

Five hundred years later, in an Idaho library, octogenarian Zeno, who studied Greek as a prisoner of war, rehearses five youngsters in a theatrical version of Aethon's narrative, which has survived beyond all odds. A bomb has been planted amid the library shelves by Seymour, a disturbed, idealistic adolescent. This is a new siege. In the not-too-distant future, aboard the intergalactic ship Argos, Konstance is alone in a vault, transcribing the narrative of Aethon, recounted to her by her father, on pieces of sacking. She has never visited the world.

Detailed information:
Author: Anthony Doerr
Link to read: goodreads.com/book/show/56783258-cloud-cuckoo-land