Book of Clouds by Chloe Aridjis

Book of Clouds

Chloe Aridjis

I loved this surreal little book. Tatiana walks around modern unified Berlin but all the while divided Berlin seeps through the cracks, like clouds that only she can see, and which threaten to envelope her.

Extract
It began when I was a child. Around the time I drew the ants. Gazing into the sky was the only activity that gave me a sense of freedom. And I loved predicting what would come next. I trained myself to forecast the weather by reading textbooks, measuring rainfall in jars, recording wind speed with the help of a weather vane. That sort of thing. In the end I'm not sure how successful I was, but each morning I'd announce the day's outlook to my family. Of course, it sometimes meant that my mother would be caught in a downpour without an umbrella or that my brother would go to school without his undershirt, waiting all day for the promised sun to emerge.
Parallels
  • The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
  • Odin’s Island by Janne Teller
  • The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
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Violence
Explicit sexual content