All the Light We Cannot See (Collins Modern Classics)

(Paperback)

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WINNER OF THE 2015 PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
WINNER OF THE CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR FICTION

A beautiful, stunningly ambitious novel about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II
Marie Laure lives with her father in Paris within walking distance of the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of the locks (there are thousands of locks in the museum). When she is six, she goes blind, and her father builds her a model of their neighborhood, every house, every manhole, so she can memorize it with her fingers and navigate the real streets with her feet and cane. When the Germans occupy Paris, father and daughter flee to Saint-Malo on the Brittany coast, where Marie-Laures agoraphobic great uncle lives in a tall, narrow house by the sea wall.

In another world in Germany, an orphan boy, Werner, grows up with his younger sister, Jutta, both enchanted by a crude radio Werner finds. He becomes a master at building and fixing radios, a talent that wins him a place at an elite and brutal military academy and, ultimately, makes him a highly specialized tracker of the Resistance. Werner travels through the heart of Hitler Youth to the far-flung outskirts of Russia, and finally into Saint-Malo, where his path converges with Marie-Laure.

Doerrs gorgeous combination of soaring imagination with observation is electric. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. Ten years in the writing, All the Light We Cannot See is his most ambitious and dazzling work.

Reviews

'Far more than a conventional war story, It's a tightly focused epic revolving around two unusual main characters Doerr paints with a rich palette, using prose that resonates deeply and conveys the ephemera of daily existence along with high drama, sadness and hope A bittersweet and moving novel that lingers in the mind' Clifford Beal, Daily Mail

TIt is easy to understand why Doerrs book is regarded by many as an epic and a masterpiece Justin Cartwright, Observer

This novel will be a piece of luck for anyone with a long plane journey or beach holiday ahead. It is such a page-turner, entirely absorbing [Doerrs] attention to detail is magnificent Carmen Callil, Guardian

Doerrs novel seems poised somewhere between the sublime and the twee. It very much lands on the right side of things, thanks to the authors eye for detail and the suspenseful rhythm of his chapters often only a page or two which expertly cut back and forth in time. He can bring a scene to life in a single paragraph Delicate and moving the novel takes hold and will not easily let go Lidija Haas, The Times

Boy meets girl in Anthony Doerrs hauntingly beautiful new book, but the circumstances are as elegantly circuitous as they can be Janet Maslin, The New York Times

Im not sure I will read a better novel this year Enthrallingly told, beautifully written and so emotionally plangent that some passages bring tears Amanda Vaill, Washington Post

This jewel of a story is put together like a vintage timepiece Doerrs writing and imagery are stunning. Its been a while since a novel had me under its spell in this fashion Abraham Verghese

Author Bio

Anthony Doerr is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel All the Light We Cannot See, currently in development as a Netflix limited series. He is also the author of two short story collections, Memory Wall and The Shell Collector; the novel About Grace; and the memoir Four Seasons in Rome, all published by 4th Estate. He has won five O. Henry Prizes, the Rome Prize, the New York Public Library's Young Lions Award, the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Fiction, a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Story Prize. Doerr lives in Boise, Idaho, with his wife and two sons.