All the Light We Cannot See - by Anthony Doerr

About the Book

"From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, a stunningly ambitious and beautiful 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-Laure's 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. Doerr's 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"--

Book Synopsis

*Winner of the Pulitzer Prize* A New York Times Book Review Top Ten Book* A National Book Award finalist *

From Anthony Doerr, the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning author of Cloud Cuckoo Land, the beautiful, stunningly ambitious instant New York Times bestseller 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 in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where her father works. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure's reclusive great uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum's most valuable and dangerous jewel.

In a mining town in Germany, Werner Pfennig, an orphan, grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find that brings them news and stories from places they have never seen or imagined. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments and is enlisted to use his talent to track down the resistance. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another.

Doerr's "stunning sense of physical detail and gorgeous metaphors" (San Francisco Chronicle) are dazzling. Ten years in the writing, a National Book Award finalist, All the Light We Cannot See is a magnificent, deeply moving novel from a writer "whose sentences never fail to thrill" (Los Angeles Times).

Review Quotes

"Mesmerizing... Exquisite... The written equivalent of a Botticelli or a Michelangelo." -The Portland Oregonian

"Stunning... Uplifting... Not to be missed." -Entertainment Weekly

"Hauntingly beautiful." -The New York Times

"Each and every person in this finely spun assemblage is distinct and true." -USA Today

"Intertwines secret radio broadcasts, a cursed diamond, a soldier's deepest doubts into a richly compelling package... Irresistible." -People

"Gorgeous... Moves with the pace of a thriller." -San Francisco Chronicle

"Enthrallingly told, beautifully written." --Amanda Vaill, The Washington Post

"Dazzling . . . Startlingly fresh." --John Freeman, The Boston Globe

"Intricate . . . A meditation on fate, free will, and the way that, in wartime, small choices can have vast consequences." --The New Yorker

"Brims with scrupulous reverence for all forms of life. The invisible light of the title shines long after the last page." --Tricia Springstubb, The Cleveland Plain Dealer

"Anthony Doerr writes beautifully. . . . A tour de force." --Elizabeth Reid, Deseret News

"Anthony Doerr again takes language beyond mortal limits." --Elissa Schappell, Vanity Fair

"Perfectly captured . . . Doerr writes sentences that are clear-eyed, taut, sweetly lyrical." --Josh Cook, Minneapolis StarTribune

"A beautiful, expansive tale . . . Ambitious and majestic." --Steph Cha, Los Angeles Times

"Doerr is an exquisite stylist; his talents are on full display." --Alan Cheuse, NPR

"The craftsmanship of Doerr's book is rooted in his ability to inhabit the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner." --Steve Novak, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"Doerr deftly guides All the Light We Cannot See toward the day Werner's and Marie-Laure's lives intersect during the bombing of Saint-Malo in what may be his best work to date." --Yvonne Zipp, The Christian Science Monitor

"To open a book by Anthony Doerr is to open a door on humanity. . . . His sentences shimmer. . . . His paragraphs are luminous with bright, sparkling beauty." --Martha Anne Toll, Washington Independent Review of Books

"Endlessly bold and equally delicate . . . An intricate miracle of invention, narrative verve, and deep research lightly held, but above all a miracle of humanity . . . Anthony Doerr's novel celebrates--and also accomplishes--what only the finest art can: the power to create, reveal, and augment experience in all its horror and wonder, heartbreak and rapture." --Shelf Awareness

"Intricately structured . . . All the Light We Cannot See is a work of art and of preservation." --Jane Ciabattari, BBC

"Magnificent." --Carmen Callil, The Guardian (UK)

"The whole enthralls." --Good Housekeeping

"A revelation." --Michael Magras, Bookreporter.com

"Doerr conjures up a vibrating, crackling world. . . . Intricately, beautifully crafted." --Rebecca Kelley, Bustle.com

"There is so much in this book. It is difficult to convey the complexity, the detail, the beauty, and the brutality of this simple story." --Carole O'Brien, Aspen Daily News

"Beautifully written . . . Soulful and addictive." --Chris Stuckenschneider, The Missourian

"A novel to live in, learn from, and feel bereft over when the last page is turned, Doerr's magnificently drawn story seems at once spacious and tightly composed. . . . Doerr masterfully and knowledgeably re-creates the deprived civilian conditions of war-torn France and the strictly controlled lives of the military occupiers." --Booklist (starred review)

"Doerr captures the sights and sounds of wartime and focuses, refreshingly, on the innate goodness of his major characters." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"If a book's success can be measured by its ability to move readers and the number of memorable characters it has, Story Prize-winner Doerr's novel triumphs on both counts. Along the way, he convinces readers that new stories can still be told about this well-trod period, and that war--despite its desperation, cruelty, and harrowing moral choices--cannot negate the pleasures of the world." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"This novel has the physical and emotional heft of a masterpiece. . . . It presents two characters so interesting and sympathetic that readers will keep turning the pages hoping for an impossibly happy ending. . . . Highly recommended for fans of Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient." --Evelyn Beck, Library Journal (starred review)

About The Author

Anthony Doerr is the author of All the Light We Cannot See, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the Carnegie Medal, the Alex Award, and a #1 New York Times bestseller. He is also the author of the story collections Memory Wall and The Shell Collector, the novel About Grace, and the memoir Four Seasons in Rome. He has won five O. Henry Prizes, the Rome Prize, the New York Public Library's Young Lions Award, the National Magazine Award for fiction, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Story Prize. Doerr lives in Boise, Idaho, with his wife and two sons.