All the Light We Cannot See - Hardcover

Doerr, Anthony

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1476746583 ISBN 13: 9781476746586

Publisher: Scribner Book Company, 2014

Synopsis

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE
From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, 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 with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. 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, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure's converge.

Doerr's "stunning sense of physical detail and gorgeous metaphors" (San Francisco Chronicle) are dazzling. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, he illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. 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).

About this title

Review:

"A tender exploration of this world's paradoxes; the beauty of the laws of nature and the terrible ends to which war subverts them; the frailty and the resilience of the human heart; the immutability of a moment and the healing power of time. The language is as expertly crafted as the master locksmith's models in the story, and the settings as intricately evoked. A compelling and uplifting novel."--M.L. Stedman, author of The Light Between Oceans

"This jewel of a story is put together like a vintage timepiece, its many threads coming together so perfectly. Doerr's writing and imagery are stunning. It's been a while since a novel had me under its spell in this fashion. The story still lives on in my head."--Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for Stone

"What a delight! This novel has exquisite writing and a wonderfully suspenseful story. A book you'll tell your friends about..."--Frances Itani, author of Deafening

"This novel has the physical and emotional heft of a masterpiece...[All the Light We Cannot See] 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) "

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

"Hauntingly beautiful."--Janet Maslin "The New York Times "

"Enthrallingly told, beautifully written...Every piece of back story reveals information that charges the emerging narrative with significance, until at last the puzzle-box of the plot slides open to reveal the treasure hidden inside."--Amanda Vaill "Washington Post "

"Exquisite...Mesmerizing...Nothing short of brilliant."--Alice Evans "Portland Oregonian "

"History intertwines with irresistible fiction--secret radio broadcasts, a cursed diamond, a soldier's deepest doubts--into a richly compelling, bittersweet package."--Mary Pols "People (3 1/2 stars) "

"Stupendous...A beautiful, daring, heartbreaking, oddly joyous novel."--David Laskin "The Seattle Times "

About the Author:

Anthony Doerr is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel All the Light We Cannot See. He is also the author of two story collections Memory Wall and The Shell Collector, the novel About Grace, and the memoir Four Seasons in Rome. He has won four 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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Scribner Book Company
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1476746583
• ISBN 13: 9781476746586
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 544