Overview
*NOW A NETFLIX LIMITED SERIES--from producer and director Shawn Levy (Stranger Things) starring Mark Ruffalo, Hugh Laurie, and newcomer Aria Mia Loberti* Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist, the beloved instant New York Times bestseller and New York Times Book Review Top 10 Book 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, All the Light We Cannot See is a magnificent, deeply moving novel from a writer "whose sentences never fail to thrill" ( Los Angeles Times ).
Anthony Doerr was born on October 27, 1973 in Cleveland, Ohio. He is the author of The Shell Collector, About Grace, Four Seasons in Rome, Memory Wall, and All the Light We Cannot See. His fiction has won four O. Henry Prizes and has been anthologized in several anthologies. He has won the Barnes and Noble Discover Prize, the Rome Prize, the New York Public Library's Young Lions Award, the National Magazine Award for Fiction, three Pushcart Prizes, two Pacific Northwest Book Award, three Ohioana Book Awards, the 2010 Story Prize, which is considered the most prestigious prize in the U.S. for a collection of short stories, and the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award, which is the largest prize in the world for a single short story. His novel, All the Light We Cannot See, won the Adult Fiction Award for the Indies Choice Book Awards in 2015, the International Book of the Year at the ABIA Awards and the Pulitzer Prizes for Fiction in 2015. Anthony Doerr also won the 2015 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction for this same title.
Professional Reviews
"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)
