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  • All the Light We Cannot See

  • By: Anthony Doerr
  • Narrated by: Julie Teal
  • Length: 17 hrs and 1 min
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (2,332 ratings)

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All the Light We Cannot See cover art

All the Light We Cannot See

By: Anthony Doerr
Narrated by: Julie Teal
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Publisher's Summary

Winner of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

National Book Award Finalist

New York Times Bestseller

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, from the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr.

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 memorise 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 specialised 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.

©2014 Anthony Doerr (P)2014 HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

Critic Reviews

“This jewel of a story is put together like a vintage timepiece … Doerr's writing and imagery are stunning. It's been a while since a novel had me under its spell in this fashion.” (Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for Stone)

"All the Light We Cannot See is a dazzling, epic work of fiction. Anthony Doerr writes beautifully about the mythic and the intimate, about snails on beaches and armies on the move, about fate and love and history and those breathless, unbearable moments when they all come crashing together.” (Jess Walter, author of Beautiful Ruins)

"Doerr sees the world as a scientist, but feels it as a poet. He knows about everything - radios, diamonds, mollusks, birds, flowers, locks, guns - but he also writes a line so beautiful, creates an image or scene so haunting, it makes you think forever differently about the big things - love, fear, cruelty, kindness, the countless facets of the human heart [...] Doerr's new novel is that novel, the one you savor, and ponder, and happily lose sleep over, then go around urging all your friends to read - now.” (J.R. Moehringer, author of Sutton and The Tender Bar)

What listeners say about All the Light We Cannot See

Average Customer Ratings
Overall
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Story
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Stunning

This was such an exquisitely written book. I love historical fiction but sometimes they can be clumsily written. This is not one of those books. It seems like Doerr was not only writing a beautiful and haunting story, he was also writing a love letter to language. Listening to the AudioBook was like returning to childhood where Nanna would read me an enchanting story, and I had no problem weaving through the timelines after a couple of chapters. Highly recommend to those that enjoy historical fiction about the war, and to those that like intelligent fiction written in such beautiful prose. Thanks Audible!

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17 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

<br />As good as it gets. <br />

I could not put it down. A WW2 story with a difference.
The characters beautifully drawn. A story that totally engaged me. Written e
with humanity and great sensitivity. A great deal to reflect on. The narrator's voice was perfect.
This is as good as it gets.



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8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

boring

struggled to finish this boring book. It was hard to follow when there was little dialogue between the characters. most of it is in third person or narative.

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
  • Bob
  • 14-05-2015

Exceptional Book

I love this book. Gentle people in a a violent time. The story captivating. the reader was fabulous and did the book proud.

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

great book, hard to listen to.

read this title for a book club. was very excited to get stuck in after reading all the reviews. the narrator however was very difficult to listen to - this was a pretty major down fall. I ended up reading the hard copy instead.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
  • Deb
  • 12-03-2016

All the Light....... I enjoyed to hear

This story was brilliantly written. I was captivated.
Reader was excellent and kept me listening late into the night.
Marilyn and her Father and Uncle were so interesting with characters interwoven in a story that brings the life of France before and during the War to life.
The German children used for Hitler's demonic reign brought me to tears with the hardships they endured during their training.
Living in Australia we really have no idea of how hard it would be to live in a war torn environment. For that I am glad!
This story is a must read and I am looking forward to reading more from this author and hopefully with the same reader.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
  • RCF
  • 13-09-2015

Long and tiresome

Bloated and self indulgent. Might read better than it sounded, however, as I disliked the reader's monotone and poor French pronunciation.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A lasting impact

It's been 4 weeks since I finished this book and my mind still turns to it daily. The vivid imagery, the characters, the simply exquisite style of Doerr ...I was, and still am, immersed it all.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Distracting narration

The story was ok, but the repeated mispronounciations by the narrator were an irritating distraction.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A slow-burn story

Long and sometimes tricky to keep up with (due to the jumps back-and-forth in the timeline) it is still a fantastic read!

The story unfurls slowly, with a delicious use of language. The narrator is one of the best I've listened to.

It's a slow-burn narrative, and once the stories start to converge, it becomes highly enjoyable.

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3 people found this helpful

In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.