All The Light We Cannot See
Written by Anthony Doerr
Narrated by Julie Teal
4.5/5
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About this audiobook
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-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.
Editor's Note
One of the best…
Anthony Doerr’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is sensational — the rare book that takes a well-worn subject and adds an unforgettable spin. It follows the twin narratives of Marie-Laure, a blind French girl, and Werner, a German orphan recruited to the military, at the height of WWII. The story is haunting, the imagery of war-torn France beautiful, and the characters so rich in depth that devouring the entire book feels inevitable.
Anthony Doerr
ANTHONY DOERR is the author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel All the Light We Cannot See. He is also the author of the 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.
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Reviews for All The Light We Cannot See
355 ratings18 reviews
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5THIS IS NOT A COMPLETE AUDIOBOOK!!!
I can't find anywhere that it states if this is unabridged or otherwise.
I started listening to this along side reading the physical copy. I got to the end of the 3rd chapter 'The Girl' & 9 sentences are missing from the end of the chapter! I double checked with my second edition of the book and have since purchased from Audible to make sure and yes those sentences are missing!!
Listen elsewhere as this not the full book!4 people found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Excellent book. Enjoyment clouded by poor pronunciation, not just French words, but English! Mitochondria!?
Does no one check pronunciation before it’s released?1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Visually rich, appealing and dense story although a bit long winded and at times a bit sentimental. To be fair, the author tries to pack a lot in here: light and darkness, goodness and corruption, science and nature, the invisible world that surrounds us. Some of the characters are a bit 2 dimensional such as Sgt Major von Rumple and at times I found Marie-Laure and her family a bit too good to be true. Werner’s character felt much more balanced. But I enjoyed the linking of the two main characters via references to radio, a love of storytelling and the natural world which is brilliantly described.
The narrator did well with the French and German text but it was funny and surprising when she mispronounced English-language words such as napalm, mitochondrial and sobriquet. And I did find it slightly irritating that Marie-Laure still sounded like a gormless 6 year old when she had supposedly grown to an intelligent young woman of 16. The timelines move around a bit so when you’re listening over an extended period of time you can get confused if you don’t remember where you were up to.
Overall this kept my attention and I enjoyed the story.1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I really tought this will be my favorite book of the year but last 100pgs or so ruined it, don't get me wrong I liked and enjoyed the book but it wasn't the right end for me personaly
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The audio quality on scribd is terrible and frequently cuts then jumps to he end of the book. As the book uses repetition and disordered sequences of events to covet the story this got excessively annoying and confusing.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I personally am not a huge fan of novels that have multiple main characters as I can’t keep up. Other than that it was good.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Slow paced, but an impressive, well written and thought-provoking book
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wow. This is really good. The epilogue isn't great but otherwise the story is engaging, even thrilling, and the writing is rich in description and raw in intensity.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Impossible to get into, but I get that sometimes when I'm distraught. So, I gave it the benefit of the doubt. But then at some point it just didn't seem that things with the adjectives were going to let up and the sentimentality was getting just too much for me. Did no one tell them there was a war on? Then when the radio was picking up Pakistan it got too much for me. Out.
Know what, still there's something about these characters, all their sugary likability and the insufferably exhausted image of Jules Verne aside, that drew me back. And there also just is something about the magic of radio of back when that is extremely satisfying. I can’t argue with the description of that. Furthermore the paper reprint has India where the audiobook hollered Pakistan, so that was fixed too and smacks of care and attention. So, back in. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It is a very interesting novel, I enjoyed listening to it.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fantastic brilliantly written and joy to listen too a wonderful depiction of a time in history past ...
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5An unbelievable caring honest beautiful softness, a rare true classic. I have read the great and famous, what a delight to find this treasure after so long.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I loved the book but hated the narration, why would they choose someone who has no idea how to pronounce German or French? Not to mention all the English words that were mispronounced. Find the audio version narrated by an American man instead.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Entertaining. Gives insight into different aspects of the war that affected different people differently. A bit difficult to follow the flow of events at times though.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I should read instead of listening to it. The narrator is doing the best she can, but with a book of this length, it’s simply impossible for one person to carry it all.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5A Superbly written, yet deeply depressing and morbid. I wish I could un-read it.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I saw an earlier review say it’s not the full book and I just wanted to note that this audio is the full book
3 people found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Really enjoyed! Narrator's accent made it s little hard to follow at first until I hit used to it.
1 person found this helpful