All the Light We Cannot See

A Novel

By: Anthony Doerr

Narrated by: Zach Appelman

Length: 16 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's summary

Winner of the 2015 Audie Award for Fiction

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 12, 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.

©2014 Anthony Doerr (P)2014 Simon & Schuster Audio

My All Time Favorite Book

I love this book so much I have read or listened to it 3 times. Each time I have found new meaning to the story

A long read.

This was a great book. It is quite long, but the story was good, and I was invested in seeing how the characters stories ended.

Very enjoyable

Took me a little to get into the story, but then really enjoyed it and couldn’t wait to hear the ending. Very nice characters

No words!

Breathtakingly beautiful! I truly enjoyed the audible version. Will buy the hard copy to read the words and digest this story again!

Descriptive writing is beautiful.

Throughly enjoyed this book. The writer painted a vision of the scenes with skill and the characters were delightful. The narrator was good.

Enlightening, heartbreaking, and still entertaining.

I almost feel guilty for enjoying this book so much, because it really helps to give insight to a very painful period of time. Humanizing and haunting, and very well done.

Perfection all around

Beautiful story! Absolutely loved every part of it! Zachary, the reader, was excellent! Now I can stop driving around for no reason.

Great story!

I love the story but it did jump around quite a bit which was a little challenging as an audiobook.

Amazing Story Works Better in Print

I loved the story and I loved the performance of the narrator. I appreciated that he didn’t fake a woman’s voice when reading the lines of female characters, he just spoke more gently.

The book jumps around in time quite a lot, making it difficult to follow on audio. I read the book partly on audio and partly on my Kindle and found I had to go back in chapters and reread some key parts I missed in the audio version.

I thought it was a beautiful story about courage, love and relationships. I loved the characters and their development. I felt the writing gave wonderful details that helped create the scenes in my mind.

I highly recommend the book, but the print version is more satisfying to read.

Enjoyed greatly

Anthony is a magnificent writer and this story is among a few I’ve read. I was privileged to hear his talk about his most recent book, what a brilliant mind. Even though he’s a more serious writer I would recommend any of his books. Transported to WWII these souls come alive through the wonderful narration. Well done.