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

A fresh look at an old period.

This book intertwined many different perspectives on war into one cohesive story. It is week with the time to read.

Extraordinary book.

One of the best books I've ever read. Thank you
Paints a beautiful picture of events in time .
A must read.

Where is the French accent?

Would you consider the audio edition of All the Light We Cannot See to be better than the print version?

No, I think I would have enjoyed the print version more. I found the story a little more difficult to follow with audio since it jumps back and forth between time periods and the narrator does not differentiate between the voices or accents.

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

I think it would have been more authentic if the narrator would have pronounced the French correctly.

Marvelous, wonderful! My fifth star would not light, however "All The Light We Cannot See" deserves six stars!

The book moves seamlessly between times and place. The German and Especially the French landscapes were described perfectly for my mind's eye without being flowery. I loved it!

Absolutely fantastic.

As an English teacher I'm constantly looking for new lit for my kids. This is fantastic. Amazingly well written, reading is superb. 100% must read/listen

True prose, at its very best.

This is easily the best book I have read/listened to in years. The voice of Zach Appelman becomes the voice of the book. His reading and interpretations of mood and character are superb, therefore you are not left to focus on his voice per say, but the story, as it should be.

Our humanity is such a fragile thing, it can be chipped away at by want, fear and hate so easily. The story of Marie-Laure LeBlanc and Werner Pfennnig is a very human story about how we can hold onto our humanity, because at times it is all we have. It is also a story of how humanity can be so gradually lost, that we don't even know what is lost until its too late, and we can't live with what we have become.

I think that this book should be required reading for high school and college. It should be read thoughtfully, it should be discussed. This is not a book to read quickly, it is a book to read thoroughly. This is not fast food reading.

lovely story.

loved the story and how it came together at the end. Took a while to get used to the narration since there are abrupt breaks within chapters between characters. it's fine once you realize what's happening it's just startling at first.

Thought Provoking

Interesting I really enjoyed the book, the time jumping was a little concerning, then the audio chapters don't match. But after a while you can get used to it.

Great story, exciting and emotional

but the narrator put me to sleep with his voice and inflection, he was too objective

Haunting and lyrical

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes. It told an engaging story of two major and other characters' experiences during World War II. Beautifully written prose gives weight to a brisk narrative.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Werner, because he found courage. He witnessed the price of doing the right thing, and it took him the length of the story to find his center, but when he did, it was a rewarding payoff to his journey.

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

Not wild about the performance, actually. Perhaps I warmed to the narrator, as I was driving down the road with tears in my eyes when the story began to wind down. Not sure why an American voice was needed in a story about French and German characters. The story has a romantic quality, and the narrator did not have a romantic voice.

If you could take any character from All the Light We Cannot See out to dinner, who would it be and why?

Marie-Laure, of course, but in the end I would choose Etienne. What a life he lived! At a key moment he tells something very lovely and reassuring to Marie-Laure.

Any additional comments?

The story illustrated how war has many victims, and survival is sometimes a matter of luck as much as it is of planning and strategy. I will never again listen to "Clair de Lune" without thinking of this book.