Anthony Doerr (born Cleveland, Ohio in 1973) is an American fiction writer. Raised in nearby Novelty, Ohio, he majored in history at Bowdoin College and earned an MFA from Bowling Green State University.
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Easton Press Anthony Doerr books
All the Light We Cannot See - signed edition - 2022
Author Anthony Doerr
Doerr gained recognition for his 2014 novel All the Light We Cannot See.
Raised in Novelty, Ohio, Doerr attended the nearby University School, where he graduated in 1991. He then majored in history at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, where he graduated in 1995, and earned an MFA from Bowling Green State University.
Many of the stories in Shell Collector (2002), take place in Africa and New Zealand, where he has worked and lived. He wrote another book of short stories called Memory Wall (2010).
His novel, All the Light We Cannot See, was published in 2014. It received critical acclaim and was a New York Times bestseller.
Doerr also written a column on science books for the Boston Globe and is a contributor to The Morning News, an online magazine.
Doerr is married with twin sons and lives in Boise, Idaho. From 2007 to 2010 he was the writer-in-residence for the state of Idaho.
Career
Doerr's first published book was a collection of short stories called The Shell Collector (2002). Many of the stories take place in Africa and New Zealand, where he has worked and lived. He wrote another book of short stories called Memory Wall (2010). His first novel, About Grace, was released in 2004. Doerr then wrote a memoir, Four Seasons in Rome, which was published in 2007.
Doerr's second novel, All the Light We Cannot See, set in occupied France during World War II, was published in 2014. It received significant critical acclaim and was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction. The book was a New York Times bestseller and was named by the newspaper as a notable book of 2014. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2015. It was runner-up for the 2015 Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Fiction and won the 2015 Ohioana Library Association Book Award for Fiction.
Doerr also writes a column on science books for the Boston Globe and is a contributor to The Morning News, an online magazine.
From 2007 to 2010, he was the writer-in-residence for the state of Idaho.
All the Light We Cannot See
Marie-Laure
lives in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where her father
works. 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.
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 in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where her
father works as the master of the locks (there are thousands of locks
in the museum). Open your eyes, and see what you can with them before
they close forever. Marie-Laure has been blind since the age of six. Her
father builds a perfect miniature of their Paris neighbourhood so she
can memorize it by touch and navigate the real streets with her feet and
cane. When she is twelve, the German Nazis occupy Paris and father and
daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo on the Brittany coast,
where Marie-Laure’s agoraphobic 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 Pfennig grows up with his younger sister, Jutta, both
enchanted by a crude radio they find that brings them news and stories
from places they have never seen or imagined. Werner becomes an master
at building and fixing these crucial new 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. More and more aware
of the human cost of his intelligence, 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. The story
Illuminates the ways, against all odds, that people try to be good to
one another.
At the same time, far away in a walled city by the
sea, an old man discovers new worlds without ever setting foot outside
his home. But all around him, impending danger closes in.
In this
magnificent, deeply moving novel, the stories of Marie-Laure and Werner
illuminate the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one
another.
Doerr’s combination of soaring imagination and
meticulous observation is electric. As Europe is engulfed by war and
lives collide unpredictably, ‘All The Light We Cannot See’ is a
captivating and devastating elegy for innocence.
From the highly
acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, the stunningly
beautiful instant New York Times bestseller 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.
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.
Ten
years in the writing, a National Book Award finalist, All the Light We
Cannot See is a magnificent, deeply moving novel from a writer “whose
sentences never fail to thrill” - Los Angeles Times.
Source and additional information: Anthony Doerr