Members seemed to thoroughly enjoy All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. The novel is set in the years leading up to and during World War II and tells the story of the blind French girl Marie-Laure and the German Hitler Youth soldier, Werner, and their connection via the radio, the new technology of the time. One member gave it 5 out of 5 on the Good Reads scale.
Members described it as a page turner and hard to put down. The fact that the book is written in short titled sections, some less than a page long, rather than chapters seemed to be enjoyed by those of us with short attention spans.
I hope you had a peek at the images on Google of Saint Malo. It looks like a lovely town to visit. And of course someone has already produced a publication for wandering around the town as Marie- Laure (preferably without a white cane). All the landmarks mentioned in the book do really exist:
If you are now inspired to read Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea you can read it for free via Project Gutenberg:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/164/164-h/164-h.htm Ditto, the Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/944
"All the light you cannot see" refers to the invisible electro-magnetic waves which transect us and unite us, including radio waves. If you'd like to hear Clair de Lune which features in the book, here's a nice echo-y version which sounds like something you might hear broadcast from an attic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIsQPdC9YnY
The author talks about the book and the moment on the underground which triggered the central idea here:
http://www.scribnermagazine.com/2014/10/anthony-doerr-all-the-light-we-cannot-see/
For those of us who doubted that braille had been invented at the time the book was set:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Braille
... and wondered about reference to a vacuum cleaner being used:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_cleaner they stand corrected!
Are you already in a bookclub?
You may feel that you cannot commit to another bookclub because you are already a member of one (or two!)
We’d still love you to join us just as a Newsletter subscriber. We’d love to hear what other bookclubs are reading and what you think are the pick of the titles that we must read!
In the same way, we hope you will take away from our reviews some pearlers to share with your regular club.
