Anthony Doerr Luncheon

Next up for our Ravenna Luncheon Series, we welcome Anthony Doerr, author of The Shell Collector and the dazzling new novel, All the Light We Cannot See.  Michael, Erin J., and Emily A. all had the chance to read advance copies of the book and they can't stop raving.  The book itself won't be released until May 6th, but Michael has said multiple times that he can't wait to be able to sell it to people.  And their excitement in contagious.  Here's what Emily has to say about it:

I'm absolutely enchanted by this book. The imagery is so vivid, the characters so human, their circumstances so perfectly rendered - I wanted to wallow in the gorgeous prose and bathe in the words. 2014 is a great year for fiction so far, but since I read an advance copy last summer, this book has ruined me for all other books. Dare I say I liked it more than The Goldfinch?

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 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. 

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. 

Doerr's "stunning sense of physical detail and gorgeous metaphors" ("San Francisco Chronicle") are dazzling. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, he 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 a magnificent, deeply moving novel from a writer "whose sentences never fail to thrill" ("Los Angeles Times").

And check out the video below to learn more about the novel and the inspiration behind it.



Anthony Doerr will be at our Ravenna location on Friday, May 9th, at 1:00 PM. The luncheon series takes place in the warm and inviting Third Place Pub. The Pub provides a private, intimate setting for authors to read, speak, and answer questions from a small audience limited to about 40 people. It's a wonderful alternative to the larger format readings that many authors and readers are traditionally used to.

A ticket is required in order to attend. Tickets are $40 and include a copy of the book, as well as a delicious lunch provided by Vios. Seating is limited for this exciting event. Call the Ravenna location for more information and ticket purchases. 206-525-2347.