One Book, One Community of Monroe County 2016

“Time is a slippery thing: lose hold of it once, and its string might sail out of your hands forever.”
– Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See

The One Book, One Community of Monroe County Committee has chosen 2015 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr as this year’s featured book selection.

All the Light We Cannot See transports readers to World War II Europe. Through detailed and engaging storytelling, readers enter the world of Marie Laure, who lives in Paris with her father.  

Blind since the age of 6, young Marie faces extreme challenges when the Germans occupy Paris in June of 1940.   She and her father must flee the city and relocate on the Brittany coast.  

In another world, a young German boy named Werner grows up enthralled by the voices of the radio. He learns to master the building and fixing of radios, a talent that takes him into the brutal military of the Nazis.  He becomes a specialized tracker of the Resistance. 

Doerr’s story illuminates the world of both young protagonists and shows us how, against all odds, people can survive and maintain their humanity.

The New York Times Book Review called All the Light We Cannot See a “vastly entertaining feat of storytelling.”  

Doerr, is a critically acclaimed author, born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio.  In addition to All the Light We Cannot See, he is the author of short story collections, The Shell Collector, and Memory Wall, the memoir, Four Seasons in Rome, and About Grace.  He has received numerous literary recognitions including four O. Henry prizes and the Andrew Carnegie Medal of Excellence in Fiction.    

Although, One Book, One Community of Monroe County will not be able to bring in the author this year, some great programs are being planned to complement the book choice, including guest speaker Teresa Irish, author of A Thousand Letters Home, which is based on her father’s World War II correspondence.  All events are free to the community.  Community members can meet Teresa Irish on March 23, 2016 at a community talk and book signing at the Monroe County Community College La-Z-Boy Center.

The One Book, One Community of Monroe County companion reads selected for elementary/middle school readers are Anne Frank:  Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank and Number the Stars by Lois Lowry. The teen reader selections are The Book Thief by Markus Zusak and The Berlin Boxing Club by Robert Sharenow. The picture book selections are Dreaming Up by Christy Haleand The Black Book of Colors by Menena Cottin and Rosana Faria. 

There will be a series of community events planned around the themes in All the Light We Cannot See.  The full slate of One Book, One Community of Monroe County events runs from March 14 to April 9, 2016.  All events are free to the community.  Watch the Monroe News newspaper and this website for more details about the books selected and to follow the various events as they develop.