My Favorite Read - 5 - All the light we cannot see by Anthony Doerr

So how, children, does the brain, which lives without a spark of light, build for us a world full of light?

This is one of the very popular line from the book "All the light we cannot see" - 2015 Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction. And no wonder the book won all the accolades in goodreads.com; when I chose to read it early this year.

I had started this book before my vacation in March, and had to resume reading it over weekend after about 2 months.

It’s a good read staged in the era of world war II; with Germany and France in the center; and so many characters and parallel stories that seem very real at times. My favorite part of the book were the last few chapters which explores how the survivors of the war try to live a normal life; with scars so fresh in their hearts and mind even after decades. How in one chapter, a character wonders at the age of technology in year 2014; and goes back to how it was in 1940's.

Writer goes in a lot of details with hard scientific facts around Physics, Conchology, Marine Biology and Warfare at the time; it keeps your mind in an intelligent conversation with the book. I had a lot of refreshers and new learnings from this book. Saint Malo is added to my list of places to visit too.

It has shades of all emotions, but none of them too animated. Relationships of all kinds - a father-daughter, a brother-sister, a teacher-student, 2 lovers, life of orphans and a warden, 2 friends, a brave and a coward, grandfather - granddaughter; and many more; but none of them are colored too bright. The story gets to you slowly, characters grow on you and like most readers mentioned, it leaves you with a sense of haunting.

One of my favorite line from the book - Open your eyes, concluded the man, and see what you can with them before they close forever,

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Ahamasmi Yodha - My First Tattoo

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When Silence Speaks...

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