NOVEMBER 2016 ;e Costco Connection 67
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PENNIE’S PICK
I’VE READ more books than
I can recall, and it remains
a pleasure to read something that proves I can still
be knocked off my feet.
Anthony Doerr’s All the Light
We Cannot See, which is this
month’s Book Buyer’s Pick,
is just that kind of book.
At its core are a blind French
girl, Marie-Laure, and a
German boy, Werner, whose
paths collide in occupied
France during World War II.
Doerr not only develops
fascinating characters, he
has a way of using Marie-Laure’s blindness to enrich
descriptions of the novel’s
locales and the characters’
development. Werner might
be one of the most sympathetic characters I’ve read
about in a long time. He is
a bright and curious boy
who becomes a pawn in the
circumstances of the time.
(Item #877093, available now)
—Pennie Clark Ianniciello,
Costco book buyer
BY HANA MEDINA
MOST WRITERS DREAM of
their work gaining the kind of
attention that Anthony Doerr’s
has commanded; among his
many accolades are the Pulitzer
Prize and the Andrew Carnegie
Medal for his gripping historical novel, All the Light We
Cannot See. But when Doerr
speaks to The Connection by
phone from his home in Boise,
Idaho, the writer gracefully and humbly shies away
from the praise. He admits that, even on airplanes, he
tells curious passengers that he’s a teacher. “I simply
like the idea that somehow I’ve lucked into this life
where I get to go to a little office and tell stories for a
living. It’s pretty amazing,” he laughs.
Doerr was first inspired to pick up a pen after
Lewis’] voice lives on, his creations lived on,” recalls
Doerr. “But I just started trying [to write]. Mom had
a typewriter and I had a little Playmobil pirate ship
and I would tell all these stories about my toys.”
Despite his early interest in the craft, Doerr says
it felt too risky to pursue writing as a profession: “It
seemed like something people maybe in Paris or
Buenos Aires did, but not kids from Cleveland.”
After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in history,
he worked in a fish cannery in Alaska and later as a
cook in Colorado and skied in his free time. But he
soon caved in to his creative ambitions and pursued
a master’s degree in writing. “I thought, ‘If I wait until
I’m 40 to pursue this, I’ll regret it,’ ” he says.
