Anthony Doerr

Marie-Laure has been blind since the age of six. Her father builds a miniature version of their Paris neighbourhood so she can memorise it. But when the Nazis invade, they flee with a dangerous secret to St Malo. Werner is a German orphan destined to labour in the mines, until he discovers a knack for engineering. As Europe is engulfed by war their lives collide unpredictably.

Constantinople, 1453: an orphaned seamstress and a cursed boy with a love for animals risk everything on opposite sides of a city wall to protect the people they love. Idaho, 2020: an impoverished, idealistic kid seeks revenge on a world that’s crumbling around him. Can he go through with it when a gentle old man stands between him and his plans? Unknown, sometime in the future: with her tiny community in peril, Konstance is the last hope for the human race. To find a way forward, she must look to the oldest stories of all for guidance. Bound together by a single ancient text, these tales interweave to form a tapestry of solace and resilience and a celebration of storytelling itself.

A blind man spends his days roaming the beaches of Kenya collecting shells, classifying them by feeling their whorls, spines and folds in his fingers. A young woman discovers that she can explore the inner world of an animal’s mind by touching its freshly dead body. A remarkable collection of stories which illuminate both the riotous dangers of the natural world and the rocky terrain of the human heart.