Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

I loved this book. It’s making me wish I wasn’t usually so generous with my ratings, so that the 5 stars I’m giving this would have a darker background to shine against.

My attempt at analysing this would certainly be inadequate, so I will just say that it is a “strange and beautiful story�* involving radios and snails and music and beauty and war and resistance and entropy and humanity and survival and curiosity. I loved the central characters and was very impressed by the thoughtful and nuanced approach taken to writing about the choices people make in wartime.

I’m struggling to find anything even vaguely negative to say about it. Anthony Doerr’s writing is so good that he manages to include a villainous Nazi hunting a ‘cursed� diamond across Europe in a book that’s both plausible and profound. This is now one of my all-time favourites.

* The “strange and beautiful story� description is used by a character here about Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, which I now very much want to read.

Loved this one, so glad you did too!

This is one of my favorite books!

I loved this book too. After reading it, I had the pleasure of going to an author talk by Anthony Doerr. I remember that he said that his short chapters were due to writing them when his young kids were in swimming lessons. He was taking care of them and only had short blocks of time to write... He was a delightful speaker, full of joy about his many interests.

Holly R W wrote: "I loved this book too. After reading it, I had the pleasure of going to an author talk by Anthony Doerr. I remember that he said that his short chapters were due to writing them when his young kids..."

Oh wow, that sounds great - I'd love to hear him speak!

Nikki wrote: "I loved this book. It’s making me wish I wasn’t usually so generous with my ratings, so that the 5 stars I’m giving this would have a darker background to shine against.

My attempt at analysing th..."

Your first comment is basically how I felt (that it was better than many of my recent 5 star reads even so they were generally excellent as I don't give many 5 star ratings) is why when I rated it here I put 5 stars and three hearts--I very, very rarely give hearts :) !

Karin wrote: "Nikki wrote: "I loved this book. It’s making me wish I wasn’t usually so generous with my ratings, so that the 5 stars I’m giving this would have a darker background to shine against.

My attempt a..."

Haha, I should have added some hearts!

This was 5 stars for me too-one of those books that I savored a little bit each evening