All the Light We Cannot See

by Anthony Doerr

This, she realizes, is the basis of his fear, all fear. That a light you are powerless to stop will turn on you and usher a bullet to its mark.

Can you imagine the trauma and stress of trying to sleep or eat or relieve yourself after dark in those abominable trenches of the First World War? While those flares slowly descended overhead? Knowing snipers were out there searching for you in their telescopic sights? From a larger point of view, I hoped Etienne’s remembered terror here would function as a parallel to Marie-Laure’s—and all of our—worst fear. Are we brave enough to accept the fact that eventually death will find us all, and to do what we can to improve the world before it does? This is a question I wrestle with in all my writing, I think, and perhaps especially in my new novel, Cloud Cuckoo Land: the courage it takes to be a steward, and the seemingly ordinary people who summon that courage. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56783258-cloud-cuckoo-land