9 Mesmerizing Books for Fans of All the Light We Cannot See

Anthony Doerr explains in this video that what sparked the start of his bestselling novel was the magic and connection of radio during wartime. And the motifs of communication and storytelling resonate throughout the plot with two overlapping stories. Similarly, the idea for Cuban author Armando Lucas Correa’s novel revolves around a wartime event with alternating stories. The author spent years researching the tragic story of the SS St. Louis, which carried Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany but was denied entry to ports overseas, eventually forcing its devastating return, where many of the passengers die. Themes of survival, travel, rescue, loss, and hope echo throughout THE GERMAN GIRL as it alternates timelines between Hannah, who lives in 1939 Berlin, and Anna, from present-day New York. As the novel slowly reveals, these two young girls are connected across the years and continents, and the plot is expertly woven as it builds slowly to a devastating end.

Just as ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE explores the power of storytelling, THE PARIS LIBRARY explores literature’s power to unite. Through the perspective of Odile, we learn about the brave librarians at the American Library in Paris who brought books to Jews who were banned from visiting the library by the Nazis. The second timeline takes place in the 1980s and follows a young girl named Lily, who interviews Odile for a school project. Author Janet Skeslien Charles was herself a librarian at the American Library in Paris. She fills this amazing work with genuine passion and exquisite attention to details—which makes this novel a true ode to libraries and storytelling.

While reading ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE, it’s especially heartbreaking to think about the conflict between the young Werner Pfennig’s expected trajectory, and where he wants to end up. Werner revels in learning and inventions, all the while knowing that as a student in a German state school at the time, he’ll be expected to join the Nazi party. This tension also appears in THE GOOD AT HEART, in which author Ursula Werner pulls from stories about her great-grandfather to narrate three intense days that take place within a German family when they flee to their vacation home in southern Germany during WWII. The four women in the family tend to their picturesque gardens and attempt to get along—but their true inner lives, dreams, and fears are revealed over the course of the next few days, and ramp up as the Nazi patriarch of the family returns, just as one of them is heroically attempting to hide two Polish Jewish refugees.

Some of the best historical fiction completely immerses you in another culture, and THE STREET OF A THOUSAND BLOSSOMS does just that. This character-driven, coming-of-age story follows two brothers in WWII Japan—one brother studies how to hand-carve masks for the theater, another trains to become a sumo wrestler. As the reader follows them into adulthood, you begin to feel like you know them, since their ambitions and idiosyncrasies are so well-developed. Spanning almost thirty years, the events cover Pearl Harbor, the firebombing of Tokyo, and the transformation of Japan after the war. Told with prose as beautiful as Doerr’s, this book is an enlightening read to add to your bookshelf.

It feels close to magic when an author can seemingly inhabit the minds of completely different characters, as Anthony Doerr does. Author Marge Piercy takes on this challenge as well in GONE TO SOLDIERS, illuminating the lives of six women and four men during WWII. We meet members of the French Jewish resistance, factory workers in the US, young students, journalists on a new career path, and so many more. And their stories (occasionally overlapping) are described with such depth and research, it feels as if you know them. Marge Piercy joins Anthony Doerr in expertly depicting a beautiful humanity juxtaposed against the ugly inhumanity of war.

For another book that realistically and heartbreakingly captures war through the eyes of a child, pick up EMPIRE SUN by J. G. Ballard. When a young British boy ends up separated from his parents in an internment camp after the Japanese takeover in Shanghai, he grows up bearing witness to the changes around him in the POW camp. This novel, based partly on the author’s life, portrays the trauma very realistically, from the dissonance of his emotions to the moral gray areas that confront him.

Author Chris Cleave was inspired to write EVERYONE BRAVE IS FORGIVEN after finding letters sent between his grandparents before they’d actually met—one stationed in Malta, the other living in England. In EVERYONE BRAVE IS FORGIVEN, we follow the perspectives of four young Brits: young London socialite Mary, tasked with teaching evacuee children; her school administrator, Tom, who she starts a relationship with; Tom’s best friend, Alistair, who joins the army but comes back on leave and forms feelings for Mary; and Hilda, Mary’s best friend, whose interest in Alistair just complicates everything even more. This love quadrangle shifts around and builds in intensity as the story lines of war come to a head. With similar themes to that of ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE—missed connections, expertly handled multiple perspectives, and the gruesome realities of war—this sweeping novel is truly something to savor.

This is one of my favorite books of all time and it compares to ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE more in the sense of its character-driven plot than anything else. Instead of WWII Paris, we’re in South Africa slightly after WWII. The drive and compassion of these characters—and a poignant coming-of-age story—are what make this book amazing. Bullied as a young child, Peekay shows enormous strength of character as he goes through life absorbing the good qualities in those around him and questioning or merely observing the bad ones. As peripheral events hurl him across the country, the people Peekay meets encompass the range of cultural conflicts in South Africa at the time: a train conductor who instills in him an ambition and passion for boxing; a German professor whose interest in plants teaches him about curiosity, and more! Peekay’s interactions are set against a historical background that opens your perspective into other cultures, personalities, and paths of life.

As Anthony Doerr explains in this video, he likes to base his stories around a particular invention that he finds fascinating. In ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE it was the radio. In his upcoming novel CLOUD CUCKOO LAND, it’s one of the greatest and most ancient of inventions—books! In this world-expanding new work, five people throughout time and space care deeply for a manuscript, and go to extreme lengths to keep the stories in it alive. For a story that begins in the first century and ends in 2146, and somehow manages to feel both grand and intimate at the same time, pick up a copy of CLOUD CUCKOO LAND on September 28.

And of course a reread of ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE is the perfect option while you for Anthony Doerr's newest masterpiece to arrive!