The Shell Collector

Author(s): Anthony Doerr

General

The showstopping debut from the author of the #1 Sunday Times bestseller ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE 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 refugee from Liberia, who cannot escape the horrors that he has witnessed, finds salvation in the clandesitne act of burying the hearts of beached whales. In The Shell Collector Antony Doerr illuminates both the riotous dangers of the natural world and the rocky terrain of the human heart.

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'Perilously beautiful, precise and elegant... Doerr can describe a woman running through a Tanzanian forest with the careful specificity of a scientist and the awe of a poet; he can give you a sunrise with the glory-bound colours of apricot and gold, and two pages later you're meeting a young woman in Idaho, who falls in love with the metal-eater at the country fair... Breathtaking.' Boston Globe 'Remarkable... Reminiscent of Annie Proulx's wonderful Close Range and Andrea Barrett's Ship Fever, The Shell Collector illuminates both the riotous dangers of the natural world and the rocky terrain of the human heart, thrusting us into environments we can only hope to control.' LA Times 'Doerr's prose dazzles, his sinewy sentences blending the naturalist's unswerving gaze with the poet's gift for metaphor. And it does so from the very beginning, opening with such a sensual description of shells that it's almost a shock to discover, a page later, that the character ''seeing'' them is blind.' New York Times 'Anthony Doerr is a gifted and fearless new writer. He is absolutely unafraid to take on the biggest themes of the human condition, always writing about heroes and their various epic journeys. The Shell Collector is unforgettable -- not so much a book of short stories as a book of short myths.' Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Pilgrims and Stern Men) 'These complex, resonant, beautifully realised stories sing. An entire world unfolds in each, memorable and rich; together they form a remarkable first collection.' Andrea Barrett 'This striking debut collection offers boldly imagined and scrupulously detailed explorations of the mysteries inherent in both the natural world and human interconnection... The best new book of short fiction since Andrea Barrett's Ship Fever. Keep your eye on Doerr.' Kirkus Reviews

Anthony Doerr lives in Boise, Idaho with his wife and twin sons. He is the author of 'The Shell Collector' and 'About Grace', and is one of Granta's Best Young American Novelists.

General Fields

  • : 9780007146987
  • : HarperCollins
  • : Flamingo
  • : 0.166
  • : June 2003
  • : 197mm X 130mm X 12mm
  • : United Kingdom
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Anthony Doerr
  • : Paperback
  • : 1505
  • : English
  • : 813/.6
  • : good
  • : 224
  • : FA