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The Shell Collector

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The Shell Collector

By: Anthony Doerr
Narrated by: Robert G. Slade
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About this listen

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.

©2002 Anthony Doerr (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers 20th Century Anthologies & Short Stories Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Magical Realism Short Stories Africa Heartfelt

Critic Reviews

‘Extraordinary’ Guardian

‘Exquisite’ The Times

‘A show-stopping debut, as close to faultless as any writer could wish for’ L A Times

‘I can think of very few authors who can put together a sentence with such ecstasy, whose words sing with music and such sheer rapture at what they embody’ The Times

‘Doerr’s prose dazzles from the very beginning’ New York Times

‘Unforgettable – not so much a book of short stories as a book of short myths’ Elizabeth Gilbert (author of EAT, PRAY, LOVE)
All stars
Most relevant  
This author writes very well. I didn’t enjoy the book because it was essentially a collection of short stories, and I’m not a fan of those.

Short stories!

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I was drawn to this text because I enjoyed All the Light You Cannot See. As a collection of short stories I could see fragments of ideas that Doerr later developed in Light. There is the same exploration and respect for nature, the aching love of family and the need to belong. As a collection of stories, there was not the same depth of characterisation as Light but a haunting and varied collection of stories nonetheless.

A taster

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What a grasp of the language has Anthony Doerr. His descriptions and narratives are spellbinding. The stories in this book gripped me from start to finish and left me almost breathless. He's a writer, in my opinion, who has no equal when it comes to taking the reader (or listener) on a wonderful literary journey. And the narrator, Robert G. Slade, complements it all perfectly.

Exquisite Storytelling

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In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.