All about 'All the Light We Cannot See'

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, the 2015 Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction, is a popular choice.

The World War II-era novel has been a big best seller:

•It's No. 6 on USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list.

•Published on May 6, 2014, it spent 49 weeks on the list.

•Its highest ranking was No. 5, for two weeks in January.

The novel, which has been embraced by book clubs, tells the parallel stories of two young characters, a blind girl in France and a Nazi youth. Their stories eventually converge.

In a review for USA TODAY, Sharon Peters wrote, "Few authors can so gently — yet resolutely — pull readers into such deep understanding of and connection with their characters."

Doerr found out the news in Paris on Monday; he's touring with his wife and two sons for the novel's European editions. "I can barely absorb any of it," said Doerr, 41, who lives in Boise, Idaho.

He said he's grateful the book has found enthusiastic readers, and speculated that it resonates in our "time of overabundance" because we are "compelled by stories that remind us of our blessings, that remind us that not that long ago whole countries were struggling to feed their populations."

Doerr said he was going to celebrate by finishing his bowl of ice cream, and then go for a walk and see if he could buy a bottle of Champagne at 11 p.m., Paris time.

All the Light We Cannot See was also a finalist for the 2014 National Book Award but lost out to the Iraq War story collection Redeployment by Phil Klay.

Light is Doerr's second novel; he also has written a memoir and two short story collections. The first hardcover printing was 62,500 copies. Publisher Scribner reports that the "total copies now in circulation" (combined hardcover and e-book copies) is 1.6 million.

A paperback edition is not scheduled until summer 2016. Scribner said Monday after the Pulitzer announcement that it's going back to press immediately for 100,000 more copies of the hardcover edition.

This is the second year in a row the Pulitzer committee has chosen a hit book as the fiction winner. Last year's choice was The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt.