"Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever.” For Marie-Laure, blind since the age of six, the world is full of mazes. The miniature of a Paris neighbourhood, made by her father to teach her the way home. The microscopic layers within the invaluable diamond that her father guards in the Museum of Natural History. The walled city by the sea, where father and daughter take refuge when the Nazis invade Paris. And a future which draws her ever closer to Werner, a German orphan, destined to labour in the mines until a broken radio fills his life with possibility and brings him to the notice of the Hitler Youth." Despite its length, over 500 pages, the group had all finished it by the time of our meeting, or very nearly had which is unusual for us. To start off with the book is a little slow, flitting around from character to character, and between time-frames. Yet it sucked us in and didn't put anyone off. We loved the two unlikely protago