"Anthony Doerr has won admiration and awards for his skill in incorporating scientific information and observations in tales that illuminate the human condition. In an assessment of Doerr's first book, the short-story collection The Shell Collector, Gail Caldwell wrote for the Boston Globe (January 27, 2002), "Obsessed with our own existence, we tend to be far more enamored with stories about people--about wounded soldiers or heartbroken lovers or alienated souls--than we are with the vibrant theater beyond the human heart. Particularly in the English-speaking order of things, the natural world is afforded a place on the second tier in literature, somewhere below fiction and history. . . . All kinds of writers have defied this tenet over time, so that we have Hemingway's trout streams and Willa Cather's prairies and the rocky desolation of Annie Proulx's landscapes to remind us of our size. . . . Anthony Doerr seems to grasp this relativism as well." Dana Oland wrote for the Idaho Statesman (February 18, 2011, on-line) that Doerr "examines his subjects with the scrupulous attention of a naturalist of an early era, drawing every detail of an exotic gnat's wing. He studies scientific theories and human behavior from every angle. He thinks through his characters from the inside out, then shapes their experiences in meticulous detail." In addition to The Shell Collector (2002), Doerr is the author of the novel About Grace (2004); the travel memoir Four Seasons in Rome (2007); and a second short-story collection, Memory Wall (2010). His honors include the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts literature fellowship, and three O. Henry Prizes. His story "Memory Wall," along with tales by two other writers, earned McSweeney's Quarterly a 2010 National Magazine Award for excellence in fiction."

Works Cited

“Doerr, Anthony.” Current Biography (Bio Ref Bank), Oct. 2011. EBSCOhost. https://search-ebscohost-com.nkcc.idm.oclc.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=brb&AN=202984556&site=ehost-live&scope=site.