For whatever reason stories and movies set in WWII are very interesting to me. Here the narration splits between two storylines, one of a young boy in the Hitler Youth interested in radios and engineering, one of a blind french girl who's father is tasked with transporting and keeping safe the most expensive diamond in the world. Though it might be a lengthy book (...if you consider 540 pages lengthy, I think its more medium length) the narration compellingly describes the experiences of Saint-Malo, France during WWII. The characters and their lives are touching and everything is so artfully detailed and described.
I shouldn't say that I'm currently reading this because I've been 'currently reading' this for a very long time. I absolutely love films and I bought this book in 2006 as a way to help me keep track of which movies I've seen and how they've contributed to cinema in some way. I love how this book is broken up by decades, starts with the very beginning of film (shorts, black and whites, no sound) and includes international films as well. They update this book every year or so and as films get added on, other films are removed. I'm pretty happy to keep this first edition even though the films don't go past 2006 since 1001 movies is a lot and I'm not too concerned about watching the 'right ones'. I'm about 14% done the list now. It helps that I've seen a lot of movies from the 30s-50s and some of the ones from the 20s too.