The Sound of a Thousand Stars: A Novel
Oppenheimer meets Hidden Figures in this sweeping historical debut where two Jewish physicists form an inseverable bond amidst fear and uncertainty.

Sure to captivate readers of Kate Quinn and Bonnie Garmus, The Sound of a Thousand Stars eerily mirrors modern-day questions of wartime ethics and explores what it means to survive-at any cost.


Alice Katz is a young Jewish physicist, one of the only female doctoral students at her university, studying with the famed Dr. Oppenheimer. Her well-to-do family wants her to marry a man of her class and settle down. Instead, Alice answers her country's call to come to an unnamed city in the desert to work on a government project shrouded in secrecy.

At Los Alamos, Alice meets Caleb Blum, a poor Orthodox Jew who has been assigned to the explosives division. Around them are other young scientists and engineers who have quietly left their university posts to come live in the desert.

No one seems to know exactly what they are working on-what they do know is that it is a race and that they must beat the Nazis in developing an unspeakable weapon. In this atmosphere of fear and uncertainty, and despite their many differences, Alice and Caleb find themselves drawn to one another.

Inspired by the author's grandparents and sure to appeal to fans of Good Night, Irene, The Sound of a Thousand Stars is a propulsive novel about love in desperate times, the consequences of our decisions, and the roles we play in history.
1144578621
The Sound of a Thousand Stars: A Novel
Oppenheimer meets Hidden Figures in this sweeping historical debut where two Jewish physicists form an inseverable bond amidst fear and uncertainty.

Sure to captivate readers of Kate Quinn and Bonnie Garmus, The Sound of a Thousand Stars eerily mirrors modern-day questions of wartime ethics and explores what it means to survive-at any cost.


Alice Katz is a young Jewish physicist, one of the only female doctoral students at her university, studying with the famed Dr. Oppenheimer. Her well-to-do family wants her to marry a man of her class and settle down. Instead, Alice answers her country's call to come to an unnamed city in the desert to work on a government project shrouded in secrecy.

At Los Alamos, Alice meets Caleb Blum, a poor Orthodox Jew who has been assigned to the explosives division. Around them are other young scientists and engineers who have quietly left their university posts to come live in the desert.

No one seems to know exactly what they are working on-what they do know is that it is a race and that they must beat the Nazis in developing an unspeakable weapon. In this atmosphere of fear and uncertainty, and despite their many differences, Alice and Caleb find themselves drawn to one another.

Inspired by the author's grandparents and sure to appeal to fans of Good Night, Irene, The Sound of a Thousand Stars is a propulsive novel about love in desperate times, the consequences of our decisions, and the roles we play in history.
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The Sound of a Thousand Stars: A Novel

The Sound of a Thousand Stars: A Novel

by Rachel Robbins

Narrated by Sarah Skaer

Unabridged — 13 hours, 36 minutes

The Sound of a Thousand Stars: A Novel

The Sound of a Thousand Stars: A Novel

by Rachel Robbins

Narrated by Sarah Skaer

Unabridged — 13 hours, 36 minutes

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Overview

Oppenheimer meets Hidden Figures in this sweeping historical debut where two Jewish physicists form an inseverable bond amidst fear and uncertainty.

Sure to captivate readers of Kate Quinn and Bonnie Garmus, The Sound of a Thousand Stars eerily mirrors modern-day questions of wartime ethics and explores what it means to survive-at any cost.


Alice Katz is a young Jewish physicist, one of the only female doctoral students at her university, studying with the famed Dr. Oppenheimer. Her well-to-do family wants her to marry a man of her class and settle down. Instead, Alice answers her country's call to come to an unnamed city in the desert to work on a government project shrouded in secrecy.

At Los Alamos, Alice meets Caleb Blum, a poor Orthodox Jew who has been assigned to the explosives division. Around them are other young scientists and engineers who have quietly left their university posts to come live in the desert.

No one seems to know exactly what they are working on-what they do know is that it is a race and that they must beat the Nazis in developing an unspeakable weapon. In this atmosphere of fear and uncertainty, and despite their many differences, Alice and Caleb find themselves drawn to one another.

Inspired by the author's grandparents and sure to appeal to fans of Good Night, Irene, The Sound of a Thousand Stars is a propulsive novel about love in desperate times, the consequences of our decisions, and the roles we play in history.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Praise for The Sound of a Thousand Stars:
“Robbins explores ambition, love, and nuclear destruction in her introspective latest . . . Readers will be riveted.”
Publishers Weekly

“Sparklingly insightful . . . This is a moving blend of fact, fiction, and romance. An absorbing novel that radiates historical rigor and emotional astuteness.”
Kirkus

“In writing this powerful, tragic, history-defining story, she does something truly amazing—she makes it sing.”
Chicago Review of Books

“A powerful, moving story . . . Realistic and satisfying.”
The Reporter Group

“[The Sound of a Thousand Stars] deftly combines its young-geniuses-in-love storyline with an intelligent consideration of a great moral dilemma.”
Datebook, San Francisco Chronicle

“Grounded in meticulous research and rendered with lyrical language.”
Rain Taxi Review of Books

“A well-writ­ten, engag­ing sto­ry about human­i­ty and evil.”
Jewish Book Council

“Realistically evokes the constant worry and guilt felt by those on the home front during wartime.”
Historical Novel Society

“Because The Sound of a Thousand Stars is a novel of Los Alamos and its consequences, Niels Bohr is here, and Richard Feynman, and of course Robert Oppenheimer, to name a few. But even more gripping than her vivid depiction of these titans of physics is Rachel Robbins’s rendering of Alice and Caleb, two bright young protagonists whose riveting story shows that love and destiny are forces just as powerful as faith or science.”
—Kathleen Rooney, author of From Dust to Stardust

“This novel delivers a keenly intimate, precise account of a watershed moment in our world history. Not only is The Sound of a Thousand Stars a great achievement of historical depth, it proves how selfless and vital love becomes when we find ourselves at the end of the world. Robbins has given us an elegy that rings clear, strong, and true.”
—Amy Jo Burns, author of Mercury

“Declassifies the human emotions at the core of one of the 20th century’s most fraught scientific projects . . . This beautifully written novel considers the costs of scientific advancement, the value of an individual life, and the thrilling knife’s edge of being in love. A feat of a book.”
—Julia Fine, author of The Upstairs House

“In her marvelous debut, Rachel Robbins weaves an intimate and stirring story of love, sacrifice, and duty against the backdrop of one of humanity's most consequential undertakings . . . Meticulously researched and beautifully rendered, The Sound of a Thousand Stars reminds us that the greatest mysteries are those of the human heart. This book will leave you breathless.”
—Soon Wiley, author of When We Fell Apart

“In her luminous debut novel, Robbins reminds us that history is written by people whose names we rarely remember—people who toil away in obscurity, carving out lives of wonder despite the odds and the dangers they face . . . A soaring testament to all those unseen souls who answered history's call and selflessly sacrificed in order to shape the world in which we live.”
—Giano Cromley, author of The Last Good Halloween

Kirkus Reviews

2025-06-05
A female physicist from an affluent family and a poor engineer begin a fraught romance while working on the Manhattan Project in Robbins’ historical novel.

In 1944, Alice Katz and Caleb Blum begin working on the fiercely secretive Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, New Mexico, under the tutelage of the famous J. Robert Oppenheimer. They have little in common—she has a doctorate in physics and hails from a wildly wealthy background while his Orthodox Jewish family is so destitute he cannot afford to continue his academic studies in engineering. He works for the Special Engineer Detachment, an outfit often looked down upon as a cohort of expendable grunts, while Alice is handpicked by Oppenheimer as one of his “preferred understudies,” though she still contends with the unabashed chauvinism of her male colleagues. Despite the circumstances that separate them, the pair falls deeply in love; the affair is given room to grow when Alice’s fiancé, Warren, dies serving in the war and she subsequently discovers she is pregnant with Caleb’s child. In this powerful historical narrative, the obstacles to the protagonists’ union are legion, including Caleb’s reluctance to disclose the inauspiciousness of his origins. Robbins artfully creates an atmosphere of world-historical dread—only slowly, and with growing horror, do Caleb and Alice learn the full truth of what they are producing at Los Alamos. The story also charts the forlorn plight of Haruki Sato, a Japanese native of Hiroshima whose entire life is haunted by the atomic monstrosity to which both Caleb and Alice contribute. The novel is spangled with sparklingly insightful portraits of major scientific figures like Oppenheimer, Bohr, and Feynman, and the author demonstrates an impressive command of the relevant science as well. This is a moving blend of fact, fiction, and romance.

An absorbing novel that radiates historical rigor and emotional astuteness.

Product Details

BN ID: 2940192471081
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Publication date: 10/08/2024
Edition description: Unabridged
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