It’s summer and I’ve been doing more reading! (Life is good. )  What is it about summer that seems to create the perfect reading atmosphere?  I don’t know, but I’ll take it…

So, what do these book reviews have to do with being divorced, Catholic moms?!  Well, nothing.  Not directly, anyway.  Isn’t escapism great, though?  AND, this book also reminds us that, even though we’re going through difficult times in our lives, others have gone through (and are going through) so much worse. If they can get through such things, we certainly can get through this…

So…

My daughter works at a library so she keeps us supplied with an endless variety of books and DVDs (did I tell you that life is good?!)  When she comes across something that she thinks one of us would be particularly interested in…or something she’s heard good things about….she grabs it and makes a “gift” of it to us.  It was my turn last week and, when she got home from work, she presented me with a book with the strangest title I’ve ever seen: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie
Society

What?!  Potato peel pie?  And what could a strange pie have to do with a literary society?

Yes, I was immediately intrigued.

It happens that another of my daughters had read this book before and was excited to find out that I was now reading it. She believes that we need to visit Guernsey…and who am I to argue?

So..about the book.

It’s thoroughly delightful!  I intend to buy a few copies to send to women in my life who I think would really enjoy it.  (Yes, this is a “chick book.”) Honestly, I can’t think of one woman in my life who wouldn’t.  This is going to be expensive…

The story takes place just after the end of WWII.  The main character, Juliet, is an author living in London who wrote lighthearted pieces (for the newspaper) that helped to lift spirits during the war.  One day she received a letter from a man who lived on the island of Guernsey, which lies off the coast of England.  It seems a book of hers, which he thoroughly enjoyed, came into his possession  and he wrote to her (her name
and address being inside the cover) with the hope that she could tell him of more books written by the same author.  Being a lover of books (and a very nice person), she was only too happy to help him out, and they struck up a correspondence.  One thing led to another, and soon she was corresponding with several of the members of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society.

Juliet is in need of an idea for her next book and wonders if the stories the society members share with her just might be the ticket.  You see, the island of Guernsey was occupied during the war and they had quite a few stories which, overall, had a different twist to them than the stories of the occupation in London had.  This, simply by virtue of it being a completely different environment than London.

At any rate…

The entire book is a compilation of letters…no chapters…just letters.  This can make it very difficult to put
the book down because you keep telling yourself, “Just one more letter….”

I’m not going to tell you what a potato peel pie is or why it’s part of the name of their literary society.  Nor am I going to tell you how and why a bunch of farmers, fishermen and various other country folk started a literary society in the midst of an occupation in the first place!    You’ll need to find these answers on your own.  I promise the discovery process will be worthwhile and enjoyable.  (Actually, if you click on the image above, it will take you to Amazon where there’s a cool video of the co-author, and I’m sad to say that she gives it away….:0/  However, knowing about the title certainly does not spoil the book!)

I finished this book just yesterday and was terribly saddened that I had.  I feel like I’ve lost a good friend….(don’t you love it when a book is like that?!)

Manya

P.S.  As I was on Amazon.com getting the image of the book to add to this post, I found out that the author, Mary Ann Shaffer has passed away.  I have lost a friend….