The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows

2008

I absolutely loved this book and cut my sleep short as a result.

Always the sign of an engaging book.

Summary: It’s 1946 and Juliet, a writer, finds herself drawn to the people of Guernsey, an island in the English Channel, and specifically, to the members of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. German occupation has just come to an end and Juliet discovers the Islander’s very unique way of dealing with this, shall we say, inconvenience.

There are a variety of reasons I found this book so enjoyable:

• the writing was witty
• the subject fascinating
• the characters totally drew me in

Again, all signs of an engaging book.

The Guernsey "etc." is written in “correspondence style” – telegraphs, letters, and, at the very end, journal entries.

Captivating.

As I finished, I felt a longing for the days of letter writing and other such means of personal correspondence.

Nowadays, it seems that everyone communicates via email, Facebook, or Twitter. Gone are the days of handwriting and “snail mail”.

In some ways, this is a good thing. Communication is almost instant, not relying on the speed of the postal service – slow at the best of times and slower still during strike time.

But, to me, it just seems that something is missing. 

Handwriting, stationary, time spent...

I’m sure I don’t share this opinion with many people.

After all, not everyone likes to sit down with a pen and paper and write.

Not everyone’s “hidden art” (see previous post) is writing.

Postscript: I can’t help but share that my mother-in-law was attracted to my father-in-law because of his handwriting (and hopefully a few other things).

Reading on...