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Loading... The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (original 2008; edition 2009)by Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows
Work InformationThe Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer (2008)
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Charming, informative book of letters between a London writer and the citizens of the Isle of Guernsey about German occupation of the island during WWII and its affect on the islanders. Very poignant and personable tale. ( ) What a lovely, lovely book. Great story, cleverly told, I adored all the characters and laughed and cried along with them. My only criticism is its lack of diversity. It's a very white book. I am assuming that, like mainland Britain and France, Guernsey's population included people of colour during the Second World War. However, they are completely absent from this novel. This is not forgiveable in the twenty-first century. This book was recommended to me more than once by a dear friend. As promised, I love everything about it, from the story of the authors themselves to the format (it’s told in letters) to the vibrant characters to the humor. It’s just fantastic and such a gift. Every bibliophile and every history buff should read this. I am so sad now. I just finished The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and I am crushed. Not because of the story or because of the ending. It is because all these wonderful people I have just met and fallen in love with are gone. How can they be gone? Friends don’t just go like that, they stay and visit with you. They listen to your stories like you have listened to theirs. If I start the book again right now will it they be back or will it just be a great story now? I love how the whole book was told by someone reading their correspondence. The letters were wonderful, not short and terse like emails can so often be but beautiful letters or sometimes just notes. Now it would have all been done via a phone and would be lost forever. The beauty of the moment lost with a call waiting beep and the “can you hold on, I have another call”. This was the beautiful storytelling of a beautiful story. It captured a time and a place and the people so much I want to go there now and meet them and see where they live. I am sure Guernsey has change immeasurably since the time this story takes place and the people would have changed too. I still want to go and meet them. I want to talk to them and go to the literary society meeting if they would have me. I will miss them. I guess you can tell if a book was excellent if you want to go back and not be in the “real” world. I will wait a bit, visit with some other literary friends and then go back and visit with them again. Even if it is only in a book.
"The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society," written by the late Mary Ann Shaffer and her niece, children's author Annie Barrows, stays within modest bounds, but is successful in ways many novels are not. This book won't change your life, but it will probably enchant you. And sometimes that's precisely what makes fiction worthwhile. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society commemorates beautiful spirits who pass through our midst and hunker undercover through brutal times. Shaffer's Guernsey characters step from the past radiant with eccentricity and kindly humour, a comic version of the state of grace. They are innocents who have seen and suffered, without allowing evil to penetrate the rind of decency that guards their humanity. You could be skeptical about the novel's improbabilities and its sanitized portrait of book clubs (doesn't anyone read trashy thrillers?), but you'd be missing the point. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is a sweet, sentimental paean to books and those who love them. Has the adaptationIs abridged inHas as a student's study guideAwardsDistinctionsNotable Lists
As London is emerging from the shadow of World War II, writer Juliet Ashton discovers her next subject in a book club on Guernsey--a club born as a spur-of-the-moment alibi after its members are discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island. No library descriptions found.
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LibraryThing Early Reviewers AlumMary Ann Shaffer's book The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society was available from LibraryThing Early Reviewers. Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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