The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

The title sounds like whimsical girly stuff, and the cover certainly looks like it, but really this novel creates a whole genre of it’s own. Unfolded through letters awash with memorable characters and delicious humour, this is truly a book that warms the cockles of your heart.

I’d not read about Guernsey’s occupation by the Nazis before, so it made for a unique and fascinating backdrop to the novel (the book is set in the post-WWII period). I think the mass appeal of this novel has been it’s ability to deftly and subtly cover so many areas - the human impact of war, history, island living, publishing, English literature, love, friendship… it’s all there, yet inter-weaved so cleverly that it all just fits together show more perfectly.

An easy read, it’s an absolute page-turner - one of those books where you gasp when you get to the last page, despairing that it's finished.

The author Mary Ann Shaffer had tried all her life to write a book but never came up with anything she felt was good enough to be published. She realised that she'd created something special with this novel, but took seriously ill just after the rights to the book were sold and her niece had to finish large sections of rewriting on her behalf. Although she knew that the book would be published in 13 countries, she died before finding out what everyday readers made of it. It's not often an Afterword brings a tear to your eye, but I felt so sad that she'd been cheated out of the rightful glory of basking in her success.

This isn't Literary Fiction, but it's a great read. By the end I promise you’ll be checking out travel brochures to Guernsey and wishing you were part of the ‘Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society’. Definitely the book equivalent of a big, warm hug. show less

Juliet Ashton is an up-and-coming young author in London in 1946, and the scars of the recent war are still evident in both the ruins of cities and landscapes as well as people's physical and psychological injuries. One day she receives a letter from a pig farmer on Guernsey who's acquired a book that once belonged to her, and has decided to write to find out how to order more books by and about the author; he is a member of the titular literary society. Over weeks, other members of the society get in touch with Juliet to tell her about their experiences of island life, especially during the German occupation, and life-long friendships are forged.

I first heard about the book before the film was released in the spring, liked the look of show more the trailer, and had decided to borrow the book from the library at some point. Imagine my surprise when I spotted a copy in our local village hall, which has a free exchange library; maybe it is true that 'there is some secret sort of homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers', as Juliet writes.

I was expecting a light read and while it is that, it is also so much more. The characters are brought so vividly to life that I occasionally had to remind myself they weren't real people for whom I felt and wept. It is delightfully witty and quirky in places, and thoughtful in others, and the characters and depiction of the hardships faced during the inter-war years describe both the best and the worst humankind is capable of. I had to deduct half a star because some of the plot developments and characterisations feel a bit contrived and clichéd, but the pages flew by and I was sad when I reached the end. Recommended. show less

This book was extremely popular when it was first published, and as with all popular items, the library I work at was deluged with requests. It’s an odd thing, working at a library, sometimes you get so tired of fielding requests for one particular item when there are so many other deserving books that don’t get checked out because Oprah hasn’t mentioned them or they haven’t been highly marketed. So I often have a certain cynicism towards best sellers and other popular items. This book, despite its unwieldy name, is one of those rare, lovely, well-deserving novels that has also managed to capture the popular eye.

In post-WWII, Juliet Ashton, an author who has become well-known for her popular newspaper column and book “Izzy show more Bickerstaff Goes to War,” has decided that she does not want to write about rabbits for her next book, and instead finds herself searching for another topic to draw her attention. Through letters between herself, her editor, best friend, and a stray note from a stranger living on Guernsey, the readers begin to see Juliet as a humorous, caring young woman who adores the written word and those who ply it well. In a letter to the new owner of a used book she once owned, Juliet writes, “I wonder how the book got to Guernsey? Perhaps there is some secret sort of homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers. How delightful if that were true. Because there is nothing I would rather do than rummage through bookshops.” A woman after a librarian’s heart! Through the letters, we come to know Juliet and those she corresponds with, especially the residents of Guernsey who form the titular society.

Since the novel is told through letters, it takes a little time to understand exactly who the characters are and how they relate to one another; each writer has a voice of their own. The pace is brisk and engaging, and so though this is a general market fiction book, I would also recommend it to young adult readers with an interest in historical fiction or epistolary novels. For some reason, I also think that fans of L. M. Montgomery would particularly enjoy this novel — Juliet has a particularly “Emily of New Moon”-ish voice. show less

I can’t tell you how long I resisted reading this “book with the funny title.” Wrong yet again! All that time I missed out on this heartwarming valentine to books and reading, and wonderful paean to hope and love.

The fictional literary society of the title was formed of necessity to outwit the Germans during their World War II occupation of Guernsey in the Channel Islands, strategically located between Britain and France. A group of friends got caught socializing after curfew and one of their more enterprising number came up with the Society as an excuse. The Germans appeared interested, and so the friends kept it up just in case the enemy should drop in for “meetings,” which indeed they did.

Subsequently, the lives of all show more members were transformed by the books they read. Their correspondence with one author in particular, Juliet Ashton (whose letters, notes, and telegrams form the core of the book), changes them all yet again, after Juliet can't resist coming to Guernsey to meet the people who have been writing to her and learning more about them.

Some of the books discussed and the characters who read them include:

Dawsey Adams - Selected Essays of Elia; Biography of Charles Lamb
Isola Pribby – Wuthering Heights; Pride and Prejudice
Amelia Maugery – The Pickwick Papers
Eben Ramsey – Selections from Shakespeare
Clovis Fossey – Poems by Catullus
John Booker – The Letters of Seneca
Will Thisbee – Thomas Carlyle’s Past and Present
Jonas Skeeter – The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
Augustus Sarre – The Canterbury Tales
Kit Hellman – Elspeth the Lisping Bunny

Evaluation: Don’t let the quirky title of this lovely book, told in epistolary form, dissuade you from picking it up. You will enter an charming and inspirational world of bravery, hope, survival, literature, and above all, love. show less

I was prepared not to like this book. Call it a proclivity for disliking things that everyone else seems to like (see: Twilight, Catcher in the Rye, Gossip Girl, anything James Joyce, reality TV). I don't mean to be contrary, I really don't. Plus the format being entirely through written letters (the word for this, I have recently found is epistolary) just was off-putting to me at first. However, little by little, or, letter by letter, I found a lovely kinship with these people, their hardships and joys and loves and relationships. I felt like I was a part of a war I had never lived through and I easily shared their attachment to books and literature in general. I think the moment I was completely snared (as Isola to Bronte) when I read show more Eben Ramsey's first letter to Juliet. The simple way he describes the invasion of the German troops and the solace brought through Shakespeare moved me. And I was hooked to a group of people in a way I haven't been since Anne Shirley and her antics through Prince Edward Island. That's right, I just compared these two women to L.M. Montgomery. The letters had that same lovely, lilting prose (yay alliteration!) The book had that same way of making you feel you KNOW these people, that you LIVED in this time period or at least wanted to. It makes me want to write long letters to people and make funny acquaintances that turn into lovely friendships. A+++ show less

About forty-five minutes in to this eight hour novel, I was on the verge of giving up. I liked the writing and the pace but I couldn't engage with the apparently privileged middle-class characters sharing light-weight banter about publishing and book tours, immediately after the end of World War Two. They and the book seemed to lack substance and I was getting ready to move on. I promised myself that I'd stop after ninety minutes if things didn't get better.

They did get better. Dramatically better. So much so that I feel I would have missed something quite special if I hadn't persisted.

Looking back, I realise that the light-weight banter I was unsatisfied by was a forced cheerfulness shared by old friends trying to come to terms with show more the end of hard times and discovering that, once something bad has happened to you, it becomes part of you. You carry it with you like a scar or a shrapnel in your flesh. It is has changed you, is part of you but, with the help of light-weight banter and the love of good friends, need not define who you are going to become.

I started to engage with the book as soon as the letters from Guernsey started to arrive. These were people I wanted to know and who had stories that I wanted to hear.

As they were meant to, each letter pulled me further and further into the world of the Islanders and fed my hunger to know what the German occupation had been like for them: what they had done, what they had lost, whether and how they could build a future for themselves from the ruins of the war.

The audiobook format is a perfect match for the epistolary novel form, with different narrators bringing each correspondent alive. Every narrator did a splendid job in creating a sense of identity and growing intimacy as the novel unfolded.

Normally, I don't do well with novel about the behaviour of the Germans in World War II. Too many books seem to glory in the details of the atrocities or push for the easy-to-claim-in-retrospect moral high ground. What I found compelling about this book was the very personal nature of the disclosures, grounded in individual experiences where one has to decide whether to do what is right or what is safe, where one becomes or is made, more or less human by each decision and where the highest form of bravery is not giving way to despair in the face of inhuman behaviour.

There are many passages in this book that moved me to tears; many stories that I know will stay with me, even though I would rather not have them in my head. So much for the book being too light-weight.

Yet this book in neither a dirge nor a lament. It is a book about the joy of life and love as much as it is about sorrow and loss. There is a love story, delicate, slight but wondrous all the same, at the centre of this book. There are also friendships and kindnesses that lift the spirit.

By the end of the book, I began to wish that I too could visit this version of Guernsey and become an honorary member of its literary society.

I've seen some reviews that criticise the novel for not being focused enough on books, implying that the title and the literary society are marketing gimmicks disguising an entirely different type of novel.

I understand this view but I don't share it. The book does not focus on books. It focuses on readers, on why they read and why they need to talk to others about what they have read.

I came to understand how a single line from Shakespeare can "who says most when he says the least" can help a man crystallise his reaction to calamity and face it with greater calm, how the letters of a man dead for centuries can guide a lost and damaged reader back into society and how a tale written for a grieving child can bring hope and happiness years later.

In my view, "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" holds up reading and discussing with others what one has read, as an activity that can sustain humanity in the face of brutality, not by providing an escape route but by refreshing the roots of our humanity: a shared human condition, a shared and constantly evolving imagination and the ability to surface truth and emotion and give them their due.

I recommend this wonderful book to anyone who loves life and books and the readers who connect the two. show less

This book charmed its way into my heart. It is the quintessential quiet English story, lovely setting, stoic emotions, small bits of a country life.

The horrors of World War II took me away from the Guernsey countryside, but the author blessed her novel by bringing us quickly back to the doings of the country folk in better times. The novel contains snarky humor, which I always appreciate. For instance, on Moses and the Ten Commandments, "Word of God or crowd control?".

The characters were cheeky and quirky. Except for Dawsey, Mr. Strong-Silent Type.

Fair warning to animal lovers that there are several instances of animal cruelty. I didn't find the depictions gratuitous to the narrative; examples were provided to flesh out the cruelties of show more war or cruelties of the world. Also, the concentration camp Ravensbruck is detailed, and the pages of Nazi savagery are not pleasant material. The overall mood of the book is comforting, which allowed me to continue on and finish the novel.

I'm so glad that I ready this book. I'm not sure why I've resisted reading it before, but it was a serendipitous occasion to snag it from the library. show less