The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Genre: fiction
Pages: audio
Challenges: audio, new author
New-to-me Author: yes
Author's Website



Simple Description:
I'm having a hard time even wanting to give a description because I know this book made it's way into many blog reviews.  I feel like most of you have either already read the book, plan to read the book, or know what it's about but don't have an interest in reading it.

So for those of you who maybe haven't heard of this book yet here's some info ( because I'm sure there are some of you, I can't possibly be the last one to read it can I?).

Guernsey is a British Island that was occupied by the Germans during WWII.   This book is a story of those islanders as told via letters and telegrams.  It's after the war, 1946,  and they talk about things going on now and things that happened during the occupation.   There is one outsider, Juliet, she befriends the Islanders and they are telling her their stories and she's working on a book about the island and what they islanders went through and how they coped.

Sounds interesting but not enough to make you  run out and buy it though right?  This is a really hard book to describe!

Now what you really want to know....my thoughts:
Following the above comment, you must go out and buy it!  I am!  I actually borrowed this as an audio book from the library but I know it needs a spot in my library and I know I'll buy myself a copy.   You get so wrapped up in island life and what they islanders went through and learning about the different individuals through Juliet's eyes.  You don't want it to stop.   This is an excellent book, I can't recommend it enough.  Since I can see into the future (snicker) I can tell you that this will make it as one of my top reads for the year.

Now, you might say that you don't usually read books dealing with WWII so of course this isn't for you.  But it could be!  See, WWII is definitely an important part of the book but it's not the whole book.  The book is about the people.  You want to meet Darcy.  You want to play with Kit.  You want to go to one of the literary meetings and talk about your book, you want to meet all these people and have tea.

Of course, you also want to visit Guernsey.   I think it's funny that last weekend I was in my car headed home after a run, and the current letter being read was about the island.  It's something like 7 miles long and 5 miles wide (that's what I think was said and I'm too lazy to actually look it up) and the only thing I could think of was "Wouldn't it be cool to run across the island?"  Now yes, I know there wouldn't be a road or path that went straight across the island, but I still think it would be cool to go running on the island, take a long run and start at one beach and run across to the other.  Sounds like fun right?  yeah yeah..I'm nuts, I know.

However, I still can't help be want to visit Guernsey and go to the museum of the underground hospital, visit the castle, stay at a manor house.  I did actually look to see how expensive a stay would be.  I found the Hotel Fleur du Jordin which is restored farmhouse and rates start at 46 pounds per person per night. I can handle that.  Let's be honest, who wants to go to an island like this and stay in a modern chain hotel? Where would the fun be in that?

I also found this article at at Boston.com with an article about Guernsey and a video that somebody took visiting it, talking to some of the islanders, etc.  I didn't read the article, but loved the video.

Don't worry, I found pictures for you too.  Who wouldn't want to visit after looking at these pictures?
I just need to figure out how to convince the husband he wants to travel for 10 hours on a plane so we can visit this island and take a Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society tour!  Better yet..why bring the husband when he wouldn't enjoy the tour like we would, what say you and I make plans to meet there? We can spend our afternoons reading on the beach and our evenings blogging about it.  Where do I sign up?


This audio book was rented from my local library.