Book review – The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

This is one of those books that I’ve seen on many other people’s reading list and read many favorable…even gushing…reviews.

Add mine to the list.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society isn’t destined to be listed among the classics, but it is a wonderful book.  It’s setting is the English Channel island of Guernsey just after World War II.  Juliet Ashton, an author living in London receives a letter from Mr. Dawsey Adams, a pig farmer who lives on Guernsey and who now owns a book that once belonged to her.  He writes to ask if she knows of a bookshop in London that might have another book by the same author and happens to mention that he is a member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.  Thus begins a series of letters between Dawsey and Juliet, Juliet and her publisher, Sidney Stark, Juliet and Sidney’s sister, Sophie, Juliet and the various members of the Society and so on and so on.

The book is written not as a straight-forward story but as the letters sent from one character to another…a different approach, but through it we come to know each character in a more interesting way.  There is something so personal about reading a letter, something of a person’s character, their personality, their soul that isn’t always obvious otherwise.  Telephones, emails and text messages may have forever ruined our ability to compose intelligent, witty, heart-felt correspondence to one another, and it is exactly those qualities that I found so appealing about this book.

I also enjoy coming away from a book having felt like I learned something in the process.  I have to admit I didn’t even know that there were islands in the English Channel, and I certainly didn’t know that those islands were the only bit of English soil occupied by the Germans during the war.  Having names like Guernsey and Jersey, I assumed that there was some sort of bovine history there also, and there is…both breeds first being recorded in about 1700 on their respective islands. 

I’m going to lift my friend Carrie‘s idea here because I am so visual and post a few images from the island.

Wow…beautiful.  Anyone up for a vacation? We could make it a group thing.

I want to live here.

Notice what looks like a German fortification in the upper left-hand corner.  The islands are still littered with them.

If I ever come up missing, don’t look for me here.  I don’t want to be found.

If you’re up for an easy sweet story that has a little bit of romance and a little bit of humor, please do yourself a favor and read this wonderful little book.  If you don’t believe me, you can check out what others had to say about it at 5 Minutes for Books here.

And don’t forgot that tomorrow is our very first Love to Cook Thursday!  Get the info for that here.

Encourage one another,