The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

- Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Burrows -

This book is just a joyful reading experience.

Set in the days after the end of World War II, as England struggled to define a new normal, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society is constructed almost entirely of letters to and from Juliet Ashton, a writer living in London.

Juliet is a writer searching for a new subject now that the war is over. After her interest is piqued by a letter from Dawsey, a farmer from Guernsey who has happened upon a second hand book with Juliet's name in it, Juliet begins to correspond with the members of the Guernsey Literary Society and decides on their stories of life in the German occupied Channel Islands during the war, and how the literary society that started as an excuse for being out after curfew became a sanity saving source of debate, laughter and human interaction during the isolation of the war years as the topic for her new book.

In relatively brief letters, the authors create such vivid and complete portraits of who these people are that it almost seems impossible that they be fictional. They must be real letters. They are not of course, but the lives and experiences of the characters in this book feel so real and full and well lived, that I felt like I knew them all in person.

Beautifully, beautifully written. Probably the best book I have read this year.