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Quirky-titled book is best you'll read all summer |
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By Bob Zyskowski
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Thursday, 29 July 2010 |
“The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society” by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. Dial Press, New York, NY. 274 Pages. $14 paperback.
A delightful read for any time of year, this New York Times No. 1 bestseller is a perfect summer treat, now that it’s out in paperback.
Using a string of personal letters to tell the story doesn’t even seem
like a gimmick once Shaffer and Barrows pull you into this gem.
In the novel, Juliet Ashton is a journalist and author who finds herself
intrigued by a request in the mail from a resident of Guernsey, one of
the Channel Islands between France and England.
The setting is just a year after the end of World War II, during which
Guernsey’s inhabitants had endured four years of occupation by the
forces of the Third Reich. Woven through the novel, is their
descriptions of what life was like as British citizens under German
military rule.
Memorable characters
Telling the story — all through “the post,” as Brits call the mail — are
the members of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peal Pie Society book
club, as cleverly drawn a group of characters as have ever won over your
heart.
Not to give away the story, but there’s a bit of romance involved, a bit
of drama, some must-turn-the-page excitement, but in a genteel,
well-mannered, earlier-generations sort of way.
In the Dial Press small paperback version I picked up, this wonderful story is told in just 274 pages.
A yardstick I’ve come to use as my standard for good reading is if I
don’t want a book to end. Suffice it to say that 274 pages were hardly
enough. What a great work of literature.
Bob Zyskowski is associate publisher of The Catholic Spirit.
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