The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Random House Reader's Circle Deluxe Reading Group Edition): A Novel

Annie Barrows · Mary Ann Shaffer

Dec 2011 · Dial Press

About this ebook

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NOW A NETFLIX FILM

This deluxe eBook edition of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society features more than eighty additional pages of exclusive, author-approved annotations throughout the text to enrich your reading experience. You can access the eBook annotations with a simple click or tap on your eReader via the convenient links. Access them as you read the novel or as supplemental material after finishing the entire story. There is also Random House Reader’s Circle bonus content, sure to inspire discussion at book clubs everywhere.
 
A runaway New York Times bestseller that was named one of the ten best books of the year by Time and USA Today, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society has captivated readers around the world. Told with warmth and humor in a series of letters, this is a tale of finding connection in the most unexpected places.
 
January 1946: As London emerges from the Second World War, writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she’s never met, a native of Guernsey, the British island once occupied by the Nazis? As Juliet begins a remarkable correspondence, she is drawn into the world of this man and his friends, all members of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, a book club formed to protect its members from arrest by the Germans. Through their letters, she learns about their island, their taste in books, and the powerful, transformative impact the Occupation has had on their lives. Captivated by their stories, she sets sail for Guernsey. What she finds there will change her forever.

Ratings and reviews

I read the book in hard copy and thoroughly enjoyed it and recommended it to friends. I am so glad to have access to it again in e-book. The story of Guernsey residents and their dealings with the German occupation is as lighthearted and fun as the title. I look forward to rereading and enjoying it once more.

The Guernsey Literacy and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Anne Shaffer and Annie Barrows is a novel that is told through the exchange of multiple letters during German occupation. The main character is Juliet Ashton, whose recently lost her apartment to the Blitzkrieg air raids, suddenly broken off her engagement to the only man she ever thought she could love and is struggling to come up with a story for her next book. Soon after receiving letters from Dawsey Adams Juliet becomes enchanted by the stories of Guernsey and the many members of the Guernsey Literacy and Potato Peel Pie Society- a society that came up on the spot when a group of friends was caught by Germans after curfew. The Guernsey Literacy and Potato Peel Pie Society began growing and got together to discuss books, using them to get through the hideous German occupation on Guernsey. Juliet’s awe for the society grows and she soon finds herself in Guernsey in a midst of its relationships, culture, and on a journey of discovery for herself; Juliet is swept on a journey that will change her life. Written by Mary Anne Shaffer and Annie Barrows, the novel embraces a tale of hope and encouragement through horrors and terrifying moments of war in the home front. It emphasizes that a good book can inspire those in heartache and help push through the hard times. The novel has a very real side with historical evidence that truly circles around the reality and brutality of war. This book is deeply based off Guernsey a British war occupant in the midst of WWII. Guernsey is an English island shortly off France that became subjugated to German occupation. A concentration camp was built, all the children where kicked off the island for safety, curfews were implanted, rations of food where set up, rations of soap and clothes were established and the island in itself was a very real part of WWII. Mary Anne Shaffer and Annie Barrows do an excellent job describing how the Guernsey Literacy Society influences hope and love through books and stories that push through the hardships of war. Often during struggling times Dawsey found himself reading, reading to inspire him and help him through the cold times. The literacy society “read books, talked books, argued over books, and became dearer and dearer to one another… [they] could almost forget now and then the darkness outside” shows how the bond between the group formed and helped inspire the members through the war (Shaffer and Barrows, 51). Juliet realizes many great authors and books, books that are dear to her, have inspired the people of Guernsey to keep on living. The books on Guernsey have inspired arguments some of which over poetry and how “Passive suffering is [or is not] a theme for poetry” because it is too close to the current situation or War- in the end all Literacy arguments brought the members closer and brought shreds of hope to the dark times (Shaffer and Barrows, 73). The hope, love and care inspired the inhabitants on Guernsey and while many things like food, clothes soap and candles where taken, the Germans could not take away one thing, for them members “clung to [their] books and [their] friends” keeping the hope and love between them alive (Shaffer and Barrows, 64). Shaffer and Barrows use an assortment of styles to emphasize their argument- that books inspire hope in hard times, and love can be found no matter what. The Guernsey Literacy and Potato Peel Pie Society is divided up and written in two parts. The first part is a tale of letters of hope and war brutality between Juliet and the members- Dawsey, Amelia, Isola, John, Eben and many more. The second part through an exchange of letters tells the tale of Juliet’s time in Guernsey and the love she finds hidden there. The author gives humor to each letter and character to its writer. The Guernsey Literacy and Potato Peel Pie Society’s authors truly write from the heart and use an assortment of language such as metaphors, poetry, analogies

Brilliant historical fiction on the occupation of Guernsey during WWII & its' aftermath. The authors delicately balanced truth and wit.

About the author

Mary Ann Shaffer, who passed away in February 2008, worked as an editor, a librarian, and in bookshops. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society was her first novel.
 
Her niece Annie Barrows is the author of the children’s series Ivy and Bean, as well as The Magic Half. She lives in northern California.