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 enlarge | Authors: Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows
Publisher: The Dial Press
Category: Book
List Price: $22.00
Buy New: $12.69
You Save: $9.31 (42%)
New (37) Used (12) Collectible (2) from $10.75
Avg. Customer Rating:  302 reviews
Sales Rank: 36
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.8 x 1
ISBN: 0385340990
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780385340991
Publication Date: July 29, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Better than its title! July 27, 2008
10 out of 12 found this review helpful
When I first started this book and saw the title, I was concerned that it would be a little too cute for my taste. I admit, there are a few too precious moments in the book - but I enjoyed it immensely. In fact, I started this book in the late afternoon and didn't put it down until I was done.
Summary, no spoilers:
This book is an epistolary novel, which made for quick reading. The letters are mainly written to and from a British woman named Juliet, who has written a successful and popular book at the close of WWII. While on a book tour, she receives a letter from a man named Dawsey Adams, from the isle of Guernsey, just off the English coast. He has an inquiry for her about an old book she once owned (her name is in it) - The Selected Essays of Elia, by Charles Lamb.
Dawsey and a few others had formed a book club in Guernsey, during the Nazi occupation of the island. (And that's something I hadn't realized - that Guernsey had been taken over by the Germans.) The book club was called, you guessed it, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.
Throughout the course of this novel, we find out the history of this book club, and we find out what happened under the German occupation. We meet the entirely quirky cast of characters that live on the island, and see how their lives and Juliet's are changed forever by their correspondence.
As I said earlier, sometimes this book did get a bit syrupy, and some of the characters were a bit too adorable for my taste - but there were also some very poignant moments in this book, and I found myself tearing up a couple of times.
I also want to mention that the book is very, very funny in spots, and try as I might, I could not stop myself from letting out a loud "Ha!" So be advised to be careful when reading near a sleeping person...
Highly entertaining. Recommended.
A TALE FILLED WITH COURAGE AND HUMOR August 3, 2008
9 out of 11 found this review helpful
Audio books are getting better and better. For this listener that is largely due to increasing narrations by ensemble casts, giving a breadth and richness to readings that cannot be achieved by even the most accomplished single voices. Such is certainly true of this warm, humorous story that is related in a series of letters.
It is the winter of 1946 in London when our story opens. Author Juliet Ashton is pondering, no searching for ideas for her next book. She's surprised to receive a letter from the island of Guernsey, which was once under German occupation. The epistle is from a man she does not know, Dawsey Adams, who now has a book by Charles Lamb that once belonged to Juliet. Dawsey wants to know where he might find more books by Lamb.
Juliet's curiosity is aroused by this man who shares her affinity for Lamb, and in future correspondence he tells her that he is a member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, a group formed for mutual protection during the German occupation.
Eventually, Juliet receives letters from other members of the Society, a disparate yet fascinating group, each with a story to tell. In due time she decides she must meet her new friends.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is a wonderful tale, peopled with unforgettable characters and filled with courage, love, humor, all of which reminds us of the invincibility of the human spirit.
- Gail Cooke
Gets better and better August 1, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Initially I had difficulty engaging in this, an epistolary novel that takes place in the years following WW II. I had difficulty giving it a context. It begins at a place that feels like the middle of things (as if I missed something), but then eventually gathers the far-flung bits of fabric that make up a life and the texture of many lives.
The story is like a tapestry; it starts with a solitary bit of material and then stitches together a saga of interweaving lives on the Channel Island of Geurnsey that took place during the 2nd World War. I fell in love with the eccentric, rowdy, and often ribald cast of characters and my heart bled and broke more than a few times over the beautiful comedy that emerged from the tragedy of war.
As I kept reading, the story strengthened and became deeper and thoroughly enfolded me in its tale of hope in a hopeless situation and endurance in an almost unendurable time of German occupation and starvation. This is a story of courage and love in a time of moral ambiguity and ruthlessness.
These rural characters are unsung heroes. I feel like I met each and every one of them personally and that they touched me in all the vital places where love resides. Additionally, it is a history lesson of a place that time and distance will now not forget.
I totally adore this book!! July 23, 2008
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
I so completely love this book. First of all, let me say I am partial to books written as letters, journals and diaries. Not real ones though, which I guess is odd, maybe because people who publish their own journals, are doing so because their life is so sad!! I mean really, life can be so sad sometimes, I have my own problems and history, I'm not sure I "enjoy" reading about other people's terrible sadness. I do read some biographies, and non fiction books, but fiction is still my love. (Diary of Anne Frank an exception, this was probably the first diary I read as a child, was a favorite, always will be.)
Anyway, I received this book through the Amazon vine program and was so glad, it has been on my wish list since it first came on my radar. I also like stories from World War II that tell things from the people's point of view, how it was in England as they lived through their ordeal, and how it was in America,away from the fighting, but a part of things as well. Now with that all said, I loved this book. I loved the characters, the description of the situations, just the whole thing.
So pick this book up when it becomes available, I don't think you will be disappointed.
By the way, if you also like books that are journals or letters, two that I read that have always stuck in my mind are White Lies, by Jonellen Heckler and 1000 White Women: The Journals of May Dodd by Jim Fergus. I hope it was not rude to mention these in this review for this wonderful book by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. I just am putting this on my favorite shelf next to these others, and I just wanted Ms. Shaffer and Ms. Barrows to know, I consider them in good company.
By the way, I do not know much about the area and the occupation that the authors chose to base their story on, so I am headed off to the internet to do some exploring. Thanks!
OH and I didn't want to forget in the list of great letter books...The Border of Truth,by Victoria Redel...anyway, read The Guernsey Literary...lots of smiles, a couple of laughs out loud and even some tears.
laugh out loud funny, with endearing characters and a story that draws you in July 24, 2008
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
What a special book. It's whimsical title sets just the right tone for a humorous, emotionally rich, rewarding read.
The story is set in 1946. It is told through a series of absolutely wonderful letters to and from Juliet Ashton, a writer who unexpectedly comes to know an endearing and unique group of people on the island of Guernsey (which was occupied by the Germans). The unique and endearing characters rapidly begin to feel like friends you are very glad to know.
The letters that tell this story advance the underlying plot, but also allow the characters talk about their experiences with the things that matter in life and the things that make us human. They share funny and poignant anecdotes which are also stories of good and evil, of friendship, and endurance. In a gentle and sometimes very funny way, these letters tell of both great suffering and the resilience of the human spirit.
This is a great book for people who love to read, since the accidentally formed literary society exposes people who were previously non-readers to the joys of a good book. And this is one of those good books-- the kind of pleasure you are hate to reach the end of.
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