What'cha Readin'?

While I have been watching all the election news and non-news, I have also been reading a perfectly delightful book. Thus, proving that I, too, can multi-task. The book is called "The Guernsey Literary And Potato Peel Pie Society", by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows.

I'm always a sucker for good fiction set just before, during and just after World War II. And, this one fills the bill. It starts out in London in 1946. Writer Juliet Ashton is trying to decide what to write next, when she receives a letter from Dawsey Adams, a man who lives on the Island of Guernsey. He found her name in the flyleaf of a secondhand volume by Charles Lamb. He is very interested in Lamb, and wrote to ask Juliet if she could recommend further books and if she can recommend a good book store in London, where he could buy them.

The book is a series of letters from Juliet to Dawsey, Juliet to her agent and his sister, and back to Juliet, and eventually, she is corresponding with many inhabitants of Guernsey. She learns that the island was occupied by the Germans for five years, during the war, and becomes interested in the various stories told by the Guernsey-ites? Guernsey-ans? The letters are very interesting, and give the book the flavor of, say, "84 Charing Cross Road", which is another of my favorites.

Juliet finally goes to Guernsey, to do further research, and learns all about the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

I am not going to ruin it for you by telling you any more of the plot. I'll just say that I loved this book, and hope you'll read it and love it, too.