Status
Available
Collection
Publication
Center Point Publication (2008), Edition: Lrg, 467 pages
Description
As London is emerging from the shadow of World War II, writer Juliet Ashton discovers her next subject in a book club on Guernsey--a club born as a spur-of-the-moment alibi after its members are discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island.
Media reviews
"The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society," written by the late Mary Ann Shaffer and her niece, children's author Annie Barrows, stays within modest bounds, but is successful in ways many novels are not. This book won't change your life, but it will probably enchant you. And sometimes
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that's precisely what makes fiction worthwhile. Show Less
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society commemorates beautiful spirits who pass through our midst and hunker undercover through brutal times. Shaffer's Guernsey characters step from the past radiant with eccentricity and kindly humour, a comic version of the state of grace. They are
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innocents who have seen and suffered, without allowing evil to penetrate the rind of decency that guards their humanity. Show Less
You could be skeptical about the novel's improbabilities and its sanitized portrait of book clubs (doesn't anyone read trashy thrillers?), but you'd be missing the point. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is a sweet, sentimental paean to books and those who love them.
Awards
RUSA CODES Reading List (Shortlist — Historical Fiction — 2009)
Indies Choice Book Award (Winner — 2009)
Independent Booksellers' Book Prize (Shortlist — 2009)
San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year (Fiction — 2008)
Christian Science Monitor Best Book (Fiction — 2008)
Original publication date
2008-07-29