Since I started riding the UTA to and fro, I set the goal to read a book a week. That’s doable — especially if I quit dozing on the way home . . .
This week I finished my eighty-second book, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Barrow. Love that title!
This book is about the suffering of the people who lived on the island of Guernsey (in the English Channel) during five years of German occupation in World War II. I’ve read lots of grim, gripping, grisly books about the effects that war had on people. Those aren’t the words I would use to describe this book. Sweet, charming, enchanting come to my mind instead. Hardly words normally connected to war.
The novel is a series of letters written among a 30-something spinster novelist, the people of the island, and the novelist’s friend and her friend’s brother (who also happens to be the novelist’s publisher). Because the letters are written from different perspectives, you get a good understanding of what the people are really like. By the end of the book, you feel as if these folks are your friends. You want to invite them over for milk and cookies — and to introduce them to the Beatles Rockband.
Even though the treatment of the book is light and delicate, you still learn of the pain and the suffering the people experienced. I highly recommend this book to everyone — even those whose bodies are filled to overflowing with testosterone.